Milton Ahlerich and NFL Security: Goal-Line Stand

Anything can happen at a football game. But Milton Ahlerich, the NFL's VP of security, has sworn to make it safe for players and fans alike.

At that point, the league wasn't even sure that the players could travel, given the halt in air traffic. But Ahlerich made sure that, if the decision to play was made, the security challenges of playing that weekend were logistically manageable. (Ultimately, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue decided that the games should be postponed for one week.)

The task of mapping out a strategy for securing football venues in a post-9/11 environment fell to a security task force appointed by Tagliabue and chaired by Ahlerich. It was made up of stadium representatives, team executives and outside security experts. Their job: to examine the various vulnerabilities against which game sites should be hardened. They attacked the issues from a new baseline positionsecurity could no longer be treated as an extra feature. It would have to become a fundamental building block of all NFL operations going forward.

The resulting best practices were not the fluffy, feel-good security goals and standards that are so often set at companies and then quickly discarded as impractical. Ahlerich and his task force gave their plan bite. They encouraged and cajoled teams to implement the standards and tenaciously monitored their performance. "Ahlerich is a consummate diplomat and a doer," says Richard Farley, the NFL security representative assigned to the New England Patriots. "He's walking a fine line when dealing with all 32 ownersit's like dealing with 32 CEOs and trying to please them all. But Ahlerich gets it done."

Ahlerich got the buy-in for the guidelines from Tagliabue, who in turn endorsed and forwarded them to every owner, adding the recommendation that they be implemented. Since first issuing the best practices, the league has conducted a series of audits to check on each stadium's progress. The league hired a third-party auditing firm to go on site for two days at each venue and determine the level of compliance that the stadium had achieved. Once they received that progress report, Ahlerich and his staff met with team and facility executives and sometimes city officials to address the remaining vulnerabilities. Once the final concerns were patched up, he then ordered the auditing company to conduct a second review.

Owners still have the final say, so 100 percent compliance is unlikely. Having the continued support of Tagliabue, though, has been invaluable in winning over the owners. And Ahlerich improves his chances by not playing the heavy. "We've said, 'Hey, we're on your side,' and because of that, we've encountered very minimal resistance. At least none to our faces," says Ahlerich, smiling. "Maybe a little behind our backs."Surveying the FieldLike many security executives with far-flung operations, Ahlerich encounters some regional resistance to security from Midwesterners who perceive terrorism to be a bicoastal issue. But in most cases, Ahlerich notes, owners have gone to extraordinary lengths to comply with the best practices. They've pushed to have streets closed around their stadiums before and during gamesalways a public relations challengeand sometimes, they've actually strung buses around the stadiums to create a makeshift security buffer zone.