Home » Business Continuity » Supply Chain

Graham Kee: The Mediator

To get the job done at a major seaport, Graham Kee convinces dozens of competing stakeholders that collaborating on security helps everyone succeed

"In a small town, you rely on everybody in that community to keep the peace," Kee continues. "You're not a policeman; you're a facilitator. And that's how I see myself: a facilitator to implement security measures for the port community." It's a simple but powerful approach to the CSO role. And it makes a useful study for anyone who needs to convince a group of peopleincluding those who may have strained relationsof their mandatory cooperation in a security measure.

Big Changes

"Done much walking?" a coworker asks sympathetically when she learns that a reporter is shadowing Kee for the day. Trailing is more like it. Kee is a fast walker. He has a lot to do.

On this March day, Kee's schedule is packed: a group meeting about what is happening at the port, the demo of a new intranet dashboard to monitor port activities, plus a show-and-tell for this article that includes a PowerPoint presentation about compliance with maritime security regulations, a tour of the cruise ship terminal, a visit to the security command center and a boat tour of the central part of the port. Throughout the day, it's clear that Kee isn't broadcasting that he's the subject of a CSO profile. When people ask why a reporter is tagging along with him, Kee generically says that he's participating in an article about "Canadian transportation security."

Despite Kee's modesty, it's hard to understate the transformation that the port has undergone in the past several years. Big ports like Vancouver are, by definition, international trade centers, and as such, they are always in competition with one another on a global field. Controlling port access is a business essential as well as an expense.

The 9/11 attacks heightened the Vancouver port's sensitivity to security, but big changes were taking place even before then. When Kee took over in 1997, Canada had just disbanded its national port police. The move gave local police officers jurisdiction at the ports. And each port authority established a department to oversee port security matters.

Vancouver needed a CSO who would help draw together police officers in the eight municipalities that have jurisdiction over the port's 145 miles of waterfront. At that time, Kee was the port's first and only security leader. Now each terminal has one, and Kee has been named director of security. (Canadian shipping industry titles differ from American business ones; losing the CSO title was a promotion.)

Along the way, Kee has completed a transformation of his ownfrom a response-focused police officer in the eastern Canadian port of Saint John to a prevention-oriented, suit-wearing, strategy-focused security executive for his nation's largest port (see box, this page). The ID system is only a small piece of what he has done. Still, it seems like every story he tells twists and turns back to those little white cards.