Regis Becker: The Heavy Lifter

PPG Industries' Regis Becker may well lead the leanest security team in the Fortune 500. If he makes it look easy, that's only an illusion.

June 01, 2005 — CSO — Take a gander at Regis Becker's jam-packed, 25-plus-year career, and it's hard not to feel like a bit of a slug. Becker bangs not one, but two or three drums, and marches at the same timealways moving forward. His souped-up career includes getting his law degree at night while also working a full-time job (at the Allegheny County prosecutor's office); getting his business degree at night while working at another full-time job; heading up corporate security departments, with only a handful of full-time staffers, at multibillion-dollar companies; and volunteering with a number of professional organizations, including ASIS International and the American Chemistry Council.

Oh, and in his spare time, he likes to do Olympic-style weightlifting. (He pumps iron three times a week.)

Becker is global director of security and compliance at PPG Industries, a Fortune 500 company based in Pittsburgh that manufactures industrial coatings, glass and chemicals. With a staff of four in a company of more than 31,000 worldwide, managing the day-to-day security operations is no small order. But, since the mid-1980s when he first became involved with ASIS, he's always found time to give back to his profession.

That dedication, paired up with an engaging personality, has garnered Becker a lot of respect not only within PPG but in the security field at large. "He's able to relate to people very well," says Don Walker, chairman of Securitas Security Services USA and a mentor and friend to Becker. "I've never known him to be shaken or be overwhelmed by any issue. He's very level-headed. No matter the challenge, he's very calm and rationalizes what needs to be done," he adds.

Becker's office on the 39th floor of PPG's downtown headquarters building offers a front-row view of the landmark Three Rivers (where the Monongahela meets the Allegheny to form the Ohio River), as well as of the the city's new football and baseball stadiums. On the day he meets with this reporter, he is casually dressed: yellow oxford shirt, olive khakis, brown tassel loafers. He's thick-limbed, as if from Midwestern farm stock, with light brown hair and a ruddy complexion. He has broad shoulders and an acre of back, a testament to his weightlifting passion. (He also played semipro football at one time.) Becker is outgoing, but not in an over-the-top, slap-on-the-back kind of way. On a brisk late-winter day, Becker, 50, talked about the CSO role, how he's built the security department at PPG and the challenges he's faced during his nearly 20 years in the corporate world.