What specifically do you do, again?

Teach everyone to shoot....and let them have guns..

a few hours at a gun range with a good coach every week!

My advice, after reading that other thread today is to not become so paranoid that you end up harassing innocent people and violating their civil rights.  I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but there it is.  

Overzealous cops seem to be everywhere at the moment.

A local semiconductor company here used to have armed security at their plant for years.  Then a few years ago, they went to an unarmed security force given their new doctrine that even the their microchips weren't worth the burglar's life.  Plus, they could initiate a "lock-down" of the sensitive material if needed.  

The manager of security there I was familiar with helped with the transistion, even though he himself has more class III stuff at home than I've seen anywhere else.

They also had a number of other fun gizmos...for example their 2-way radio's also set off a silent alarm and locator beacon back to the main office if the radio was horizontal for more than 40 seconds or so (if the guard was incapacitated).

And then there's less-than lethal force. Some of these gizmo's are very pricey and require as much training as firearms.  I say keep it simple with pepper spray as this type of item definitely has it's place.

Going back to an armed force may be more PC in the post-Sept. 11th world, but does had substantial cost and a good training of doctrine.  But it's true..if some murderer walks in with lethal force, the security guard's pepper spray, radios and flashlights won't do much.

Doctine is key though. Figure out what the priorities are.  The microprocessors? The lives of the engineers?  The lives of the security force? The lives of the attackers?  Mark them top to bottom, then the plan becomes much easier.

Last, evacuation plans...either on a global scale or limited evacuations.  Just like a fire drill the evacuations have to be planned and practiced (which in itself costs a bunch of money...but even one practice would help greatly).  Evacuation plans though have to be fairly basic as it would only confuse the engineers there if there were 8 different evacuation plans based upon different types of threats.

Do you have an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) on site?   I just went through the Red Cross 1st aid/CPR class and they taught us how to use those.  I think these should be standard equipment for any security response team, just as a first aid kit is.

~smug    *We miss you, schmoey!

AEDs are excellent.

Something you need to focus on for training is threat recognition and avoidance.  Figure out what needs to be done, and implement procedures that are more proactive.  There are many schools and consultants that can help you with this.

A little weapons training would not hurt.
Remember the school shooting where the kid was reloading, and one of the students was smart enough to recognize that he had enough time to tackle the shooter.  Just stuff like that-how to tell a bb gun from a .44
"hey that thing could break the skin"

As a armed security officer/EMT for a fairly large business probably the most effective thing one can do is stay sharp on your shooting skills. Stay aware of your surroundings and try to immaginine different senarios (sp?) that possibly could happen and plan in your head what you can do to thwart them or reduce personal injury. Probably the biggest risk comes from disgruntled employees.  We have had violence in the workplace training. People should learn the warning signes of someone who is on edge. With all the layoffs and tension in the world a lot of people are at the end of thier rope.
As a security guard I know my place. We have firearms training with the local police trainers on clearing areas and such but this is better left to professionals who have much more training and equipment than we. If I have the opportunity to use deadly force to end a confrontation I will use it but I won't go and try to be Mr. Superhero and get myself shot or whatever.  I'm not paid enough to do that and if my company wanted to supply us with body armor and tactical rifles and equipment I might reconsider but as it stands I'm not going to try to hunt someone down with my pistol.
Just my 2 cents worth.

1. Who to contact ON-SITE should an emergency occur. The police are AT LEAST 15 mins away from you. By then, all that may be left is mopping up the blood.

2. Avoid clumping up in groups of people. Large groups of people have a  way of attracting homicidal maniacs. Go figger.

3. Utilize CCW holders. theya re already ahead of the game in training, and disposition to utilize firearms properly. Studies also show they are MOre law abiding than the GP.

4. Coordinate a "safety Committee" that will communicate directly to you. Having several people in teh building gather info, and then centralize it with you, as a SINGULAR contact with police and EMS will keep some of the chaos out of the situation.

5. Establsih evacuation routes that are well-known that will avoid log jams (See "clumping up," above.)

6. Familiarize people with the types of threats they may face. Being able to recognize a real gun from a fake one would be pretty good to know. A familiarity with firearms will help your people to know how to handle a gun wielding nut( see school example in a post above) Whatever other threats they may face, familiarize them with them. Knowledge is power, fear is death.

Get in touch with the ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) in your area - since you have a bunch of engineers, on of them probably is an Amateur (Ham), and should be able to find out this information.

What they can offer is training in communications, co-ordination with other emergency services, and traffic handling (messages) to the world outside of the affected area that you may be in, etc...

If you can't find information in your area, feel free to email me.  If I can't find the info, I know the guy that does - my area ARES co-ordinator.

As a correcional officer, I work in an environment where you cant patrol with a weapon and hostility can and does happen.  We use different levels of resistance depending on the circumstance or as the situation escalates.

First is good verbal communication skills.  If its somebody who is just pissed off bad you can usualy talk them down.  


If the situation cant be handled by a line officer, it would move to the radio.  We have a full set of codes for various situations along with our 10 codes.  We also have emergency alarms for an "oh shit" situation.


Next would be chemical agents.  This is used only if verbal skills dont work and physical harm is imminent or threatened.  This works really well on violent ppl and those brandishing kifes.  Try body guard (a brand of pepper spray).  Normal OC will put me on the floor for a long time, but another guy I know is immune.  Body gaurd will put anybody down.  This stuff hurts if it hits your earlobe.

After that you would get into weapons response teams.  Not all personell would have to carry (although I strongly feel they should have the right to if they choose).  If all officers will not be able to carry, designate a few to be on a "team" and have them practice weekly.  

Most likely you wont need anymore than that as you wont be doing hostage situations, etc.  We have other tools (gas grenades, wood baton rounds, etc.), but by that time it should be a police issue anyway.  A grenade or two might not be a bad idea for the teams though.  Dont know if that helps, but thats how we do it.