Executive protection professionals can now receive quality training from sought-after experts without leaving home. EP architect and industry thought leader Christian West has just launched EP Access, the first online training platform for executive protection professionals.
The new learning platform currently offers a handful of courses, but there are many more on the way. At present, the EP Access catalog includes a masterclass on EP advances taught by West and three courses for security drivers created by Pablo Ortiz-Monasterio and Aaron Mauldin.
According to West, EP Access was conceived to help both individuals and companies get the training they need in the way they need it. “Our courses are made by professionals for professionals, and the skills we focus on are always real-world relevant. We want to teach things that matter to principals’ safety and productivity, EP companies, and EP careers. EP Access courses always include pass-fail assessments, so you don’t get your certificate unless you learn the stuff and can prove it. And because they’re online, agents can take them anytime and from anywhere.”
As someone who has run major EP programs for years, online convenience is important to West. “Finding time for training is always an issue for EP practitioners,” he explains.
“Training is critical for program success, but when EP agents do training, they aren’t providing coverage. Even large programs sometimes fail to build in the redundancy that allows some members of the team to train while others cover the principal. Smaller programs with just one or two agents find it even harder to make time for training. Online courses can’t do everything, but they can cover many, many training needs in a very flexible way.”
World-class instruction that includes more than the hard skills
During his many years in the industry, West has sent hundreds of agents to thousands of hours of training. He has also taught many courses himself. It is this experience that West and his team try to distill into EP Access’s approach to training.
“A course is only as good as the quality of instruction, so we only use instructors who know their stuff and also know how to teach it to others,” he says.
“But I also want EP Access courses to do something that means a lot to me and to the industry. We teach the hard skills, of course, because those are absolutely essential. But we also focus on the so-called soft skills that help good agents become great agents. Customer service is always important in our courses, as is facilitating our principals’ productivity. And since EP is also a business, we try to include insights on the commercial aspects of EP whenever this is relevant, too.”
More courses on the way
EP Access has an aggressive development plan, and West intends to add more courses continually. The platform just added a free course for anyone interested in learning how to become an EP agent, will drop a course on networking soon, and has many more in the pipeline.
“Response from individuals and companies so far has been very encouraging,” says West.
“We know that training will be increasingly important as the EP industry continues to professionalize and grow, and we think EP Access’s online convenience, quality instruction, and focus on both hard and soft skills make it well suited for many training needs.”
For more information, see https://www.epaccess.com
