Submitted by Ken Rayca, CPP; Director, Loss Prevention, Liz Claiborne, Inc.

This past Thanksgiving weekend I had the great opportunity to get together with some old High School Classmates/Teammates that I hadn't seen for over 25 years for a College Football game in which one of our own was the Head Coach. It was great fun and sure great catching up! However, when the inevitable question came up 'So Ken, what do you do now?' I found it difficult to articulate it to these very intelligent, well educated folks in such a way that their response was not 'so you're the guy that makes sure nobody steals.' Now I KNOW I do immeasurably more than that, however if I could not articulate it effectively to these folks, some of them business owners themselves, why do I just ASSUME that my Retail partners simply KNOW I'm more than 'just the guy that makes sure nobody steals'? We all know how much value we truly add to our respective organizations. The true challenge is to find the right methods to articulate this in every way so we're not just 'the guys who make sure nobody steals.' I resolved to ensure I provided the highest level of Customer Service to my partners in data distribution ranging from Incidents to LP Audit execution to ORC trends and much more. While some of this was already part of my playbook, I truly 'raised my game.' I sought to add value to the company in any way possible with our LP Organization, including spearheading a Six Sigma project in the field. None of these things took our 'eyes off the prize' of our primary mission and they never will. LP can never be all things to all people. However, that day of tailgating and College Football opened my eyes to an assumption I will never make again; that my partners necessarily know we're more than just the 'guys who make sure people don't steal.' Because I will make sure I can articulate it in every way possible.