Friday, January 28, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevada firm to protect Iraqis

Minden operation hired to safeguard voters who go to polls in United States

CARSON CITY -- A Minden-based company that employs ex-military commandos for $150,000 a year will provide security for Iraqis in the United States who are eligible to vote in their country's Jan. 28-30 election.

Security Management Group International announced in a news release that it has been hired by the International Organization for Migration to provide security for 200,000 Iraqis who will vote in the United States.

Earlier this week, the Knight-Ridder newspaper wire service reported that U.S. officials were not aware of any threats against Iraqis who will vote in the United States, but that the hiring of the security firm was a sign of concern.

Voters will participate in Iraq's first independent election in nearly 50 years. They will pick members of the country's 275-member Assembly.

Out of country Iraqis will be voting in Detroit, Chicago, Southern California, Nashville and New Carrollton, Md.

Special Management Group International is a subsidiary of Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group. The company is headquartered in an office building near the Douglas County airport, about 12 miles south of Carson City. Across the road is a farm where animal waste is converted into compost.

Officials there refused last week to talk with a Review-Journal reporter about their company's work or its reasons for locating in rural Minden last July. Douglas County does not require companies to secure business licenses.

John H. Gimple, the company's compliance officer, said the company prefers a low key approach. The name of another company is on SOG-SMG's front door.

SOC-SMG is a veteran-owned company whose international operations are managed out of its headquarters in Minden, according to the company Web site. Mid East operations are conducted in Baghdad and domestic security operations are managed out of Walnut Creek, Calif.

Gimple said it is "no secret" that its employees in Iraq are skilled former military members who earn $150,000 a year.

Newsweek reported last July that SOC-SMG has 300 employees in Iraq who tend to be ex-Army Rangers in their 40s and 50s who essentially are looking for a big paycheck protecting private contractors and VIPs.

But Paul Johnston, the company's chief of operations, said in a Seattle newspaper story last June that employees are not soldiers of fortune.

"We're not mercenaries," he said. "We're not an army going out to do combat with an enemy. We're kind of what the Secret Service does with the president. If we make combat with an enemy in some way, then we've not done our intelligence homework."

On its Web site, SOC-SMG said it wants employees who are retired service members with a minimum of four years of training in special operations, preferably in the Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Rangers or Marine Recon Forces.

According to the Mineral County Web site, SOG-SMG received a license in October to train employees at its High Desert Special Operations Center in Hawthorne

Its client list includes Nike, Boeing, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Iraq Coalition Provision Authority.

The company's chief executive officer Michael A. Janke also is a motivational speaker who makes speeches on the "Predator Mindset," or how to survive in a hostile world. He is a former Navy SEAL and sniper who conducted secret missions around the world, according to his agency, Keppler Speakers.