October 9 - 12, 2026

Westin Crown Center, Kansas City

2026 Sessions

CPE Approval Pending

CEC Approval Pending

Saturday Keynote Session

sponsored by

Recognizing and Resisting Complicity

Century Ballroom C Saturday 8:30 - 9:30 AM

Presenters: Asha Rangappa
Senior Lecturer, Yale University Jackson School of Global Affairs

How do people get away with bad behavior without being held accountable? Typically, misconduct within organizations isn’t a secret; more often, it is enabled by a supporting cast of individuals who become complicit through action or inaction, shielding bad actors from accountability. In this thought-provoking talk, Asha explores how these complicit actors serve as the human “scaffolding” that allows corruption to take root and misconduct to flourish at the highest levels. Drawing on case studies across multiple sectors, including the Theranos scandal, the CIA torture program, Harvey Weinstein, the Minneapolis Police Department, Facebook, and even Vladimir Putin, Asha examines the incentives, fears, and motivations that sustain corrupt systems. Her presentation offers practical lessons on how organizations can build stronger norms, codes of conduct, and oversight mechanisms to prevent misconduct from taking hold and empower those positioned to stop it.

Sunday Keynote Session

sponsored by

Insider Threat in the Age of AI

Century Ballroom C Sunday 8:30 - 9:30 AM

Presenters: Shawnee Delaney
CEO, Vaillance Group

Keynote description coming soon.

Track Sessions

The Business of Security Consulting

sponsored by

Human Judgment, Machine Speed: AI in the Security Design Workflow

TBD

AI is reshaping the business of security consulting by enabling faster assessments, more consistent design outputs, and improved documentation quality across the project lifecycle. This session examines how consultants can leverage AI for tasks such as survey summarization, standards alignment, drawing review, specification development, and report generation while maintaining professional accountability and design integrity. We will explore how AI may redefine the industry’s standard of care, where human oversight remains essential, and how consulting firms can adapt their service models, staffing, and client expectations in an AI-accelerated future.

Beyond the Traditional Security Resume: Building a Converged Talent Pipeline

TBD

Modern security projects increasingly require expertise that crosses physical security, IT, cybersecurity, networking, and operational technology. This panel explores how consulting firms and integrators can broaden their recruiting strategies to attract technically skilled professionals from adjacent industries while developing the next generation of security leaders. Topics include identifying transferable skills, overcoming industry onboarding challenges, mentorship strategies, and building teams capable of supporting the future of converged security deployments.

Beyond Protection: Turning Security Projects into Business Value

TBD

Great consultants do more than design secure systems; they help clients justify investments by connecting security outcomes to wider business goals. This session examines how to uncover adjacent use cases, align stakeholders across departmental lines, and position security technologies to support operations, workplace analytics, compliance, HR workflows, safety initiatives, and executive reporting. The discussion will focus on how consultants can lead higher-value conversations that transform projects from isolated security upgrades into enterprise-wide business solutions.

The Blurred Line Between Consultant, Integrator, and MSP

TBD

Is the future of security consulting still project-based, or are firms moving toward recurring advisory, embedded expertise, and managed outcomes? This session explores how consultants are expanding into ongoing service models that include cybersecurity monitoring, system health reviews, standards alignment, analytics optimization, and fractional design leadership. As tools like Defender, MDR, and cloud-based service platforms become more common, the industry must rethink where consulting ends and managed services begin.

Security Design & Projects

sponsored by

Why Security Commissioning Is More Than Project Oversight

TBD

Many teams use the terms construction administration and commissioning interchangeably, but they serve very different purposes in security projects. This session breaks down the consultant’s responsibilities during contract administration, installation oversight, testing, and final turnover, then contrasts those activities with formal commissioning processes designed to verify operational performance, interoperability, and owner readiness. Participants will gain a clearer understanding of where each role begins and ends, and how effective commissioning protects both the client and the design team.

Safer by Design: Bringing CPTED into Physical Security Projects

TBD

This session examines how CPTED concepts can be translated into actionable design decisions across the full project team. Rather than relying solely on electronic countermeasures, consultants will learn how environmental design, architectural coordination, landscape strategy, and site circulation can reduce risk before technology is even applied. The conversation will focus on how these principles lead to stronger Division 28 designs and how consultants can effectively coordinate intent across specifications, site packages, and construction disciplines.

Designing for Resiliency: Cloud, Edge, and Hybrid Security Platforms

TBD

Cloud-native platforms, hybrid architectures, and integrated ecosystems are rapidly reshaping the physical security industry - but not without tradeoffs. This panel brings together manufacturers, platform providers, and integrators to discuss the advantages and limitations of open versus closed ecosystems, including interoperability, deployment simplicity, cybersecurity, vendor accountability, and long-term flexibility. The discussion will also examine where cloud, on-premise, and hybrid approaches each make the most sense based on resiliency, compliance, remote management, analytics, and operational requirements.

Beyond Cut Sheets: Manufacturer Tools That Improve Security Design

TBD

Manufacturers are increasingly providing design assistance platforms, engineering teams, and workflow tools that can significantly improve the speed, consistency, and accuracy of security system design. This session explores how consultants can effectively leverage manufacturer-supported resources such as device calculators, storage estimators, BIM objects, Revit families, and design validation services. Panelists will compare what tools are currently available across manufacturers, how these resources integrate into consultant workflows, and where they meaningfully improve design outcomes versus where independent validation is still required. The discussion will also focus on what tools consultants increasingly expect from manufacturers as a baseline.

Technology

sponsored by

The Third Dimension: Adding Air Space to the Security Perimeter

TBD

Traditional physical security designs focus on doors, walls, fences, and site boundaries, yet modern threats increasingly approach from above. This session explores how consultants and technology teams can extend the protected envelope into low-altitude air space surrounding critical assets, campuses, distribution hubs, and sensitive facilities. Attendees will examine how drone threats, rooftop vulnerabilities, line-of-sight blind spots, and elevated access points challenge legacy security assumptions. The discussion will focus on how to incorporate air space into threat models, site risk assessments, camera and radar placement strategies, rooftop access control, geofencing, and layered detection zones.

Detect, Track, Respond: Technology Strategies for Drone Threats

TBD

Drone threats are rapidly moving from edge case to operational reality for enterprise, critical infrastructure, and high-profile facilities. This session examines the technologies available to detect, classify, track, and respond to unmanned aerial system (UAS) activity within protected air space. Panelists will explore the role of radar, RF detection, acoustic sensing, video analytics, edge AI, geospatial mapping, and SOC/VMS integrations in building an effective drone awareness capability. The conversation will also address how drone alerts tie into existing incident response workflows, guard force procedures, evidence capture, and coordination with public safety or federal stakeholders.

Beyond Legacy Cards: The Rise of Open Credential Standards

TBD

The physical security industry is at an inflection point where proprietary credential ecosystems are giving way to open standards built on interoperability and public-key trust models. This session examines how PKOC, LEAF, LEAF Verified, and Aliro are redefining secure identity at the door across cards, smartphones, wearables, and wallet-based credentials. Panelists will discuss migration strategy, mobile-first design, cryptographic differences, reader infrastructure impacts, and how these technologies influence specification writing, enterprise lifecycle planning, and credential governance.

Beyond Retention Days: AI’s Impact on Video Security Storage

TBD

For years, video storage design has been based on camera count, frame rate, codec, and retention period. AI changes that equation. This session examines how deep learning introduces new storage demands through metadata persistence, vector search, rapid event reconstruction, cross-camera correlation, and long-term model training datasets. The conversation will help consultants, manufacturers, and enterprise users understand how to design video infrastructure that supports both traditional forensic requirements and next-generation AI workflows.

Special Topics

sponsored by

Open by Mission, Secure by Design: Higher Education Challenges

TBD

Higher education campuses present one of the most complex security design environments in the built world, balancing open access, academic freedom, student safety, research protection, and large-scale public events across distributed facilities. This session explores the unique design challenges consultants face in higher education environments, including decentralized governance, aging infrastructure, mixed technology standards, residence life, public gathering spaces, laboratories, athletics, and campus-wide emergency response integration. The discussion will focus on design strategies for access control, mass notification, video, blue light systems, lockdown workflows, cyber-physical integrations, and long-term campus standards that can evolve across multi-year capital plans.

Door Hardware Part III

TBD

Session description coming soon.

Securing Human Access in Always-On Infrastructure

TBD

The greatest security risks in high-availability facilities often emerge through legitimate human workflows rather than perimeter failure. This session focuses on the operational realities of securing access for employees, vendors, remote hands teams, emergency responders, and maintenance contractors in data centers and other always-on environments. The discussion will explore how consultants can design workflows around after-hours access, escorted entry, dual authorization, cabinet-level permissions, temporary work windows, break-glass procedures, and audit-ready chain of custody for sensitive spaces, while remaining usable for operations teams that cannot afford procedural friction.

Secure Deployment Starts in Design

TBD

Cybersecurity failures in physical security systems are often the result of small design omissions that become major attack paths after deployment. Through quick live demonstrations such as packet capture, unauthorized device insertion on unsecured switch ports, and flat network pivoting, this session shows how weak segmentation, poor port security, exposed management interfaces, and insecure protocols can quickly lead to compromised cameras, panels, and management systems. Each demo is tied back to practical design decisions, helping consultants understand how to embed cyber deployment hygiene into network architecture, Division 28 specifications, commissioning, and customer incident response playbooks.

Questions or comments? Contact us at admin@securityspecifiers.com.

About Us

CONSULT is a security industry event sponsored by SecuritySpecifiers. SecuritySpecifiers is an online community and network of security professionals established to address the need for the physical security industry to more effectively engage with designers and consultants.

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