O.C. ENTERPRISE / DEBORA VRANA : Helping to Defuse Potential Job Site Problems : Workplace Violence Research Institute counsels executives faced with firing an employee who may pose a danger to others.
For 13 years as a Secret Service agent, Jurg Mattman helped protect the President of the United States. Now, Mattman works to prevent acts of violence from occurring at Southern California’s increasingly hazardous workplaces.
In June, Mattman formed the Workplace Violence Research Institute in Newport Beach, which counsels worried executives faced with terminating a worker they fear could be a danger to other employees.
Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Mattman, 56, worked in overseas intelligence for years before becoming a Secret Service agent from 1967 to 1979. Tired of traveling and with children in school, he left government work to start the Mattman Co. in Anaheim, which specializes in intelligence and asset protection for major corporations worldwide.
The company has protected some of America’s top executives and their families. It provided security for the 1984 Olympic Torch Relay, Hands Across America and a 50-state tour of the Bill of Rights in 1991.
Mattman declined to identify other clients. “It’s a very, very sensitive thing. They don’t want their names revealed,” he said.
He has two partners in his new company, Steve Kaufer, president of Inter/Action Associates, a San Diego company that specializes in security surveys, and David Kent, who spent 22 years in the New Orleans Police Department.
The men hope to track and study incidents of workplace violence and help make companies safe from troubled workers out for revenge after they have been fired.
“We hope to bring about some effective security and avoidance measures to our business clients,” said Kent, who is a security consultant in Eureka Springs, Ark. “Our mission is to see some effective study and database developed on this subject.”
The institute was contacted recently by executives of a cable operator in Southern California. They wanted to terminate a worker who was demanding kickback payments from subcontractors. The company was concerned because the employee was known to be drinking heavily and taking drugs, said Mattman, whose investigation determined that the man had a large collection of guns.
Mattman said the man’s girlfriend had just left him and that he was dependent on her to keep up with house payments on a home he had purchased.
“Here were all the symptoms of a major blow-up,” Mattman said. “So, we structured the termination. We didn’t want to be crowding him, but we wanted to let him know there were security people present.”
While no violence occurred at the cable company, the man committed suicide two weeks later, Mattman said.
Violence in America’s workplaces is an increasing trend, with murder now the third leading cause of death at work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Typically, the violence comes from an employee, a former employee or a jilted suitor of an employee. Those who commit such acts are almost always men, usually ages 30 to 40 with a pattern of moving from job to job. Often they blame others for their problems and are troubled people prone to violence who read mercenary magazines, according to Security Magazine, a Chicago-based trade publication which focuses on security issues.
“What these gentlemen are trying to do is provide a realistic perspective from a business standpoint,” said Bill Zalud, editor of Security Magazine. “A few years ago I wouldn’t have thought a company like this would be successful, because businesses did not want to talk about workplace violence. That’s all changed now.”
Harry Butcher, a vice president of sales with Pinkerton Security & Investigation Services in Van Nuys, said that while his company is more concerned with making sure a business does not hire workers who could present a problem later, he thinks Mattman’s institute could be successful.
Mattman advises employers who think they have a potentially violent worker to make sure the termination is based on legal grounds. When firing such a worker, he advises it be done on a Friday afternoon and selecting a supervisor at least two levels above the person being fired to conduct the termination, so there is a certain detached feeling.
The fired worker should not be allowed to return to his or her desk; another person should gather their belongings. Preferably, the termination should take place in an office near an exit and near the parking lot.
Mattman said the three partners invested about $50,000 to begin the Workplace Violence Research Institute and have used referrals from nearly 100 clients of the Mattman Co.
The institute, which has seven employees, charges an average consultation fee of $150 per hour and expects about $1 million in revenue during its first year, Mattman said.
