You saw the crowds that poured into the Kansas City area this summer to watch international soccer and experience the excitement surrounding one of the world’s largest sporting events.
What you didn’t see was the critical role a Martin City business played behind the scenes, helping security experts do their best work on a scale never seen before in the heartland.
Secure Passage transformed its Kansas City headquarters in the Martin City neighborhood into a Joint Operations Center for World Cup operations. The center brought together public safety, transportation, security, and communications personnel from local, regional, state, and federal organizations.
Secure Passage on Holmes Road — site of the Joint Operations Center that ran 24 hours a day for weeks.
Over a hundred security personnel from multiple agencies cycled through Secure Passage’s Martin City headquarters round the clock. Photo courtesy: State of Missouri/Governor’s Office
Working from one location allowed representatives from different agencies to share information, follow developments, and coordinate decisions in real time as events unfolded across the Kansas City area.
Secure Passage Chairman and CEO Gary Fish said the company’s role was especially meaningful because the work was taking place in a neighborhood he loves within a city that’s had his loyalty as an entrepreneur for years.
“Kansas City knows how to show up for big events,” Fish said. “Our job was to help create an environment where the people responsible for safety and security had the technology, information, and operational support they needed to execute. Our headquarters in the Martin City neighborhood was the right place for the purpose.”
Secure Passage Chairman and CEO Gary Fish is a long-time Martin City entrepreneur.
Secure Passage provided technology that helped participating organizations see the same information and understand what was happening throughout the operation. Another system helped identify and manage a constant stream of authorized public safety, government, and event personnel as they arrived, worked, and departed the company’s headquarters.
The result was the right people getting the information they needed as Secure Passage maintained a safe and highly controlled working environment in Martin City.
Officials monitored cameras across the metro area. Photo courtesy: State of Missouri/Governor’s Office.
(From left) Andrew Giuliani, Executive Director for the White House Task Force on the World Cup, Gary Fish, Secure Passage Chairman and CEO, and Mike Kehoe, Missouri Governor at the Joint Operations Center.
Secure Passage President Kirk Cerny was quick to point out that technology itself isn’t the whole story.
“Technology matters, but it’s the people,” Cerny emphasized. “All the teams working together as one make missions like this successful.”
Secure Passage employees worked long hours to prepare the headquarters and support the organizations using it. Their performance showcased both the company and the larger Kansas City community on an international stage in a whole new way.
Secure Passage President Kirk Cerny — proud of both his team and the people they served.
For Martin City, it was an exciting moment reaching far beyond our neighborhood, led by one of our most loyal businesses with more than a decade of history on Holmes Road. Little did we know at the time what was going on at that sleek technology campus on our neighborhood’s east side. But now, the world knows.
We couldn’t be more proud of the Secure Passage team for such a major accomplishment. Hometown high-tech heroes continuing to soar to great heights, while the rest of us in Martin City stand back and salute an extraordinary success.
