LSA announces inaugural ‘Legends’ class

MEDFORD, N.J.— The Life Safety Alliance (LSA), an organization committed to improving global life safety and security through best practices, networking, and collaborations, have announced the inaugural class of the Life Safety Alliance Legends Program.

The Legends Program was created to define, preserve, and uphold the profession’s most enduring contributions. It acknowledges individuals whose contributions have significantly benefited their organizations or fields. These leaders helped shape the modern practice of security, safety, and risk across sectors and generations.

“From the outset, we wanted this program to reflect the full breadth of our profession,” said Michael Gips, CPP, CSyP, Life Safety Alliance president and co-chair of the Legends committee. “We evaluated dozens of nominees across physical and cybersecurity, life safety, intelligence, loss prevention, resilience, governance, investigations, and so on. Our goal is to recognize those whose influence transcended any single role or sector.”

The selection of nominees in the inaugural class was assessed using a structured process based on professional judgment, historical importance, and long-lasting, influential contributions to the field.

“We set out to establish the measure of a Legend, which is an order of magnitude above the top, the best, or even the most popular,” said Jonathan Perillo, Co-Chair of the Legends Committee. “Legends are the few who turn the tide of theory or practice, whose stories are carried through generations, and whose efforts are frequently invoked to inspire greatness.”

The Life Safety Alliance is honored to announce the Inaugural Life Safety Alliance Legends, listed alphabetically by last name:

• Marene Allison
• Steve Bellovin
• Jason Brown
• Russell J. Cancilla
• Tim Crowe
• Sandi Davies
• Whitfield Diffie
• Eduard Emde
• Larry Fennelly
• Martin Gill
• Godfried Hendriks
• Sandra Jones
• Bonnie Michelman
• Ray O’Hara
• Don W. Walker

More information is available online at https://lifesafetyalliance.org/legends. The Life Safety Alliance is a not-for-profit organization open to all members of the security and life safety community.