- The IAI Southeast Chapter has built a strong retailer-driven collaboration that reflects how loss prevention leaders, law enforcement, and cross-functional partners can work together to strengthen training, investigations, and information sharing across the Southeast region. I nominate the Chapter for the LP Industry Collaboration Award because of its consistent work bringing together retailers, investigators, law enforcement partners, and supporting business functions to advance practical, real-world loss prevention efforts. Why they should be considered: • Retailer Law Enforcement Partnership: The Chapter creates opportunities for retail LP professionals and law enforcement partners to connect, share trends, discuss investigative challenges, and strengthen working relationships that support more effective response to retail crime. • Multi-Company Information Sharing: Through regional events, board engagement, and peer-to-peer networking, the Chapter brings together professionals from multiple retail organizations to share best practices, current challenges, and investigative approaches that benefit the broader LP community. • Training & Investigative Impact: The Chapter has delivered educational programming focused on investigations, interviewing, organized retail crime, workplace violence, and other timely issues impacting retail loss prevention. These sessions help professionals improve consistency, strengthen documentation, and enhance investigative outcomes. • ORC & Cross-Functional Coordination: The Chapter has expanded collaboration beyond traditional LP audiences by including HR, compliance, safety, legal, and operations partners, recognizing that complex retail incidents often require coordinated response across multiple functions. • Measurable Value: The Chapter’s work has increased engagement across the Southeast region, expanded access to practical training, strengthened retailer-to-retailer and retailer-to-law-enforcement relationships, and created a forum for sharing strategies that improve how organizations prevent, investigate, and respond to retail crime. The IAI Southeast Chapter demonstrates the type of collaborative, retailer-driven effort this award was created to recognize. Its work strengthens the LP community by connecting retailers, law enforcement, and corporate partners around shared strategy, practical training, and improved investigative response. One recent example of this impact was the Southeast Chapter’s 2026 regional event in Boca Raton, which brought together retail LP, HR, investigations, and cross-functional partners for training and discussion focused on real issues impacting the industry. The event also offered continuing education credit, creating added professional-development value while strengthening relationships across companies and disciplines.

 - This nomination recognizes the retailer-led collaboration of loss prevention leaders, investigators, and law enforcement partners across the Southeast region who work together through the IAI Southeast Chapter to strengthen investigations, information sharing, and coordinated response to retail crime. Over the past year, this collaboration has brought together LP professionals from multiple retail organizations with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to address organized retail crime, internal investigations, workplace violence, interview techniques, and investigative best practices through regional training events, educational sessions, and peer-to-peer information sharing. The work is driven by active retail LP leaders who identify current challenges impacting the industry, coordinate relevant training, secure speakers, and create opportunities for retailers and law enforcement to connect across jurisdictions. Law enforcement partners also participate directly by sharing case experience, legal considerations, and investigative strategies that improve coordination and outcomes. The IAI Southeast Chapter serves as the platform for this work, but the collaboration itself is led by retailers and investigators committed to improving the broader LP community. The group has also expanded cross-functional participation by including HR, compliance, safety, and legal partners, recognizing that effective retail investigations often require more than one department or agency working together. This effort reflects the purpose of the LP Industry Collaboration Award because it demonstrates a practical, retailer-driven, multi-agency partnership focused on strengthening investigations, improving communication, and advancing industry-wide response to retail crime.

 - The IAI Southeast Chapter is a strong nominee for the LP Hall Industry Collaboration Award because it exemplifies the best of what retailer-led and law-enforcement collaboration can accomplish when professionals come together with a shared purpose. The chapter has created a practical and effective forum where retailers, law enforcement partners, and investigative professionals can exchange information, identify emerging threats, and coordinate responses to organized retail crime and other complex investigations. Rather than operating in silos, the Southeast Chapter has helped build a collaborative network where trust, communication, and action drive meaningful results. Its strength lies in the diversity of its participation. The chapter brings together professionals from loss prevention, asset protection, law enforcement, human resources, legal, compliance, safety, and other investigative areas. This cross-functional involvement allows members to view challenges from multiple perspectives and develop more complete, responsible, and effective solutions. By creating space for these disciplines to work together, the chapter has elevated the quality of investigative coordination across the region. The Southeast Chapter has also demonstrated a strong commitment to training and professional development. Through education, shared case insights, and peer-to-peer learning, the chapter helps members strengthen investigative skills, improve communication, and apply best practices in real-world situations. This focus directly supports better case outcomes, stronger partnerships, and a more prepared LP community. The chapter’s multi-company partnership model has produced measurable value by improving information sharing, increasing awareness of ORC activity, strengthening retailer-law enforcement relationships, and supporting more coordinated investigations. Its impact extends beyond individual companies or agencies. It benefits the broader LP industry by showing how collaboration can improve prevention, response, and accountability. For these reasons, the IAI Southeast Chapter deserves recognition for its outstanding contribution to the industry. The chapter has not only encouraged collaboration but also operationalized it. It has turned relationships into results, training into action, and shared information into safer, stronger communities. That is exactly the spirit of the LP Hall Industry Collaboration Award.

  -   Spearheaded by the Cook County Regional Organized Crime Task Force (CCROC) and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in the Chicago market, a nationwide crackdown on organized retail crime, or “National ORC Blitz,” was implemented on May 30th, 2025 and continued through the first week of June to promote collaboration between private retailers, law enforcement, and prosecutors working to improve public safety and disrupt organized crime networks.  All of the major retail associations supported and participated as well with massive coordination efforts   Organized Retail Crime Associations (ORCAs) across the country with communications also supported through the LP Magazine ‘ORCAs in Action’ initiative.
 
While coordinated local “blitz” operations are a common occurrence in markets across the country when combatting organized retail crime, this National ORC Blitz is considered the first of its kind. The operation was met with overwhelming support and enthusiasm, and the team at CCROC did an outstanding job of putting the event together. As part of the ORC Blitz, more than 100 law enforcement agencies and approximately 60 retailers across 28 states took part in the national blitz operations.
 
Highlights from the campaign included more than 500 felony and misdemeanor arrests related to retail crime, the recovery of more than $130,000 in stolen goods during the blitz operation, and numerous stolen vehicles, narcotics, and weapons that were also seized during the arrests.
 
Perhaps most importantly, campaigns such as the National ORC Blitz highlight the power of partnerships, cooperation, teamwork, and planning in the fight against organized retail crime. By taking a proactive approach, it highlights the gravity and extent of the problem. It shows the community that we are willing and able to address the issue. It offers opportunities to gather additional intelligence and build cases. It sends a clear message to ORC crews that we are watching and there are consequences. And it allows us to continue to build upon the relationships that lead to meaningful results.

  -   As a retailer that participated in the National ORC Blitz, I wanted to nominate this initiative because it showed what can happen when retailers, law enforcement, prosecutors, and ORC associations truly work together toward the same goal.
Organized retail crime has become a major challenge for retailers across the country. These are not isolated theft incidents anymore. Many of the groups involved are organized, mobile, and operating across multiple cities and states. Trying to address that level of activity individually can be difficult, even for large retailers. The National ORC Blitz helped change that.
Led by the Cook County Organized Retail Crime Task Force along with law enforcement and retail partners from across the country, this effort brought together agencies and retailers in a coordinated national operation focused on ORC offenders and criminal groups. For those of us participating, one of the biggest benefits was the level of communication and information sharing that took place before, during, and after the Blitz.
Investigators were able to connect cases, compare trends, identify repeat offenders, and work with partners outside of their normal markets. Law enforcement agencies shared intelligence across jurisdictions, and retailers had the opportunity to support larger investigations that may not have moved forward otherwise. The operation also helped strengthen relationships between local investigators, prosecutors, and retail partners that continue today.
What stood out most was that this effort was not just about arrests or merchandise recovery. It created real collaboration and showed that ORC cannot be solved by one retailer or one agency alone. It takes coordination, trust, and consistent communication between the public and private sectors.
The National ORC Blitz gave the industry a strong example of what effective collaboration can look like on a national level. It brought together organizations that face the same problems every day and turned those partnerships into action. That is why this initiative deserves recognition for Industry Collaboration.