Managing Director
Gerald L. DeSalvo
Gerald DeSalvo, Managing Director, is an international management and training expert specializing in the development of cost-effective solutions to security and law enforcement problems, especially in high-threat areas in Latin America.
He has more than 28 years of operational, managerial, and senior executive experience with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). While with DSS he served as the Director of the DSS Training Center (where he retired as a member of the Sr. Foreign Service (SES equivalent), as the Special-Agent-in-Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office, and as the Security Manager at the U.S. Embassies in Mexico, Taiwan, and El Salvador (in San Salvador serving 2 yrs. during the civil war, and 4 yrs. shortly after the civil war when it had the highest violent crime rate in the Americas).
After retiring from the State Department, Mr. DeSalvo held the positions of Director, Albuquerque Antiterrorism Training Center, for the DSS Office of Antiterrorism Assistance (where he oversaw the training of hundreds of foreign police officials); and as the Senior Police Advisor/Program Manager with the International Narcotics & Law Enforcement Section (INL/NAS), at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru.
Prior to joining the State Department, Mr. DeSalvo spent six years as a municipal police officer in South Florida and three years in Special Intelligence with the U.S. Army in Southern Europe and Southeast Asia. His 15 years of international experience includes 10 years living and working in Latin America, and five years in Asia, and Europe.
Mr. DeSalvo has extensive international consulting experience. He has re-engineered the training program for a major U.S. guard service company, worked on security service proposal development teams (including one large international conflict zone proposal) for a major multi-national corporation, developed an international training course for the DOE Emergency Training Academy, developed antiterrorism training courses for foreign police, worked on several international training projects for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and developed and oversaw U.S. training and assistance initiatives for the national police forces in Peru, El Salvador, and Mexico. He has also developed and managed both proprietary and contract guard services, and both contract and proprietary executive protection programs, in several high-threat locations in Latin America.
Mr. DeSalvo has extensive international managerial experience in the following areas: security management; criminal investigations; executive protection; threat analysis; security risk management; facility protection; anti-terrorism operations and planning; guard force management (including a 600-person armed guard force); training development & instruction; international police liaison; emergency planning; crisis management; crime prevention planning; the development of comprehensive policies, plans and procedures; contract management; special event security planning; Central Station management; and security and law enforcement training academy administration. In addition, he has published numerous articles online and had six articles published in Security Management, the monthly magazine of the American Society for Industrial Security.
Mr. DeSalvo is an expert, with extensive experience, in Crime Prevention and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). He has completed the Crime Prevention Theory & Practice Course (4-wk residential program) at the former National Crime Prevention Institute, University of Louisville, and the Florida Atlantic University, CPTED Certification Course (2018). He is certified as a CPTED Practitioner in the State of Florida.
He has a bachelor’s in Sociology, from the University of South Florida; a master’s in criminal justice administration, from Nova Southeastern University; and a master’s in liberal studies (with a research emphasis in Training & Development) from the University of Oklahoma. He also completed extensive graduate studies in business administration and human performance improvement. He is fluent in Spanish.
Senior Expert/Consultant, International Policing
Stephen L. Kuhn
Stephen Kuhn is the Senior Expert/Consultant for WGSG. In this position, Mr. Kuhn is responsible for providing guidance and expertise in international policing.
He has more than 38 years of senior operational and managerial experience in U.S. policing and international police advisory positions, including Latin America and the Caribbean, and brings exceptional expertise in police administration; management of criminal investigations; police organizational design; gang, narcotics, and organized crime enforcement; police intelligence operations; and international police training and assistance.
During his exceptional and broad career in domestic and international policing, Mr. Kuhn has served as a Senior Police Advisor to the National Police of the Government of Trinidad & Tobago; as Senior Consultant/Police Advisor for George Mason University also to the National Police of the Government of Trinidad & Tobago; as an Assistant Program Manager/Sr. Police Advisor to the National Police of Albania for the U.S. International Criminal Investigative Training and Assistance Program (ICITAP); and as an Assistant Program Manager/Sr. Police Advisor to the National Civil Police of El Salvador for ICITAP.
Prior to his career in international policing, Mr. Kuhn served as the Police Chief in Lincolnwood, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago), as Police Chief in West Chicago, Illinois, and as Police Chief in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In these positions, he was responsible for the leadership, direction, and oversight of complex, full-service police departments. In addition to the command positions above, Mr. Kuhn also served, under special appointment, as an Inspector of Police for the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police.
Mr. Kuhn began his law enforcement career with the Chicago Police Department where he retired after approximately 28 years of service. During his career with the Chicago Police Department, he served in numerous functional units including uniformed patrol, criminal investigations, the intelligence, and organized crime division, and the narcotics division. He also served in a variety of supervisory and command positions in various criminal investigation and intelligence units. He received numerous police commendations during his career with the department.
Mr. Kuhn has a master’s degree in Latin American History, from Northeastern Illinois University, and a bachelor’s degree in education, from Northeastern Illinois University. He is a graduate of the Police Administration and Management Command Program, at Northwestern University; the Executive Management Program for Chiefs of Police, at Northwestern University; and the Leadership of Police Organizations Program of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He is fluent in Spanish.