Sharpening Communication Skills in the Security Field

Internship Reflection

Summer 2024

By Zoe Bussewitz

This summer I interned at Related Companies, a real estate development company located in Hudson Yards in New York City. I interned specifically with the Security Department, which encapsulated a broad range of functions: security on the Hudson Yards campus (including the Shops, the Edge, the Vessel, CNN and Warner Brothers, various other corporate offices including Meta and Wells Fargo, and parts of the Highline) and for events happening on the Hudson Yards campus (Pride Concert, Fourth of July Celebration and Macy’s Fireworks, New York Fashion Week, etc.), as well as security for Related’s residential buildings and active construction sites across the nation.

The two biggest moments of my internship were the Stonewall Day Benefit Pride Concert and the Fourth of July Macy’s Fireworks Display. For both events, I utilized social media and the news as well as open source intelligence gathering methods to observe the general public’s opinion on these events and find any potential security threats or risks that may arise from having celebrities on campus. We used police communication systems and social media livestreams to monitor protests, which frequently targeted events regarding Queer Pride and American history; and we also paid attention to the news to ensure there were no PR risks resulting from people at our events speaking to reporters. For the Pride Concert, I assisted in designing and implementing public safety measures for the general public in attendance. For the Fourth of July, I stayed indoors in the security headquarters and instead mainly monitored cameras and digital surveillance systems.

One day during my internship I got a call from my boss, who was working down in Washington DC while attending a summit held by the Department of Homeland Security. She was asked last minute to present to the DHS about key issues in security in the Commercial Facilities Sector, and while she had all her data points, she was still attending panels and talks so she didn’t have time to put together the presentation and asked me to assist. This was a really exciting experience, knowing my work would be shown to government officials of such a high standing in the security industry. My job was to take tables of numeric data points and visualize them in interesting and engaging ways, as well as condense the amount of information provided all at once to these officials. This was a really interesting project, even with the super short timeframe I had to get it done, because I got to experiment with visual communications and new data layouts and formatting that I hadn’t previously considered.

My final presentation was given on the last day of my internship to an audience of all the security directors of Related properties not just in New York City, but also across the nation. The Chief Security Officer and Chief Intelligence Officer were also present. My job was to give a general overview about how the security objectives of Related may have similar or different goals between Hudson Yards versus the affordable properties, and then I was to introduce Ontic (the new security software we had just updated) as a method of collecting and reporting data. I essentially had to give a “sales pitch” to these security officials to elaborate on why Ontic was not only important for us to use, but for them to use on their properties, which may have differing goals security wise. This was a great project because I got a lot of immediate feedback and collaboration with people all over the Zoom call about how they could utilize Ontic, as well as their security guards and other community members.

Throughout this internship I learned a lot about the roles that data visualization and reporting can play in the security field, as well as how mass media such as news networks and social media can be utilized to aid in investigations and risk and threat assessment. Overall, I had an extremely positive experience, and am so glad to have had this opportunity.