Why Security Companies Are Seeing an Uptick in Protection Requests

Election Day is finally over, following an especially contentious campaign season. In Washington, D.C., tourists have been met with the uncomfortable presence of a 10-foot security fence, installed around the White House, harkening back to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol Building. Nationwide, physical security companies are seeing a spike in business from enterprise clients enlisting their help to protect their executives, employees, and facilities.

Canton, Georgia-based National Glazing Solutions installs window films for branding, energy conservation, and security. Its security offerings protect glass from shattering in the event of storms, acts of civil unrest, terrorism, active shooters, and other events. The firm (No. 3540 on the Inc. 5000) offers several categories of protection to guard against physical entry, ballistics, and more.

Beale says that NGS has seen an uptick in requests from Fortune 100 and 500 companies seeking glass reinforcement at the ground level of their corporate headquarters this year and last. He estimates about a 10-percent jump in overall corporate requests year-over-year in 2024. 

“Since Covid, civil unrest was a huge, huge driver in hardening buildings against forced entry,” Beale says, adding that there is much broader knowledge overall of window security concerns in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Beyond corporations, NGS also services houses of worship, schools, and retail businesses. Beale notes that NGS has fielded fewer election-specific requests from places like polling centers than it did during the 2020 election, which he says “could be a function of the fact that a lot of the polling centers have already done something.”

Meanwhile, Islandia, New York-based security services provider GXC (No. 188 on the Inc. 5000) provides protective security nationwide. GXC founder and CEO Genaro Cavazos says the company has provided metal detectors and security services at four times as many political events in 2024 as usual, and has seen a major uptick in the quantity of overall events—even those not political in nature—requesting those services. 

Year-to-date, the company has provided its metal detector services, which can include staffing and technical support, at 400 events, which include concerts, fairs, festivals, and political events, according to Cavazos. In 2023, by contrast, the company served 220 events throughout the entire year.

“As there’s been more political rhetoric on all sides—and obviously there was an attempt on former President Trump’s life—people really started to see the need for screening and setting back perimeters and calling in professionalized services like ours,” he says. “So there’s been an increase in demand above any year previously.”

Smithtown, New York-based Arrow Security provides security guard services, threat assessment, and coordination with law enforcement for businesses, banks, government facilities, and more. It serves eight states. Arrow Security also provides one-on-one executive protection on the national level. CEO A.J. Caro says the company had security personnel participating in both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

Although Arrow’s business would typically tumble on a holiday, the company has seen a 5- to 10-percent uptick in corporate security requests for election day, which Caro says is unusual. Even more unusual, he adds, is that there has been about a 20- to 25-percent surge in security requests for schools hosting voting in their districts.

“This election period, we’re seeing a disproportionate amount of security, I think, in anticipation of any kind of potential problems or allegations at the voting sites,” he says. “So it’s an increased number that we’re seeing in schools and where they’re performing the voting.” 

“There may be some person who is maladjusted and they might do something stupid, but it’s going to be the overwhelming minority of people that react in a way that’s going to create any legitimate problems,” says GXC’s Cavazos. “Don’t let that stop you from participating in the American system.”