Facility risk scoring and officer deployment planning.

From 2020 to 2022 I worked on facility risk assessment for the Federal Protective Service (FPS), part of DHS, as an operations research analyst at LMI. FPS was my first LMI client; NASA Headquarters followed in 2022. Facts and figures about FPS come from the public documents listed at the end.

What I did

I contributed to updating FPS's facility risk-assessment approach, internally designated OpRA. The work was aligned to the Interagency Security Committee (ISC) Risk Management Process and its Facility Security Level framework [2] [3], which FPS must follow under Executive Order 12977 [4]. It covered FPS's portfolio of approximately 9,000 federal facilities [1], owned or leased by the government and under the custody and control of the General Services Administration [4].

I built statistical scoring and prioritization models over facility risk and threat data, integrating threat-signal analytics with FPS operational security data.

I implemented threat-likelihood scoring and Excel/VBA/Solver optimization to support protective-officer deployment planning within FPS's fee-funded operating budget. FPS is funded entirely by the security fees it charges the agencies it protects [5].

What the public record shows

The ISC standard ranks each facility from Level I (lowest risk) to Level V (highest risk) on five factors: mission criticality, symbolism, facility population, facility size and threat to tenant agencies. It treats risk as a function of threat, consequence and vulnerability [2]. The standard requires FPS to assess each facility every 3 to 5 years depending on its level, and every 3 years at Levels III to V [4]. Its assessment tool, the Modified Infrastructure Survey Tool (MIST), was designed to assess vulnerability and incorporate threat information [4].

FPS's FY2021 enacted budget, paid from fees, was $1,588.7M [6]. The line for protective security officers was $1,177.1M of it, about 74% [6]. In June 2021 GAO reported around 15,000 contract guards at approximately 3,000 facilities [4]. Since FY2020 the basic security fee each building pays has been set from a minimum charge plus its service calls, incident responses and guard posts, instead of its square footage [5].

In June 2021 GAO also reported that tenant agencies reject about 70 percent of the security measures FPS recommends, according to FPS officials. GAO found that FPS's assessment reports did not document the assumptions and sources behind the cost estimate for each measure, and recommended that they do; DHS concurred [4]. In FY2023 FPS completed 100 percent of the assessments planned for high-risk facilities [7].

Try it: GSA's buildings on public data, and the arithmetic of a security level

GSA's public inventory lists 7,748 active buildings it owns or leases, in a file dated 9 October 2026; see them by region, state, size and year built, and see how the ISC's five factors add up to a Facility Security Level when you set four of them and each building's rentable square feet sets the fifth. [10] [2]

Timeline

1. 1971FPS is formed. [1]
2. August 2012GAO reports that MIST, delivered that March, was not designed to estimate consequence, and recommends that a permanent tool calculate risk from threat, vulnerability and consequence. [9]
3. 2019FPS moves into the DHS Management Directorate. [1]
4. FY2020The basic security fee moves from square footage to each building's service calls, incident responses and guard posts. [5]
5. 2020 to 2022I work on FPS facility risk scoring and protective-officer deployment planning at LMI.
6. June 2021GAO reports on the cost estimates in FPS's facility security assessment reports. [4]
7. December 2022GAO reports a 21 percent FPS staffing shortage at the end of FY2021 and recommends performance measures with targets for each strategic objective. [1]
8. FY2023FPS completes all of the high-risk facility assessments planned for the year. [7]
9. December 2024GAO records the performance-measure recommendation as implemented. [1]

Sources

1. GAO-23-105361, Federal Protective Service: More Collaboration on Hiring and Additional Performance Information Needed
2. The Risk Management Process: An Interagency Security Committee Standard, 2021 Edition
3. CISA, The Risk Management Process: An Interagency Security Committee Standard (summary)
4. GAO-21-464, Federal Protective Service: Better Documented Cost Estimates Could Help Stakeholders Make Security Decisions
5. GAO-21-311R, Federal Protective Service: Projected Outcomes of the New Fee Structure on Tenant Agencies' Costs
6. DHS FY2023 budget justification, Management Directorate (FY2021 enacted, Federal Protective Service)
7. DHS FY2025 budget justification, Management Directorate (FY2023 results, Federal Protective Service)
8. Federal Protective Service, Strategic Plan (Strategy 2020 to 2025)
9. GAO-12-739, Federal Protective Service: Actions Needed to Assess Risk and Better Manage Contract Guards at Federal Facilities
10. GSA, Inventory of Owned and Leased Properties (IOLP), on data.gov: buildings file dated 9 October 2026

Agency names are where the work was done. They are not endorsements.