Security &
personal protection

Bart's own summary of this side of his career is a single page on bartsakwerda.com called Security and personal protection work. It opens with a slide headed “Selected Security Roles, Problems and Projects 2016–2024”, and says he has worked in London, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, travelling mostly in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.¹

The roles on that page are not one continuous job. They are a run of different settings: front desks, a late-night bar door, residential buildings during the pandemic, a fire in a serviced apartment, and humanitarian and emergency work in the Philippines that goes back to 2013.¹ That variety is the point of the page. It shows the same person in very different kinds of pressure.

Since December 2025 the current role has been Security Consultant at Hyatt in London, according to his public LinkedIn profile for security, fire and drone work. That profile's headline puts security next to the aerial practice: “FPV & stab drone operator. 3D pointclouds, gaussian splatts, maps and surveys.”² A third LinkedIn identity, bart-security, also focuses on security and fire.³

The security work has always run alongside the businesses described elsewhere on this site. Budots Media was founded in Cebu in 2014, during the rehabilitation period after Typhoon Haiyan.⁵ So emergency response and media production were linked from the start.

The current role sits in hospitality. Bart has been a Security Consultant at Hyatt since December 2025.² Earlier roles came from the same world. The security page describes him working “as a solo security / receptionist” at a serviced apartment building, where one person covers both the front desk and the safety of the building.¹ The role slides on the same page also include a static-guard profile.¹

Background: what hospitality security involves

In general terms, hotel and residential security is a guest-facing job. Officers are usually the first point of contact out of hours. They manage access to the building, patrol, respond to alarms, help guests in distress and document incidents. Most of the work is quiet and preventive. The skill is being visible enough to deter problems and discreet enough not to disturb the people the building exists to serve.

Where one person holds both the reception and the security post, as in the serviced-apartment role above, they are also the building's first responder when something goes wrong. Chapter 06 describes what that meant in one fire.

Background: static guarding

Static guarding generally means a fixed post at a site entrance, lobby or control point. It involves controlling access, logging visitors and vehicles, watching CCTV and reporting. It is the base layer of most security operations, and it trains the patience and attention to detail that busier roles rely on.

The security page lists “Work in Alibi bar in 2018”, with a photo from the door.¹ According to the venue's own website, The Alibi was a free-entry bar at 91 Kingsland High Street in Dalston, East London. It opened from 8pm until 2am Sunday to Wednesday and until 3am Thursday to Saturday. It closed for good on Saturday 1 September 2018 after eight years.⁴

So the 2018 work covered the last months of a busy late-night venue on one of East London's main night-time streets.

Background: door work

Door work in the night-time economy is mostly about judgement rather than force. Staff decide who comes in, manage queues and capacity, keep an eye on people who have had too much to drink, and calm tension before it becomes an incident. They also have to get people out quickly if something happens inside. The most important moments of a shift tend to be the ones where nothing happens because someone noticed early.

Late hours, a free-entry policy and a crowded high street all shape the job. Door staff are often the link between a venue, its neighbours, emergency services and the people on the pavement outside.

During the COVID-19 emergency Bart worked in London across a variety of venues. In his words, some were student accommodation “repurposed to house immigrants awaiting asylum decisions”.¹

“Highly complex and sensitive work occasionally.”Security and personal protection work, bartsakwerda.com¹

That is all the public record says, and this page leaves it there. The people who lived in those buildings were waiting on decisions about their lives. Respecting their privacy matters more than adding detail.

Background: security in repurposed buildings

In general, buildings converted at short notice raise particular questions. Layouts, fire routes and access systems were designed for one use and are suddenly serving another. Residents may have very different languages, needs and experiences. Pandemic rules added distancing, changing guidance and fewer staff on site. In settings like these, security staff are often the most constant presence in residents' days. Calm, respect and clear communication matter as much as any procedure.

The longest-running thread in this work is in the Philippines. The security page records “experience with humanitarian operation in 2013, after typhoon Haiyan”. It also says he has “been part of numerous emergency situations in the Philippines: sea accidents, fires, floods, landslides, typhoons”.¹ Three cases follow.

Fire comes up twice on the security page. The first is training. Bart received fire safety training while working with Image Furniture in Klaeng village, Rayong Province, Thailand.¹

The second is an actual incident. The page shows “fire extinguishing at a serviced apartment as a solo security / receptionist”.¹ With nobody else on shift, the person at the desk has to raise the alarm, decide whether it is safe to tackle the fire, and look after the residents.

Background: fire safety duties in England and Wales

For context, fire safety in non-domestic premises in England and Wales falls under the Fire Safety Order. It places duties on a “responsible person”: an employer, owner, landlord, occupier or anyone else with control of the premises. That person must carry out and regularly review a fire risk assessment, put in place and maintain suitable fire safety measures, plan for an emergency, and give staff information, fire safety instruction and training.⁹

Front-of-house and security staff are rarely the legal “responsible person”, but they are usually the people who put the plan into practice. They know the alarm panel, keep escape routes clear, guide residents out and meet the fire service at the door. Training of the kind described above matters most in buildings with one person on duty overnight.

Bart's security profile doesn't treat the two practices as separate. Its headline describes a “Security Consultant” who is also an “FPV & stab drone operator” working with “3D pointclouds, gaussian splatts, maps and surveys”.² The Odette response above shows the overlap in practice: drone surveys and damage documentation during an emergency.⁸

Background: what 3D site data can add

In general, 3D capture gives security and safety teams a shared picture of a site before anyone stands in it:

• Familiarisation and briefing. A navigable model or gaussian splat lets new staff or visiting teams see entrances, roofs, routes and blind spots before a shift or an event.
• Planning. Photogrammetry and point clouds can be measured, which helps when thinking through access, evacuation routes, crowd flow and assembly points.
• Documentation. After an incident, a capture records the scene as it was. That helps with assessment, insurance and lessons learned, and the record can be revisited long after the site has been cleared.

Drone flights are subject to aviation rules and to the permission of whoever controls the site. These methods support professional judgement on the ground; they don't replace it.

The model above is the clearest example in Bart's public 3D work. It is a reconstruction of a ship after a fire, published as a damage assessment.¹² A model like this lets someone who was never on board walk round the damage, measure it and share it with others. The Aerial Data Ops page has more of the survey and splat work.