Thomas Dale & Associates is a full service investigative and security firm with headquarters in Manhattan Beach, California. The firm was founded ten years ago by Thomas D. Elfmont who is currently the CEO of the firm. TDA was founded with the mission of providing investigative and security services of an outstanding nature at a fair market price. As a result of that philosophy, TDA has never advertised, and instead has relied on satisfied clients to refer additional clients to the company. As the millennium approached, several TDA clients, involved in extensive overseas operations asked TDA to provide security advice pertinent to overseas travel and security issues. As a result, TDA Overseas Security and Consulting was established to deal with the ever increasing needs of our clients and to ensure that we continue to provide the highest level of service possible in all we do.
TDA was well prepared to establish its Overseas Security and Consulting division. Over the past twenty years, Thomas Elfmont, the founder of the company has traveled extensively throughout the world and developed a network of consultants and providers with a tremendous depth of education, experience and hands on knowledge of the security field in the area in which they work and live. TDA maintains that people are the key to a company’s ability to succeed and we feel strongly that is why we have been so successful throughout the United States and overseas in acquiring new clients and maintaining relationships with long term clients. Please take a moment and review some of our key personnel involved in our overseas operations.
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Thomas D. Elfmont, founder of the company, retired as a Captain from the Los Angeles Police Department. In addition to his vast law enforcement experience, he attended the FBI National Academy and has graduate degrees from Golden Gate University in San Francisco and the University of Southern California. He has been active in assisting clients in overseas security throughout the world, and has participated in planning security and events in Bogotá, Colombia; Hanoi, Vietnam; Brazil; Kenya and numerous other locations. He maintains membership in a number of groups that continually provide the company with up to date and timely travel and security information.
W. Jack Buckner, LTC (Ret) has over thirty years of Special Operations experience in the United States military. From the highlands of Vietnam, to the jungles of Central and South America, to the plains and mountains of Afghanistan, Mr. Buckner has spent extensive time overseas providing training and support to foreign nations in all facets of military, anti-terrorist, and security operations. He recently retired from the Army Special Forces and his last duty assignment was as the Deputy Commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force - Afghanistan. Mr. Buckner currently resides in the Southeast United States where he manages an experienced team of professional security coordinators who have hands-on international experience throughout the world. Mission Statement: Anything, Anytime, Anyplace in the countries which our clients wish to travel.
Felix Paravicini was born in Argentina, educated in Switzerland and the United Kingdom and then returned to Venezuela where he settled and managed a large pharmaceutical company for over twenty years. After successfully running this company, he began to see a need for professional security and investigations in Latin America. Living in Houston, he traveled extensively on behalf of large multinational companies to solve security problems for them in Latin and South America. Seeing this need, in 1989, he relocated to Mexico City where he has become a well known and professional security adviser and consultant. Mr. Paravicini is fluent in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian.
William Daniell graduated from Cambridge in the United Kingdom and after graduation joined the British Army where he was an officer. He quickly decided that the Special Air Service Regiment offered him the opportunity to broaden his experience and work on assignments throughout the world. After serving with the SAS during the first Gulf War, he then left the Regiment and returned to Bogotá, Colombia where he worked with multinational companies providing them with advice and consulting on risk and insurance issues. Within several years, he was the President of a very successful security company operating throughout the region. He currently lives in Bogotá and speaks fluent Spanish.
Steve Pearce was born in South Africa, went to college there and served as a pilot with the South African Air Force. After spending his life in South Africa, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia where he took over a security company that his family had operated in South Africa. For the past several years, he has divided his time between southern Africa and the United States. He has been an associate of TDA for five years, and his group of security experts is familiar with Africa and has provided security to clients in South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Botswana and other countries on the continent.
Andrew Kain, who lives in the United Kingdom, spent eighteen years in the SAS, and left in 1991 to enter private enterprise. Mr. Kain opened a security and risk analysis company and for the last thirteen years has been providing his clients with security and travel advice. Recently he was awarded contracts by the BBC and CNN to provide protection and advice to news crews filming in hostile areas. This core staff is supported by highly trained security professionals in the regions in which they work. These local professionals are our on the ground security team that provides our clients with the best service and protection possible. In many cases, depending on the size of the group traveling, evaluation of threats, local conditions and a variety of other factors, TDA may chose to recommend, in addition to local support, that a TDA consultant travel with the group and provide first hand support, supervision and liaison while in country. |
