“As Sting’s Operations Manager, a licensed Private Investigator and VP of Fingerprint Services for Vancouver Island – I have a success story to tell. When I met Charlena Radic back in 2011, I was an unemployed single mom working a few nights a week doing Security for a bar in Esquimalt, BC to pad my EI a bit. I had been laid off from an Exec Assistant to the CEO job. This was just after the province had mandated Basic Security Training for anyone that works Security in British Columbia. That meant I needed a Security License.
The owner of the bar had known Charlena from the mainland and had her come over to train the Security Team. She taught the training and took no guff from some of the mouthier staff. Instantly, we hit it off. It was there that I learned that getting my BST could lead to me becoming a Private Investigator (something that 8-year-old me reading a Nancy Drew book a night would have been so happy about). Charlena needed help with Administration (something I had plenty of experience in) and I wanted my PI license. At the time, it took no less than 2 years to achieve your unrestricted license. I told her I could help her out with admin and she had me for at least 2 years to get my PI license. Folks, I never left.
Times got tough when the pandemic hit. With all the uncertainty, our mystery shopping clients were calling hourly to cancel our services. Fingerprinting came to a halt. I was heartbroken when I was temporarily laid off. Sting has been a huge part of my life for so long, Charlena is now a good friend – I know that was not easy for anyone involved, but she told me she’d figure out a way to get me back and it took awhile (as the world went sideways) but she did it.
Charlena Radic knows how to get stuff done. We have accomplished so much. In the beginning she had a vision about online security training. We got to work and TrainMyGuard.com became a real thing. An interactive, online security training academy that we are continually adding courses to. We started with Alberta Basic Security Training (ABST) and then got to work on the Alberta Investigator Training (AIT). Soon after we got Manitoba and Saskatchewan converted to online and uploaded. In the meantime, I have been fingerprinting people all over Vancouver Island as well as building our Mystery Shopping Program. For all these years we worked hard and grew as a company. I have over 200 shoppers to work with now – we took our reporting online. Fingerprinting is now busier than ever. I’m allowed to pick and choose what PI files I want to take… can it get any better?
Charlena Radic saw something in me and 10 years later we are still going and trying new things – the new website is now up and I get to BLOG! and a SPY STORE! We have been talking about both those things for years but just couldn’t find the time. I am so looking forward to the next chapter for Sting. I’m excited!
I guess I’ll end this by throwing a shout out to that 8-year-old me – you knew what was up.”