Hiding in Plain Sight: My Life and Adventures Protecting Celebrities

By Thomas LeBrun

Multi Award Winning Book; HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT – My Life & Adventures Protecting Celebrities is the inspiring true story of how a boy with a firm purpose behind his dreams, overcame many personal obstacles, challenges, sacrifices and injuries to forge a life dedicated to ensuring the safety of others When Tom LeBrun was 5 years old he was like most kids his age, full of energy, dreams and imagination galore. But, unlike other kids, young Tom had a stated purpose. He told his Dad that, one-day, like his hero SUPERMAN, "I want to fly around the world protecting people." This purpose and passion created his journey.

Thomas LeBrun has been active within the Executive Protection industry for over 3 decades. often being the advance agent in the world's most dangerous of cities, Mexico City, Johannesburg So. Africa and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil being a few of them. His consistency in his studies both in the physical and academic world has resulted in clientele in the entertainment, corporate and HNW arenas of the highest caliber. The academic element includes subject matter in Anti-Terrorist studies through ATAB (Anti-Terrorism Accreditation Board), Maritime Security as it has to do with Anti-piracy issues and Crisis Risk Management as well as various Executive Protection courses. Thomas LeBrun has received Tactical Hall of Fame accolades as the 1999 and 2005 Executive Protection Specialist of the Year.

"Hiding in Plain Sight" is the story of former champion power lifter, Martial arts Hall of Famer, and one of the worlds renowned experts in Executive Close Protection, Tom LeBrun. Learn how he used savvy and dogged persistence to achieve his dream and become a real life Superman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098358365

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Copyright Thomas LeBrun 2021. All rights reserved. Some of the names have been changed to protect the identities of characters in the story. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN 978-1-09835-835-8 | eBook ISBN: 978-1-09835-836-5

I am dedicating this book, Hiding in Plain Sight

to Mom and Dad.

Dad gave me a good work ethic and a strong back,

and Mom gave me her heart.

Contents

Foreward

You Are NOT from Around Here…

Able to Leap Tall Buildings?: Sure, Which Ones Would You Like?

Show Me Those Weights, please!- On Becoming A Strong Man

Strongman Days/Road House Nights

Crossroads: Making A Bold Decision!

The World Is Turning

An Ounce of Prevention…And A Little More

LOYALTY IS A BRAND

When Makin’ Tracks, Never Be Lax!

Getting It Right…Despite the Odds!

HOME AGAIN…AND, THEN! …

Momentum and Challenges

Into the Future

A Big Commitment and 9/11

Time for Re-Inventing

Changes & New Adventures

A Grande’ finale; Well, sort of

EPILOGUE: A Quest Fulfilled 343

Acknowledgements

F

oreward

Some time ago, I had a step-brother who lived in the Upper Valley and trained at a Community Center (CCBA) in Lebanon, NH. I had heard a lot about Tom LeBrun, who worked out every day at CCBA before I, too, went there. I’d met Tom briefly in a store where he was working about 35 years ago.

After high school, I went to college in Minneapolis. I had some friends there who were in the Golden Gloves circuit. So, I used to do a lot of sparring with them. As a result, I knew the fundamentals of boxing, and I thought I was pretty athletic. I always liked that one-on-one contact in the sport of boxing.

Like Tom, I trained every day, with a background in lifting and wrestling. So, when I went into the CCBA basement’s weight room for the first time, I believe Tom came up to me, kind of re-introduced himself to me, and said, Hey, if there’s anything you need in the way of gear, or if you need any assistance, just let me know.

So, I’m working out there and, after a while, Tom said to me, Listen, I get together with a small group of people, and we typically go upstairs, and we do some boxing and martial arts. If you’re interested, I’d like to have you come up and join us.

At that point, I’m thinking, Okay, that’ll be great! And, in speaking with Tom, I knew what he was really training for. You know, when you’re in a lot of martial arts groups, it’s more that you are choreographing and setting those moves up. But Tom wasn’t a big believer in that. In the direction he was going, it had to be a full-contact sport, and it doesn’t do anything to pull your punch because of an actual situation. I knew Tom’s approach going into this and figured it would be fun.

While working out one morning, I remember Tom going upstairs with three other gentlemen. So, I finished my workout, and I ran upstairs to take my part in this lesson that was going on with Tom, which would be boxing that day.

When I got upstairs, I noticed that all three of those other guys were sitting down. And, Tom’s there with his gloves on, smiling. And, he says, You ready? And, I said… Okay…yeah…sure, but I’m kind of looking at these fellas and thinking, These guys are done, already? Wow! That was pretty fast. They were breathing hard,… Hmmm.

So, I put the gloves on. And I remember Tom saying, There’s some headgear there if you want to wear it. I said, I’m okay, don’t need any headgear. That’s fine. I’ve got the gloves on. My gosh! All we had was the mitts you’d use on a punching bag. They weren’t, 8, or 10, or 12 oz. gloves. They were small and light. We might as well have been bare-fisted!

Now, in the days when I was doing Golden Gloves, I was much lighter; I was probably 175 -180 lbs. So, with my powerlifting, I was then up to about 220-225 lbs. My footwork, let’s just say, was very flat. But I knew I had a strong punch. I knew I had an excellent left jab. I have very long arms, and I had height.

So, I get in there with Tom, and we’re moving around slowly. Tom is just watching me and feeling me out, and I’m not really thinking that. I can remember throwing a long, stiff jab and kind of catching Tom with it. And, all he said to me was, Nice long reach! And, he’d positioned himself, of course, outside that reach.

I thought in my head, Okay, I’m just going to go in there, and fake with a real quick jab, and hit him with an overhand right. Well, no sooner had I walked-in to throw that jab then Tom countered an overhand right that comes over my left and POW! After I caught a few of those, I thought, You know…for the next couple of minutes while we’re in here, I’m just going to kind of back-off. But I remember Tom was great. Because he said, If you need to do that, you’ve got to step down, then step- in… He kind of gave me some instruction. And I thought, Wow! This instruction is totally different! That’s what started it all—training with Tom.

With me, I have a competitive nature, very passionate. And there, in my opinion, are very few people, especially with weight training, who have that passion. By contrast, Tom has done some incredible things and continues to do so with weight and strength training and all his martial arts/boxing skill sets. The discipline you have to have, and create within that to go in each day and do it yourself, and not just go in and go through the motions on that day, but go in and strive to be better every single day, for hours? Now, that is really such the1%er of all athletes.

So, when you inspire people by not having to go and pull anyone aside, but by ‘doing,’ that truly sticks with you. And, when you see Tom striving, every day, to do a little bit more than the previous day, to do another rep, he always did just that.

I remember living in New Hampshire going to the Community Center on a cold day, and Tom was always the morning guy there at the crack of dawn. And, I remember going in there one day it was snowy, it was cold. There was nobody there except Tom’s little Toyota, at that time in the parking lot. So, I knew Tom would always be in the center when I saw that car. So, I’m going down the basement stairs. It was cold and dank in this place.

And, I can hear someone jumping down the hall. There’s Tom with a sweatshirt on and a plastic bag over his body with 100-pound weights on his back doing frog-jumps down the hall, and nobody’s there. He’s not looking for inspiration. HE is that inspiration.

Tom, at that time, taught me the most valuable lessons. Many guys came to the center and a lot came there to spar with Tom. Some of those guys weren’t there for the sport. They walked in with an attitude like, Hey, I think I’m going to be the guy who’s going to put Tom in his place. So, I saw a young man of this nature in the basement, and he said, Hey, I’m going to go upstairs and box with Tom, and I’m going to clean his clock.

He went upstairs, and Tom took one look at this kid and said, I’m choosing not to have you participate in our session. I appreciate your interest, but I’m not going to have you join us.

Well, the kid kind of went off in an angry way, and he’s saying, Aw! You know I could clean your clock. And, Tom says, Yeah, your probably right. But I’m still not going to have you join us. Well, the kid didn’t know what to say. He just walked away. And wow! You know, a 21-year-old man who’s aggressive like that. I said, "Tom, why didn’t you get in there and clean his clock? So, Tom said, That’s not what it’s all about." It was that discipline to know not to bring in somebody like that, a person with EGO. Tom’s thing wasn’t to prove a point or prove anything about who he could beat up or who was the toughest, and it was to do something and do it right. That point resonated with me throughout my whole life.

Tom and I reconnected several years ago through LinkedIn, and I said, I wonder how Tom is doing? I had put his name in there, and I’d come up with his security business Nighthawk. So, I sent him an invite and a short letter on LinkedIn, and he got back to me. It was a short time after that we had our first conversation. He told me how much he had developed, not necessarily his business, but himself; through all the measures, you can go academic wise because ‘security’ is that way. Tom never wanted to be the bouncer.

That was not what he wanted to be known for. That just wasn’t the direction he was going. It was to take himself and become as well-rounded and knowledgeable in all the areas of the Executive Protection field as he could, which he has definitely done.

In having our conversation, I told him I had been working with the Department of Ministry in a foreign country for some time on this humanitarian project that would hopefully get launched soon. I had been very thorough. When I presented my building system, I went into the Prime Minister’s office, the national housing authority, and had this group of 30 people, including engineers. I’m going over this with my team. After going through the energy-efficiency and the cost and all that’s involved with this, I open it up for questions. And the first thing someone asked was, Will this stop an AK-47 round? And I thought, Oh, boy! Yes, now I have ballistics coding that will actually do that; yes, it will stop that round. But also, I’m thinking, Wait a second. Is it that bad? Is gang violence really that bad? And then it came out that crime is considered part of the culture.

I knew that security was needed. When I go there, and I’m meeting with the chief adviser to the Prime Minister. Although we have ‘general security’ in already pre-secured areas all day, there is no security outside those areas. So, in speaking with Tom, finding out all the places of the world he had been in and all the challenges he met, the most significant part for me is that I have trust in Tom. And that trust goes beyond.

Tom has inspired me in things that I’ve done. A good part of my training repertoire, and my whole life, has been through Tom’s inspiration and the trust I have in him. He is a man of his word. He will be there when you need him. And, all the years I have been in business, working with people, many people are not very forthcoming. But Tom is. And that really holds strong with Tom. I have an excellent friendship with him and would do anything for him. And I know he would do the same for me.

Tom said to me at the time, I want to be able to look at you and your wife in the eye and tell her, ‘I’m going to keep him safe when he’s away doing business. And he and I will come home safe and sound, too. And, that to me goes a very long way.

There seems to be a lot of testosterone that goes with others in the security field, but there’s none of that with Tom. So, for me, that was just kind of a no-brainer. Knowing the man as I did, there was no hesitation on my part to say, Tom, you know I would like you to look at this, and provide security for me, really on all aspects and levels of the project. You know issues such as maritime security, situational awareness, the criminal element, the protection of individuals, the security of our locations, cybersecurity issues, and more.

And, right now, we’ve talked about a whole range of things, not even knowing yet the entire lay of the land. But once that comes into play, Tom would be there to help as we get this up and running, and then as we go through the whole process.

Tom’s approach is that the best way to maintain safety is to keep out of harm’s way. Even though you think you could have the human resources to take care of a situation, just stay away from it. I definitely understand that and believe that in him. And that, to me, is just the safest route to go. A lot of people will be involved when this project comes to fruition. And it just makes me feel a lot better, especially when my investors ask questions about security. I can tell them straight out, I have that taken care of. I feel very strongly about that, and I don’t hesitate for a second. Tom has a unique approach to his programs. He has built an exclusive brand of integrity in his business. When the project happens, Tom will be speaking with my investors, and I know they will be both impressed and put at ease. This job is a humanitarian project ahead of its time; the technology, the sustainability, the opportunity to build better homes, and we’re ready to go.

This is Tom’s story, and it’s a good one! With Respect, Mark P.

Chapter 1

You Are NOT from Around Here…

How does one account for the initial advice to ‘throw the book away’ and be, at all times, ‘flexible’ and ‘understanding’ when, in reality, that person had to perform to a level that defies logical and logistical description? – D.R.

We were advised, after the pre-advance, that if indeed our group survived the tour of 3 major South African cities, highlighted by escalating crime and strikes without some form of physical injury, personal loss, criminal compromise, or some exposure to the corruption that exists, then we should consider ourselves extremely lucky." We all heeded these words of advice.

Cape Town, South Africa - November 19, 1994 Day Six of Whitney Houston-The Concert for a New South Africa Tour At a UB-40 concert in Cape Town, over 500 firearms were detected and seized on persons seeking to enter the concert grounds. This city was going to be the location of our final show scheduled for the 19th of November, 1994.

If, as a poet of Ancient Greece first said, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, there is no 20th Century beholder who would deny the beauty here in Cape Town. Nestled between the bay and majestic Table Mountain and known as the Mother City, Cape Town is the oldest in South Africa. None can deny the beauty in its glittering beaches, its national park, and its sweeping vistas. Add to it the city’s colorful shops, restaurants, hotels, and resorts, and it’s easy to see why Cape Town attracts travelers from all over the world. But there is another side to Cape Town, a side that bespeaks a long and brutal history of crimes against humanity. The tens of thousands of people living in sprawling poverty from Crossroads-Cape Town to Cape Flats suffer a legacy of genocide, slavery, and extreme racial prejudice that still weighs heavily on the region. Tens of thousands of people live in sprawling poverty from Crossroads-Cape Town; this is the area best described as the dumping ground for apartheid.

But nothing changes entirely overnight. Even as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it sees beautiful new smiles on the faces of many people who have spent years on the fringes of the Mother City clinging to existence. People who now have faith in a new tomorrow, there’s no denying that violence born of long-festering wounds still exists here, violence that can flare-up at any minute.

Yet, this is where Whitney Houston, one of the world’s greatest entertainers, wanted to be on this day, reaching out to people in need, spreading her unique brand of music and love in support of projects aimed at ushering in that new day for marginalized people all around Cape Town.

My job as Advance Man on the security team for the three-city Whitney- Concert for A New South Africa Tour had been to ensure all locations had been scouted and thoroughly secured before Whitney’s arrival, and that included travel timing issues. So far, so good. The Johannesburg stop (known as the most dangerous city in the world), as our first city on tour, had gone as well as could be expected. Cape Town appeared to be following suit. But, on this day, an off day on the performance schedule when Whitney planned to visit her fans and reach out to them in places where their need was great, something happened that threatened to change all that.

The security director had sent me out to find lunch for everyone. When I got back with eight beautiful sub sandwiches (not exactly an easy task in Cape Town at that time), I saw that six of our lunch-bunch were no longer there. Suddenly, I lost my appetite.

Where did they go…? I stammered. They left, said our local contact. "What do you mean, they left?" I asked.

Yeah, they all left for Crossroads. Figured you’d catch up with them later.

What the heck?! I knew right then and there that it might have been a test. But I wasn’t about to let the Tester get the best of me. We needed to get to Crossroads before they did. Mike Middlemass simply pointed to his BMW E32. I nodded. We, and the sub sandwiches, piled in.

Best to strap your seat belt tightly, Tom. And relax. I’ve raced professionally. I’ll get us there quickly, efficiently, and in one piece.

Okay, so here’s the thing. Mike looked confident. Damn, did he ever look confident! I’ll give him that. And, sure enough, within seconds of merging the sleek white beast onto N2, it definitely felt like we were surging to the lead in the Grand Prix. I confess, I took one glance across the burnished wood dashboard at the speedometer, and hmm, well, no need to look further. Hey, I thought, "I’m a professional. He’s a professional. And professionalism will win out, again. Right?... Maybe?"

Anyway, the distance between our starting line at our downtown hotel and the finishing line at the Masikula Children’s Home in Crossroads, where our client was heading (without me!), was just about 20-30 kilometers.

Ordinarily, it would take about 30 minutes with traffic to get there. But by doing some quick mathematical calculation to help distract me from the abrupt maneuvering, Mike was affecting to weave in and out of traffic. I concluded, My, it does appear that we’ll be reducing that ‘ordinary’ travel time quite significantly.

Suddenly, we were exiting (uh, maybe more like lurching) off N2 and careening through Crossroads’ side streets towards our destination.

Located in the Wynberg district of Cape Town, Crossroads Township was then and continues to be, urban poverty at its worst. In stark contrast to the upscale neighborhoods and high- priced mansions of Camps Bay on Cape Town’s Atlantic Coast, Crossroads is a rough, urbanized, high-density shantytown created in the 1970s when workers from a nearby farm were told to move to the crossroads.

By 1977, some 18,000 people, men, women, and children, the vast majority of them black Africans, lived in Crossroads. And, the population, suffering from 50% unemployment, had now grown to an estimated 45,000.

By 1994, lack of sufficient power, water, and good homes for Crossroads residents, as well as millions more South Africans, had become the appalling economic inheritance bequeathed by an almost bankrupt apartheid regime.

Yet, this is where Whitney Houston wanted to be on that November afternoon. She tried to reach out to the people, not merely through her concert but to visit with them, support them, and share with them, in both love and abiding faith that she could help shape a better life for those who struggled.

That was all fine and good. Again, my job was to help provide security, and now, I was not a happy camper.

We raced along narrow streets bordered on both sides by a jumble of ramshackle dwellings and shops. I knew that it had been four years since Nelson Mandela, the beloved hero of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, had finally been released from prison.

Even now, when successful free elections promised to end apartheid’s oppression, sporadic violence still broke out between rival groups and leaders seeking to gain power and shape the direction of this long-suffering community of Crossroads. I didn’t have long to stew.

Suddenly, we wheeled into the driveway of a large police station located at the main entrance to Gugulethu and a string of other residential areas, including New Crossroads, Nyanga, KTC, Tambo Square, and Zinyoka.

We swerved around and came to a complete stop. Mike beamed triumphantly. Told you we’d get here efficiently. The police station was secured with vertical concrete blocks topped with razor wire. Above the station, the old South African national flag fluttered in a warm breeze. Against the fence, I saw plastic bags of every color. I would learn later that children in New Crossroads call these bags our plastic flowers.

Just then, I heard someone cut loose with a big, deep barrel-chested laugh. I turned to look for the source and saw a very tall, actually huge, uniformed black gentleman, who I estimated to be about 6 ‘6 or 7, calmly walk up to the car.

He smiled. We smiled. He smiled back. Always a good thing to do, I reasoned, especially so if you are two white guys in a white Beamer arriving unannounced at the headquarters for law enforcement in a string of black neighborhoods.

Still smiling, Mr. Huge Man leaned in the car window and asked, You are not from around here, are you? Ah yes…Talk about a sub-Saharan icebreaker! We laughed. He laughed. We laughed again. Also, a good thing to do, I reasoned. We explained that we were the advance men on the Whitney Houston security team and that she is looking forward to her visit with Winnie Mandela, the children, and staff at the Children’s Home. Mr. Huge Man nodded pleasantly and motioned for us to follow him.

He pointed to a large Humvee, which is a quite imposing vehicle. Along with the armored Humvee and the two of us in our BMW, a police vehicle escort then pulled up to the front and rear of us and proceeded to lead our Humvee et al. away from the station, down another series of streets, and then…yes…there we were at the Masikhula Children’s Home.

Before we headed inside to meet and greet Winnie and all, I hopped on my phone and placed a call to my D.O.S. (Director of Security)

(Tom is in the picture,