Roelof Vermeulen

3 Months after starting at Protea I was promoted to Manager of the Reaction unit with just over 100 ex-Koevoet, Recci and 32 Batallion people. At that stage I was a tender age of 22 and had a great responsibility, meeting with several companies and government departments at top management level with regards to riots, striking, body guarding duties and off-course normal security assessments etc.

At this stage I also reported directly to Mr. Ferreira and I moved around with him as he did his business. I quickly learned the dynamics of business from one of the best mentors in South African business and realised I had to learn more. I started studying books by Tom Hopkins about the art of selling and several books about management and marketing.

As the months went by my responsibilities grew bigger and bigger. It didn’t take long before I was promoted to Senior Manager and had to substitute as General Manager of the company overseeing several regional managers and more than 800 staff at regular intervals. With a lot less private time on my hands, Protea became my life.

In November 1994 I got married to my High School sweetheart, Anne-Marie and we moved into a one bedroom flat in Pretoria-west. After a short honeymoon she became part of a life not wished on any newly married wife. In the entire 1995 Anne-Marie probably saw me 3 months in the entire year. Even when I worked in Pretoria she would see me every 3 days when I would come home to shower. Two o’clock in the mornings I would go out on site visits and she would only see me at ten in the evenings. Anne-Marie started to battle with my ambitions and my job.

In October 1996 after spending 3 months at the mines in Amandelbult several things happened all at the same time, a murder of a close friend and employee pushed me past sanity and I resigned from Protea without notice or another job. Anne-Marie was also in a bad shape and in a serious depression. Protea took its toll on both of us. Unemployed and unable to pick-up the pieces we started selling all that we had just to keep things afloat. Anne-Marie was working as a clerk at the SAPS and earning a dismal salary, unable to keep the household going. It didn’t take long for us to lose everything. We used cardboard boxes for side-tables and we had to walk to Pick and Pay 10km’s away just to by 2 minute noodles as we only had enough coins to afford it at the PnP price. We often skipped a meal and sometimes we only ate every 2 days.

At one stage I was approached by a friend for a job as security manager on the Seychelles. It sounded very promising with an amazing salary. We got our passports ready and Anne-Marie put in her resignation with the SAP. One week before we had to leave for the Seychelles we received notice that the trip will not happen as the employer decided to move his operations to Waterkloof in Pretoria. This was in a certain way good news but we already prepared to leave and this changed our plans big time. Unfortunately this was the beginning of our final demise. I worked for this guy for three months never receiving a dime and we lost everything we owned.

A couple of weeks later I started my first business with the same Bulgarian friend that was also surprised by the sudden changes of our new employer. We registered a CC that specialised in Body guarding of Embassy personnel in Pretoria. But shortly after we started our business he took-off with his wife to Bulgaria for a month holiday. With a business just starting this turned out to be a serious mistake as I battled to get cash-flow going and managing the marketing at the same time. We started the business in a very stupid way without any money and simply using faxes for marketing. The business was sinking and I started working as a consultant for Omnus Solutions.

Omnus was my first real experience with computers and I was responsible for the marketing training and also the compiling a help file for one of the largest software packages in the life insurance industry. I learned about programming in FoxPro 2.6 and quickly became a specialist in Microsoft Office.

Shortly after my friend came back from Bulgaria we closed the security business. Although I still continued to do the odd job as bodyguard it simply managed to keep us stuck in the same situation. With both me and my wife unemployed we failed to stand up from our poverty stricken lives.

Maleoskop changed me in many ways, I became highly religious and enjoyed reading bible and praying on the mountains surrounding our bungalow. Especially just before sunset the closeness of God and His incredible creation was displayed for all to see. Maleoskop was truly beautiful and a true reflection of the His majestic creation. A couple of my friends, Zirk, Bennie, Tjaart and me had a daily prayer and bible get together. Our group quickly became bigger as more of our colleagues joined us in our daily routine.

The 6 month basic training at Maleoskop quickly shaped a new man out of a boy that thought he had the world at his feet when doing sport and dreaming about success. I learned what I was truly capable of in body and soul. In many ways it made a man out of me, but most important of all, it taught me that God created me with virtually no limitations. This truly created a foundation of daring leaps that in future would become a part of my life as entrepreneur.

As the end of our basic training drew closer, we were approached by Head Office to see if some of us were interested in becoming instructors at Maleoskop. Most of us hated the Instructors but I thought about it for some time, quickly realising that this kind of break doesn’t happen every day. Maleoskop instructors, next to the Special Task Force, were the pride of the SAPS and having this opportunity at such a young age, doesn’t cross everyone’s path, everyday. So I applied!

All applicants had to undergo several tests to successfully apply as an instructor, these tests included amongst others, IQ, Pshycological, Attitude, Personality and Projective tests. After a couple of weeks I was notified that my application was successful and I became one of a selected few candidates that would stay on Maleoskop after basic training to complete my instructors course of 3 months.

Just when I thought that I couldn’t undergo more intense and tougher training than I experienced during basic training, I was proven wrong once again. On all scales the Maleoskop instructors training was one of toughest the SAP had to offer. It certainly was one of the best as well, as we quickly became experts in Urban and Bush warfare. We received training in COIN, tracking, explosives, riot control, SWAT, all kinds of weapons and a range of other incredible subjects.

I still remember one of my proudest moments in life was when I received my Maleoskop lion. This happened shortly before Maleoskop was rated by Peter Lindström (Research Unit, Swedish National Police College) and the multinational/international training monitors as the 3rd most respected authority in the world and it’s instructors regarded as the best in its field. The pride that were attached to Maleoskop and wearing the lion is something that still remains part of me and probably always will.

In 1994 I realised that the SAP were undergoing changes that would make the training of police members fatally flawed. The toughness of training were exchanged with a softer more delicate approach to training. This had a serious impact on the quality of Police members that were rolled out from the Police college and the effect it had on Maleoskop as advanced training facility was extremely serious. Lack of discipline, poor character and (most concerning) poor weapons training quickly surfaced as a serious threat to the SAP. As I look back on my judgement back then, I regret to say, it was spot on. The damage done through the years are truly reflected in the SAPS today and its poor performance. To be perfectly fair the most important factor to the poor performance of the SAPS is definitely poor leadership and of course the ANC’s racist policy of appointing non-whites in key positions. The result is that the true experienced leaders that are still left in the SAPS have no means of reaching any position where they can be truly valued and create positive change in a failing police service. But my intention is not to create a debate but rather to tell it as I experience it.

My decision was to quit the SAP in 1994 after being offered a good position at Protea Security Services (ProteaCoin) in Pretoria. Just when I thought life was all about great pay and little work I suddenly realised that the private sector was a very demanding environment.

3 weeks prior to leaving the SAP I went for an interview with the late Danie Snyman at their head office in Visagie street. I was offered a good salary and told that I would join their reaction unit which was managed by Steven Schwartz. I was excited about the change but heartbroken to leave Maleoskop. The frustration of lowering standards enforced on us got to me and I resigned one week sooner than planed from the SAP to report immediately to Protea head office.

I arrived there at 8:00 that morning waiting for Danie to introduce me to the MD, Jorge Ferreira. I was sitting there for about 15 minutes when this tall Portuguese guy with an attitude, dressed in a denim and a golf shirt with a CZ75 on his side walked up to me and said, I hear you will be going to Stillfontein in a couple of hours. My response was, “Yeah sure bullshit!” thinking what a complete idiot! A couple of minutes later, Danie Snyman walked up to me and said, “I want to introduce you to Mr Ferreira. I walked with him to the corner office, nervous and excited to meet the boss, when he introduced me to a tall Portuguese guy with an attitude, Mr Ferreira! I felt like a complete idiot! What do they say about first impressions? Well I made one hell of a first impression on my new boss…

Needless to say, Mr Ferreira wasn’t joking. Two hours later I was on my way to Stilfontein for mine riots with my little car still parked next to the old railway station in Visagie street and an experience that would stay with me for my entire life began.