MATT Arundel has spent years working in some of the world’s most dangerous countries.

His CV includes hostage rescues, evacuating people caught up in the terrors of war and providing vital protection for media crews.

Serving with the Marines for nearly 15 years, he led small teams in specialist roles during operations in the Middle East, Northern Ireland and Africa.

After that he was involved in providing mentoring to the Afghan Intelligence service and then founded MASC Executive - an Ilkley-based firm providing ‘risk, crisis and travel management solutions to international corporations, governments and expeditionary industries worldwide.’

Explaining his transition from the military to the commercial world, he said: “When I moved on from my military work I was taken on as a mentor/advisor to the Afghan Intelligence.

“I did this for three years living in Kabul, Jalalabad, Faryab, and Mazar-e Sharif.

“This role included mentoring the Afghan special units in elements of close protection which were then conducted by me and my teams for high level Afghani government officials visiting high risk areas, and to augment the in-house teams of international VIPs visiting areas of the same regions.

“I started MASC Executive towards the latter stages of that and was soon assisting a major media organisation as one of their high risk security providers.

“Our main work with them has been providing risk management advice, security and at times camera work for investigative documentaries.”

Matt’s team has also provided security and advice for a series of Channel 4’s 24 Hours in Police Custody, and helps international companies like Exxon Mobil and AECOM with global travel security.

There might not appear to be much call for tough security measures in places like like Wharfedale - but Matt disagrees.

The 41 year old said: “What people know of the security industry is largely what they have seen in Hollywood movies and the latest SAS-authored books. But the reality is that keeping safe is something we should all invest in and I never fail to be surprised by how many people think it doesn’t apply to them.

“I am more used to providing security advice for the world‘s biggest media organisations, oil and gas companies, and gold and copper mines but it was only when I sat one day looking at Ilkley that I started to question exactly how secure we as a community were being.

“We are surrounded by some of the largest and most beautiful properties, many owned by millionaires who have worked hard to achieve that and taken the sensible step of having the best security systems fitted.

“But when push comes to shove, how many of those actually work? You would be surprised how many fail.”

The MASC team now conducts tests of local homes to see if they can uncover security weaknesses - and often ends up paying its clients a surprise visit.

Matt said: “Homeowners always tell me they have spent a small fortune securing their property and luxury cars and that we won’t be able to penetrate the system.

“It’s only when we are standing in their hall with their car keys that they begin to realise that even the best system can be breached if it hasn’t been done right.

“I have tested properties which have had up to a dozen CCTV cameras and yet when we did a security survey we realised not one of them focused properly on the main entrance, and several were pointing in directions which created black spots.”

Another important part of the firm’s work is training and their next task will be travelling to Erbil (in Iraqi Kurdistan) to train a group of Arabic reporters.

To find out more visit www.mascexecutive.com.