John Griffin Jr. is the CEO and founder of AGB Investigative Services, which stands for Always Giving Back. According to their website, AGB is the largest Black-owned, award-winning security firm in the nation, and they offer expertise in a full range of security services, including physical and cybersecurity.
Griffin spoke with rolling out about why he created this system, and why it’s important to utilize cybersecurity.
Why did you create this system?
My background is in law enforcement. I was working at the State Attorney’s Office as an investigator, and I had just come back from being detailed to the Secret Service. I thought to myself, maybe I should get into security because most police officers do stuff on the side. I thought about initially augmenting my income. I have four children, and I would always look at my paycheck and look at my children and say something isn’t right, I gotta do something different. What I did was, I started my business with the hopes of just augmenting or supplementing my income to help my family because I wanted to be different. I wanted to send my kids to school, and I want to make sure they had what they needed. On a government job salary, I wouldn’t be able to do that. Then I thought about starting a business and going into security because I was a pretty good investigator. Lo and behold, this thing took off, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Your motto is “always giving back.” What did you learn through this process about always giving back?
As a spiritual brother, I believe that you can’t out give God. I truly believe if you give, it’s going to come back around to you. I give selflessly, which means my money, my energy, my attention, and my time. I give that because I’m not supposed to be here. I grew up in a single-parent household, was born in Robert Taylor Homes, and raised in Inglewood. I’ve been blessed. My wife and I both went to public high schools in the city of Chicago and graduated. We were blessed to get an education and opportunities to start a business and look at other people that preceded us. We owe because you cannot be a successful Black man and woman in business, and not look at the state of our community and not want to give back.
Why are security services needed in the community?
Everyone needs cybersecurity because it’s so prevalent now in the community in terms of people taking your data and stealing it, identity theft, and things like that. We believe it is imperative that everybody has some cyber or IT knowledge, as minimal as having on your computer virus protection. It’s very essential as well to train your employees not to click on bad things.
