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Chief Michael Saad
Michael Saad is a law enforcement veteran, business leader, and international security consultant with more than 30 years of experience leading teams in some of the most challenging environments in the world.
He began his career with the Louisville Police Department in 1997 and attended the Montgomery Police Academy, graduating at the top of his class. He was later cross-trained and specially designated by the U.S. Customs Service through the Blue Lightning Strike Force, a multi-agency drug interdiction program that gave selected state and local officers Customs enforcement authority, BLOC/HIDTA intelligence support, and access to other federal resources.
He later became a drug dog handler with the Eufaula Police Department before being assigned to the Barbour/Bullock County multi-jurisdictional drug task force as a narcotics detective. He also served on the Eufaula Police/Barbour County Tactical Team and the Homeland Security Response Team.
In 2010, he moved into international private security, where he was responsible for the overall security posture and close protection of a multi-billion-dollar company’s leadership in developing countries and other hostile environments. During the next nine years, his teams provided protection details for corporate leaders, military commanders, foreign ambassadors and other senior government officials in both high-threat and low-profile operations.
After living in Thailand, Michael returned to the United States and joined Allied Universal Security Services as a general manager in 2021. He managed operational, financial, administrative, and business development activities across four offices in two states, overseeing 42 salaried managers and 2,320 hourly employees across a 30,000-square-mile territory.
In 2025, he returned as Chief of Police of the Louisville Police Department at the request of then-Mayor James B. Grant, the same mayor who hired him in 1997. After several years overseas and more than 15 years outside Alabama law enforcement, he completed the state’s full academy certification process again, graduating from the Law Enforcement Academy Tuscaloosa in 2026, 28 years after his first academy graduation.
His career has taken him from small-town policing and drug enforcement to corporate security, executive protection, international operations, and large-scale business management. He brought that experience back to Louisville with a focus on professional policing, community engagement, transparency, and practical service to the people his department serves.
Transparency. Accountability. Justice.
Leadership Should Be Visible.
You deserve to know where your leaders stand, how they make decisions, and what principles guide them.
That doesn’t mean we’ll always agree. But disagreement shouldn’t prevent open communication, honest conversations, or mutual respect.
That’s what this website is about. Sharing perspectives, addressing the issues that matter to our communities, and making sure you never have to guess where I stand or why.
And now for the rest of the story…
During my first law enforcement career from 1997-2010 as a narcotics investigator and tactical operator, I definitely realized that my true calling was helping and protecting others.
Since then, I’ve worked with some amazing people around the world who helped me become an effective administrator and leader capable of building unbeatable teams.
I’ve seen first hand what happens when bad things happen to good people. I’ve also seen what happens when good things happen to bad people. Neither is a good day.
– Michael Saad –
As a Bounty Hunter.
At 18, I started picking up skips for bonding companies in Alabama and Mississippi. After leaving the WWF, former wrestler “Dr. D” David Schultz became a bounty hunter up north and then opened a bail bond company in Dothan, Alabama, where he gave me one of my first jobs.
This was an unusual way to get started at that age, but it gave me an early look at working with people who didn’t necessarily want to be found. I learned pretty quickly how to read a situation, handle difficult people, and recognize when things were about to get out of hand.
Under-aged Resourcefulness
It was a different time in 1993. I wasn’t old enough to carry a handgun, so I bought what they called a Pnu-Gun, an early version of the beanbag guns police use today. It was the same contraption Steve McQueen used in the 1980 movie The Hunter.
I also improvised. Sometimes I’d gift-wrap a shipping box, leave one end open, and put a sawed-off shotgun inside. Then I’d walk up to the door carrying it. Looking back, I can see how differently that would be received today.
As a Police Officer.
As an honor graduate, I ranked at the top of my class in the Montgomery Police Academy. At the time, Montgomery was considered one of the most difficult and had an attrition rate that was comparable to the LAPD. It’s been a minute, and my memory is a bit rusty, but I think we started with 75, and graduated 14.
Most quit, but some were kicked out. The night before we graduated, one of the cadre told me that it was their mission to make as many people quit the first week as they could, by doing whatever they had to do. We had 3 quit before lunch on the first day.
As an International Man of Mystery.
Fast-forward to 2010, and I was already a ‘world-traveler’, despite being scared to death to fly. Passing through Dubai from time to time, while working my way back and forth from the USA, I met members of several prominent families in the region.
These Royal groups made no judgment on the fact that I wasn’t muslim, like I had experienced so many times in the other countries I had visited, and treated me like a person, not just another stupid infidel. It was because of the unexpected hospitality of these people that I got lined up to open my first office in Dubai, and then followed up with another in Atlanta and then in Los Angeles.
My company provided executive protection for corporate leaders, entertainment personalities, and other high-profile individuals. We also conducted opposition intelligence, developing detailed profiles on individuals, organizations, and their activities to help clients understand who they were dealing with, what their interests were, and what they might be up against.
Depending on the assignment, that could involve surveillance, background investigations, clandestine intelligence operations, or investigative support. Some assignments took us into sensitive situations where discretion was just as important as the intelligence we developed.
We worked in just about every corner of the world, from Guadalajara, Mexico, to Bahrain, the U.S., and Basilan in the southern Philippines, where we ran protection details specifically tasked with countering the threat of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group.
At one point, I had staff across Asia, the Middle East, North America, and South America. I even started the process of opening a fourth office in Manila, but the egregious licensing fees (i.e., payoffs) and red tape proved to be too much for my patience.
But the globe-trotting, dealing with payoffs in some of the countries where we operated, and having to heavily screen contracts for American clients who wanted our services more as an accessory than a necessity eventually took their toll.
I’d spent years building a business that took me around the world, but I’d reached a point where I was spending too much time dealing with things I never particularly enjoyed about running it.
So I sold my interest in the company.
During this time, I continued working high-threat protection details, leading multinational teams responsible for the personal protection of corporate leaders, program managers, military commanders, U.S. Department of Defense and Department of State officials, as well as other state dignitaries and foreign ambassadors.
Plain Talk: I helped prevent bad things from happening to important people in developing countries and other hostile environments.
In 2015, I was in the follow vehicle of a two-vehicle convoy through Kabul, Afghanistan, when an explosion threw the lead 8,000-pound armored vehicle across three lanes of traffic, over a median, across three more lanes, and finally over a fence into a hospital parking lot, all before the flash and smoke cloud disappeared. The three men inside were killed.
I left the company in 2019.
Since then, seems like a bad cut of Final Destination played out for our team.
Whether they were murdered by monsters or by the demons they brought back home with them, all eight did things most people will always be too afraid to do, and I won’t pretend the way their lives ended tells the whole story of how they lived.
By 2016, I had saved money and made the contacts that would give me what I needed to finally open a fully equipped fighter’s gym. I opened my first location outside Dallas, Texas, followed by a second in Dothan, Alabama, in 2017.
Instead of training fighters, however, we ended up focusing on women’s self-defense and strength training programs. Things were going in a direction I hadn’t originally planned, but I was good with that.
Then COVID came along. Who the hell could’ve predicted that?
More Photos Below
In 2021, while living in Thailand, I was hired by Allied Universal Security Services, the third-largest U.S.-based private employer behind Walmart and Amazon, with 800,000 employees worldwide and $18 billion in annual revenue.
As General Manager of its Birmingham, Alabama branch, I was responsible for over 2,300 employees and $75 million in annual revenue. We ranked 7th of 24 branches in the Southeast and 42nd of 156 nationwide.
With management teams responsible for daily operations across multiple districts, my branch covered roughly 30,000 square miles, with offices in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and LaGrange, Georgia.
Ice Breakers
My greatest achievement is: Being a father. While I haven’t been there a lot, while I tried to make a better life for them, I am very proud of how they both continue to grow into young women.
The worst job I had as a teenager: I was raised to believe that no job is bad.
Favorite song: Zombie, by the Cranberries
My favorite book: American Sniper, by Chris Kyle
My favorite TV show: Entourage
My favorite movie: Scarface. My aunt took me to see it in the theater when I was like 9 years old and, in all fairness, she was only 22. I will never forget the look on her face after about 5 minutes in and I remember begging her to stay. The rest is history!
How to pronounce Saad: Just like you would sad, the opposite of happy. Traveling through some of the countries I have, they always wanted to make it something it wasn’t, but I was born in southeast Alabama…
My favorite childhood memory: I have a lot of good memories but two of my better ones, is the weekly treks to Peanut Skate Center in Dothan and the yearly beach vacation we would take to ‘penthouse #31’ at Pinnacle Port in Panama City Beach Florida.
The person I most admire: I was fortunate enough to have plenty of role models in and around my life.
My pet: Because I’ve traveled so much, I don’t have any pets. But my favorite is a toss-up between my patrol partner, Bear, and my narcotics partner, Ismar. And, I will never forget my bomb dog, Nancy.
My favorite music group: This could be a long and mixed list, but to keep it short and simple: Throwback? John Cafferty, Blondie, Tupac, Styx – Now? Blake Shelton, Kid Rock, 5FDP.
My favorite vacation place: That’s a hard one, because I don’t really take ‘vacations’. I could say Thailand for training, that’s a given, but I also like the historical and cultural wonders of the Philippines.
Three words people use to describe me:
1) Focused. 2) Reserved. 3) Unorthodox.
The food I like best: I’ve been known to chow down on Sushi, but I’d also take a steak and baked potato any day.
My favorite adult beverage: I don’t really drink, but on the rare occasion I do – I prefer Corona and tequila.
My favorite candy: I’m a Skittles kinda guy.
My favorite hobby: Muay Thai!
My favorite workout: Pretty much anything that makes me sweat, gets my heart rate up and leaves me gasping for breath.
My worst fear: I’m definitely, and deathly, afraid of snakes. Doesn’t matter: alive snakes, dead snakes and sticks that look like snakes. I have also come to realize that the most dangerous snakes can come in human form.
My goals for the year: To be better at what I do today than I was yesterday… continually pursuing excellence.
