The World Association of Detectives is proud to announce the selection of New Orleans native Raymond A. Pendleton as President Emeritus of the worldwide organization, originally founded in 1921 as the International Secret Service Association. The honor is given for a lifetime of dedication and service to the investigative and security professions.
WAD remains the foremost international association of professional investigators and security service organizations, and is represented in over 80 countries with business intelligence services operating throughout the global economy. One of its founders, Forrest Pendleton, was a former regional director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation (later to be the FBI), who opened its New Orleans office in 1913 and started the first private detective and security service firms in the South in 1920. Raymond Pendleton, his son, assumed leadership of the family businesses in 1970, and led their growth with offices in five Southern states, along with regional drug and contraband searches, maritime support and investigations that spanned the international arena. He is a retired Army Colonel, Special Forces (Green Berets) combat veteran and former Inspector General, and remains actively involved in research for cases that deal primarily with forensic liability issues in both the domestic and foreign fields.
Following in the footsteps of his father, who served as General John Pershing’s liaison to Poncho Villa during the 1916 punitive expedition into Mexico, Raymond and a fellow WAD colleague were tasked and supported by the US Defense Department in 1981 to conduct a private, covert study of East European military personnel and activities during the “Cold War”.