Guidance counselors in the ways of the world.

• Author: Yocum, Thomas
• Position: Crisis Management Worldwide Inc. advises Americans planning business abroad - Statistical Data Included

John Stein has plenty of on-the-job war stories, but the details are classified. "I have to sanitize them," says Stein, president of Wilmington-based Crisis Management Worldwide Inc., an international security and risk-management company.

His reticence is a byproduct of 34 years with the CIA. What Stein, 67-year-old international man of mystery, can tell you is that he and seven partners, who call themselves "principals," own CMW. It has 50 "associates" based from Bogota, Colombia, to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, who gather intelligence and solve crises for American companies with operations in hot spots around the globe.

There was the time they advised an "American company" on protocol for closing a Russian factory. It was losing money, and executives, fearful that shutting down would spur a violent backlash, planned to hightail it. "They were about to withdraw in the same way the Baltimore Colts withdrew to Indianapolis," Stein recalls. CMW counseled them to meet with workers, explain the economics and commiserate on the hardships of dosing the plant. They did and left confident they could return.

Before its clients open branches overseas, CMW briefs them on basics about the country, from climate, dress and etiquette to how to thwart a kidnapping there. (About 200 executives are abducted each year in foreign countries.) It can help salvage what's left of a factory in, say, war-torn Kosovo or design a plan for keeping employees safe from guerrillas in South America. Unlike their counterparts in the movies, the CMW guys don't always get the girl, but their pensions probably make up for it: Most are retired from the military, State Department or intelligence agencies.

CMW was born in 1996. Retired Army Col. Roger Rains, now 52, realized that after 25 years in the military -- four as policy adviser and speech writer for NATO's supreme commander in Europe -- his Rolodex read like a Who's Who of people with top-secret clearance.

He knew American companies were opening more operations abroad, and research showed they needed help setting up shop and protecting their personnel. "Demand for services in this arena is going through the roof," Rains says.

He and brother-in-law John McKenzie recruited five former colleagues. Earlier this year, they added Stein, whose CIA career included stints as deputy director of operations and inspector general.

CMW is the only company of its kind based in North Carolina and one of only about a dozen nationwide. Hershey...