Ira Ackerman Lipman (November 15, 1940 – September 16, 2019) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the founder and chairman of Guardsmark, a privately owned security company with a payroll of 17,000 employees and 130 offices in the United States, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom and France. In 2015, he sold Guardsmark to Universal Protection Service, the largest private security company in the United States, and he served as its vice chairman until its 2016 merger with AlliedBarton. He was called "a pioneer in the private security guard business". His work was cited by the United States Department of Justice's Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and the United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations. He supported t