Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/31498
16 COMMERCIAL & SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS www.securitysystemsnews.com MARCH 2011 SECURITY SYSTEMS NEWS Shifting a business focus Former Infrastruct CEO helps integrator create RMR By Martha Entwistle AUSTIN, Texas—Internal Control Systems’ director of sales and marketing Daniel Weiss has a mandate for his sales people: RMR should be a component of every account you sell. Weiss’ new requirement is showing some success. In the last six months ICS took this approach to Houston, where it recently opened an office. During that time, the company created “15 new clients ... from office build- ings to warehouses, and 85 per- cent of those contracts had some form of RMR,” Weiss said. “We created $2,000 a month in new RMR and we still had 30 percent margin on those installs.” Contrary to the alarm com- pany model (where dealers spend money creating an account and recoup that investment over the course o f t h r e e Daniel Weiss years or so), Weiss points out that his RMR-build- ing plan has a “negative cre- ation model.” Weiss is the founder and former CEO of Infrastruct, a systems integrator with a focus on critical infrastruc- ture, based in Houston. Weiss is still an investor in the company, but stepped down from the top role in 2009. Infrastruct in April 2010 resurrected the name of a company it had merged with and rebranded as Dowley Security Systems. Weiss also is the founder of EPS, a commercial security company that was acquired by Tyco and became part of Sonitrol in 2000. Weiss came to ICS because its owners, Mike and Diane Jackson, were interested in redirecting the business model to focus on service and RMR. ICS has 30 employees and four offices (here, and in San Antonio, Houston and the South Texas Valley). Weiss said he liked the fact that “it’s a strong technical WEISS see page 17 Goldman invests anew Seven-year-old lending group likes the security space By Martha Entwistle ATLANTA—Goldman Sachs doesn’t have a security investment group, but three members of its seven-year-old Specialty Lending Group— managing director David Miller, director Greg Watts and VP Chris Semple—specialize in the security space. “It’s not a special division, but David Miller, Greg Watts and I see most of the alarm trans- actions and are familiar with a majority of the larger companies in the space,” Semple said. “We look at deals from the debt and equity perspective and have invested more than $300 million in the space to date,” he added. Goldman’s most recent investment in security was announced this week when it joined a group of lenders in a deal where ASG Security upped its line of credit to $230 million. Semple said he and Miller “started watching ASG when [Goldman] first got into the space. “We like Joe Nuccio and Ralph Masino. They have a really good track record and now it made sense for us to come in [on this deal]. We’re big fans of those guys; they’ve got a really nice business model.” Semple said Goldman likes the commercial and residential side of the business. “We like the visibility as well as the lack of volatility the long-term contracts provide GOLDMAN see page 17 Moon lands new credit line By Martha Entwistle PASCO, Wash.—Moon Security Services went to a new source, CapitalSource, to secure a $5 million three-year revolving line of credit. Mike Miller, VP of Moon Security, a full-ser- vice security company based here, told Security Systems News in early January that the loan will be used, in part, to refinance an existing loan. “We were also able to get an additional line of credit which we’ll use for work- ing capital and for future acquisitions,” he said. He added: “We don’t have any acquisitions in mind just yet, but it gives us flexibility moving forward.” A full-service security company that’s two-thirds commercial and one-third residential, Moon Security has been a family-run business since 1957. It has 120 employees, four branch offices and does work in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, parts of Montana and “onesie-twosies in Alaska,” Miller said. It has more than 5,000 accounts and a U.L.- listed central station. “We do a lot of camera work and a lot of fire,” Miller said. Moon installs 30 to 50 systems per month. Miller said an acquisition target would be a company within its geographic footprint with $5,000 to $50,000 in RMR. Mike Miller Bill Polk, managing director of securi- ty commercial finance for CapitalSource noted that Mike Miller is a past president of ESA and “runs a nice business in the Northwest. We like that he’s talented on a number of levels.” Polk said deals in the $1 to $10 million range are “an underserved part of the market. We have the bench to focus on it. We did a half dozen of these deals last year and we expect to do a lot more in 2011.” SSN De George ran a company called Alphamation Systems from 1984 until 1991. However, he said most of his large-scale integration experience came from working as a sales and marketing executive in the Northeast for companies such as Vikonics, Ensec, Pinkerton Systems Integration, Mosler. At the NYSE, he was respon- sible for all aspects of global tech- nical security, and was the primary security executive who worked with integrators on security proj- ects at all NYSE Euronext’s sites in North America and Europe His previous experience served him well “in the areas of cost negotiations, system selection and integration methodologies as well as the time and costs associ- ated with deployments,” he told Security Systems News. “Essentially, I was familiar with the integrator’s equipment costs and profit margins. That allowed me to accomplish frank and knowledgeable working relationships with the integrators that were used on the numerous NYSE Euronext projects.” It was also helpful, he said, that he was familiar with the problems that integrators face on large projects. “And I would always be willing to provide my input and under- standing if it was helpful to them,” he said. SSN From integrator to NYSE security executive to consultant By Martha Entwistle and Leischen Stelter NEW YORK—Over the course of his career, John De George has worked for security manu- facturers, as a systems integra- tor, as a security practitioner for the New York Stock Exchange, and on Jan. 17, De George made another career switch, joining consulting firm Ducibella Venter & Santore as principal and vice president of consulting. For a more robust version of stories in this section, see: WWW.SECURITYSYSTEMSNEWS.COM n BRIEFS ADT secures Houston housing BOCA RATON, Fla.—ADT Security Services on Jan. 31 announced that it has installed surveillance cameras and other security equipment to help pro- tect Kennedy Place Apartments, a new 108-unit public housing community built and managed by the Houston Housing Authority in Houston. The original 1982 Kennedy Place buildings were demolished in late 2009 to make way for a $11.5 million redevel- opment that features one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom units, and common area amenities. The project was partially funded by a $7.8 million federal stimulus grant. ADT installed 41 IP-based surveillance cameras to help monitor the develop- ment’s common areas and parking lots. Harris County Constables will monitor the data. ADT burglar alarm systems have been pre-installed in each unit and can be activated by the tenants. Kratos PSS gets $1.2 million deal SAN DIEGO—Kratos Defense & Security Solutions on Jan. 21 announced that its Public Safety & Security Division has been awarded a contract from a leading national digital infrastructure company to provide a range of physical security and surveillance products, solutions and services. Under the contract, Kratos will design, engineer and deploy a state-of-the-art surveillance and security system includ- ing access control with biometrics, smart cards, extensive interior and exte- rior IP-based CCTV, alarm monitoring, photo ID and biometric enrollment, and a fiber-optic system. The effort is part of a large, critical infrastructure facility construction project that requires com- prehensive security and surveillance services. SIA report: Business confidence is high ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Business confidence among members of the security industry remained high going into 2011, accord- ing to the Security Industry Association’s Quarterly Research Update, which was released in February. SIA reported that its Business Confidence Index, a survey of 100 CEOs, presidents and other top execu- tives at manufacturing companies that are members of SIA, registered a 74.9 (out of 100) in the fourth quarter of 2010, slightly higher than the third quarter’s 74 and much better than the 59 of a year earlier. As recently as the fourth quarter of 2008, the index was in the low 40s.