Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/31490
MARKET TRENDS Making a profit on video jobs Are the margins just too skinny? SEE PAGE 17 SPECIAL REPORT Seeking capital in 2011? Polk, Mack, Wooster talk availability PAGE 27 OWN THE NIGHT. See Our New Intensifier3™ Cameras On Page 7. VOLUME 14, NUMBER 1 JANUARY 2011 n $7.00 COMMERCIAL & SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS n n Diebold woos Henry Brothers, but Kratos wins out PAGE 15 Vector aims to grow national accounts business PAGE 15 FIRE SYSTEMS INSTALLATION n n Super-regional says new sprinkler biz will add RMR PAGE 20 Dynamite growth for Florida fire company PAGE 20 MONITORING n n Training monitoring employees to think and act like guards PAGE 22 Central station licensing flap ongoing in New York state PAGE 22 RESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS n n ADT sues Pinnacle Security over sales tactics PAGE 28 Judge finds McGinn in contempt of court PAGE 28 SUPPLIERS n Tri-Ed/ Northern buys in Texas PAGE 31 n Visonic revamps in North America with new staff, and new PowerG PAGE 31 STATS ........................................2 NEWS ........................................6 EDITORIAL ..............................12 GUEST COMMENTARY ............14 MARKET TRENDS ...................17 SPECIAL REPORT ...................27 QUOTED ..................................33 AD INDEX ................................33 www.securitysystemsnews.com C.O.P.S. to open fourth Summer-model experiment Select Security recruits students from Utah, and gives door-to-door a try in Pennsylvania central in Nashville n By Daniel Gelinas WILLIAMSTOWN, N.J.—C.O.P.S. Monitoring on Nov. 29 announced plans to expand from three cen- tral stations to four, adding a Tennessee center to its three existing locations in New Jersey, Florida and Arizona. It’s a move that gives the company an advan- Guest Commentary: IMS analyst on IP training SEE PAGE 14 tage, according to C.O.P.S. director of marketing and communications David Smith. “Many independent alarm deal- ers are uncomfortable with a single ‘mega-center’ located thousands of miles from their customers,” Smith said. “It seems that everyone is trying to consolidate to control costs. However, we feel expanding our presence in regional markets differentiates us by better sup- porting those dealers who prefer more local and personable levels of service.” The new center is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2011. The 4,100 square-foot facility will run live with C.O.P.S.’ three other central stations to perform active load-sharing of the company’s alarm traffic. Following in the footsteps of its Arizona central, the new center will be UL-listed and will operate 24/7/365. COPS see page 25 By Tess Nacelewicz LANCASTER, Pa.—Select Security, a super-regional based here that was facing competition from big national summer-model com- panies, tried an experiment this past summer doing what the big boys do. Tired of seeing out-of-state companies bring in their college- student summer sales staff to sell alarm systems in his backyard, Select Security owner Patrick Egan went to Utah, where most of the summer model companies are based. There, he recruited his own sales staff of college students to go door-knocking for him from June 15 to Aug. 15 on Select Security’s home turf. Overall, the eight-week experi- ment was so successful that he’s planning to replicate it in the summer of 2011—with even more salespeople, Egan said. “It worked and we’re doing it again,” he told Security Systems News in a recent interview. The experiment did have some drawbacks, Egan admitted. Among them, he said, was “the sales drama.” For example, he not only had to find housing for his young eight- member sales staff and help them move in, but had to referee room- Patrick Egan mate squabbles when a couple of them announced they didn’t want to live together. Egan also lost two saleswomen when they went to a Mormon church in Philadelphia one Sunday—and got recruited by another company. “They spent the rest of the summer selling for SUMMER MODEL see page 29 ASG goes to Oklahoma Nuccio will use TnT as platform for commercial, gov’t work By Martha Entwistle TULSA, Okla.—ASG CEO Joe Nuccio said his latest acquisition, announced Dec. 3, of TnT Security is “like the Southwest Airlines of alarm companies.” “I’ve looked at a lot of com- panies over the years, and this is among the top 10 in terms of how well it was built, its effi- ciency, strategy, and the extreme loyalty of its customers to the brand,” Nuccio told Security Systems News. TnT, which is 80 percent resi- dential right now, has con- centrated on “one panel, one type of ser- vice,” Nuccio said. This strat- egy has worked extremely well, noted Ralph Masino, ASG CFO. “They’ve had Joe Nuccio a 30-percent CAGR since 2006,” he said. It has 60 employees; more than 15,000 accounts; and two offices, a headquarters here and a branch in Oklahoma City. Nuccio said he plans to continue to grow the company’s resi busi- ness, but he also considers TnT a perfect platform to launch ASG’s security offerings to large commer- cial and government entities. ASG see page 16 Mace: Pure play security in 2011 Mace sells digital media biz for $1.1 million, settles with ex-CEO By Martha Entwistle HORSHAM, Pa.—Mace CEO Dennis Raefield has steered clear of the speaker circuit in the past two years as he’s concentrated on resolving some of Mace’s well- publicized problems. With most of those headaches behind him now, and solid indications that the company is getting “very close to the break-even stage,” Raefield had plans to speak at the Imperial Capital Security investor con- ference. “Now I’m Dennis Raefield going to start getting out in the public mar- ket and making the Mace name better known, because now we, theoretically, have gotten most of these issues behind us,” he said. Indeed, Raefield had lots of good news to report in his Q3 earnings call with the exception of one new headache, a lawsuit filed in Vermont. In November, the Vermont U.S. Attorney charged Mace and John MACE see page 32