Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/31501
40 RESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS www.securitysystemsnews.com APRIL 2011 SECURITY SYSTEMS NEWS Hawkeye joins Heartland to expand offerings By Daniel Gelinas CRESCO, Iowa—Heartland Security Services—a cooperative of rural electric companies that provide traditional, agricultural and medi- cal security services—on Feb. 22 announced another rural electric cooperative, or REC, had bought into the company, increasing each entity’s footprint and services. Hawkeye REC now owns one share of Heartland and joins a list of 13 other RECs that comprise the company. Hawkeye will bring its FirstCall medical alarm monitoring and service business to the table and increase Heartland’s presence in Western and Southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa. “We’re a traditional security com- pany. We offer everything from medi- cal alarms to large commercial access control, CCTV, fire ... In 1999, nine rural electric cooperatives partnered to create Heartland Security and offer new services to their customers and their geographical areas. Rural electric cooperatives formed over 75 years ago so rural consumers could get electricity out to their farms, homes and businesses,” said Heartland GM Guy Adams. “That’s Hawkeye’s core business, but they saw an interest from their custom- ers to offer more services, so they bought into ownership of Heartland ... So we’re gaining the medical monitoring from them and offering their customers other services they don’t have, like home security, busi- ness security, card access cameras, (and) agricultural systems.” Hawkeye CEO Brian Krambeer said the partnership is a good fit. “Heartland Security is a way for Hawkeye REC to bring another valuable service to our area at a fair price. There is a real need to provide a low cost security solution,” he said in a release. SSN Pinnacle Continued from page 1 thousands of Utah jobs and helps families across the country protect their homes, businesses and families,” said Kelly Walker, Pinnacle CEO, in the release. “We are proud of our industry and are creating this association to establish standards and practices that will further build consumer confidence, protect the industry and enable its growth.” The association’s membership is expected to be finalized by the end of the year. Knapp said founding members, in addition to Pinnacle, include Utah companies Silverline Security and Vision Security. Knapp said the new group welcomes any companies “will- ing to live by the standards of the association.” The company said that the association’s core values include establishing best practices, operat- ing ethically and coming together “to promote the positive aspects of our industry and establish its professional nature.” SSN CSG Continued from page 36 ago to 140,000 customers now,” Albers said. When Summit came in, he said, “they looked us over and they said: ‘There’s two ways we can grow this thing even bigger, and that’s to grow the dealer program and add additional technology.’” Albers said CSG has about 200 dealers but wants to add more. CSG also has hired Jackie Schmidt as director of dealer development. Schmidt, an indus- try veteran who most recently was a dealer account executive for Broadview/ADT, will “make sure the dealers we have are happy, and also to recruit new dealers into the program,” Albers said. He said that CSG’s dealer pro- gram stands out. “We’ve branded the dealer program ‘Fair & Square’ because that’s what it is,” Albers said. He said that among benefits are cash up front for new accounts with no holdbacks, weekly fund- ing and multiples of up to 36 times, non-exclusivity, a three-pay- ment guarantee, and equipment discounts. SSN