By L. Samuel Pfeifle, editor
CAMP HILL, Pa.—Despite the downturn in the construction industry, or maybe because of it, securing job sites continues to be an attractive sales opportunity for integrators. This week, C&C Security Systems, based here, announced a new portable security system for job sites, called JeSS, which offers access control, time and attendance, video surveillance with up to eight or 16 cameras, fire detection and intrusion protection in one package. The company is selling the product in Pennsylvania,
Delaware and West
Virginia currently, and will be looking for dealer partners to cover the rest of the United States and Canada.
Last year alone, integrators ASAP Security, Unilux, and HowTec Video Security Systems all released portable video systems for construction job sites. JeSS goes a step further, said president Steve Chianos, by incorporating access control and time and attendance, so that the system has helpful reporting features and serves as a security system.
he’s optimistic ab
“We’re trying to provide a comprehensive solution,” Chianos said. “They can use it to do their payroll, they can monitor when subcontractors arrived on the site, they can access the DVR from home to see what’s going on. And at night we have an intrusion detection system that will call you with a cell phone dialer or you can have it call the police.”
C&C does all the assembly in house, with eight total employees, but is exploring an outsourcing option for when sales increase. Chianos said the insurance savings alone for construction companies could pay for the system, so out sales. In the future,
“I want to develop this into something that’s almost like a command center, which could house the security equipment, but double as a staff office, with the ability to monitor multiple job sites, pull up plans on the monitors and keep track of everything.”
C&C was founded in 2005 and works primarily in the municipal, commercial and industrial space. SSN
security products (video data-mining, access control multiplexers) that weren’t readily available in those days. Guagenti and two silent partners acquired the company in 2001. “We kept away from making products and focused on adding business acumen and discipline on the finance and business side of the organization. We developed the organization as far as we could take it,” he said. “With the advent of the ASG acquisition, we want to go to the next level, and we’re certain we will.”
“Their business model is a perfect fit for us,” he said. “We are a security integrator with high skills in access and video, but we haven’t had the fire and security component before, [nor] the bonding capacity necessary for some of the larger projects. ASG will bring that and the fire and security,” he said.
The day-to-day experience for Controlled Access employees won’t change much. Guagenti said he’ll be focusing more on the growth of the business from a sales perspective and there will be more opportunities for Controlled Access employees. “They’ll be working in a larger organization with multiple sites. The cream rises to the top and [top performers] will have more opportunity for growth. From a legacy standpoint, they’re already being treated as a part of the family and that’s how I hoped it would happen.” SSN
send that out to market for bid, certify them, make sure they’re competent, and then commission the project.”
Falkenberg said infrared technology has become particularly useful and reasonably priced lately, though the cameras can be difficult to make fit a high-end home’s architecture and look. “They’re putting millions into museum-quality design,” he said, “and so we can’t just run with commercial security equipment, even though we need commercial-level performance.”
This is just one of many difficulties unique to high-wealth homes. Considering the size of many of these homes’ staffs, “how do you maintain even basic physical security?” Falkenberg posits. “We have to use selective zoning on different entrances, keeping back or side entrances on a 24-hour zone.” Many times, however, a resident will turn the system off completely when home, but “it’s a 10,000- square-foot home,” Falkenberg said, “there’s no way someone can hear a break in on the other side of the house.”
However, these are problems that need solving more and more often, as “there’s an enhanced feeling of vulnerability” now.
And Falkenberg predicted it would only get worse. “There’s a concern about kidnapping,” he said, something that’s a problem for the wealthy in South and Latin America, but has not been a problem in the United States. SSN
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