Pelco

ISC West is the Security Industry Association's annual conference. As such, its purpose is to give manufacturers the opportunity to show off their latest and greatest security technology to integrators, specifiers and potential manufacturing partners.

As you can imagine, it's a bit overwhelming and the majority of attendants were not end users. However, during my three days on the show floor in Las Vegas I was able to meet and interview several security professionals who were attending the show. In my previous blog post that recapped my first day, I mentioned interviews with Peter Miller, CSO of Florida’s Orange County Government; Linda Florence, dean of the doctorate program in strategic security at Henley-Putnam University and a long-time member of ASIS International’s volunteer leadership; Bryan Warren, senior security manager at Carolinas Healthcare System and newly minted president of the International Association of Healthcare Security & Safety; and Pablo Antonio Sanchez Urbina, security director for 10 prisons and the state police department in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

But before I get to the details about my second and third days at the show, I must mention the event that took place the morning of the second day: the Security 5K. The three-mile road race (there was also a 2K walk) attracted more than 350 runners to raise money for Mission 500, a non-profit that works with World Vision to feed needy children around the globe. The event ultimately raised $85,000, which will be used to sponsor nearly 300 children. (Security Director News and Security Systems News are sponsors of the race.) It's been a while since I ran a road race, but I was pleased with my performance. I placed 45^th overall with a time of 23:22.

During my second and third days at the show, I was able to catch up with a few additional end users in our media studio. On Thursday, I spoke with Mike Howard, CSO of Microsoft, about how security managers should demonstrate their value to the C-Suite and use social media to spread that message. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeHowardMSGS. I also spoke with Lauris Freidenfelds, director of security and emergency management for Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, about a newly completed construction project and the importance of including security in the early design discussions.

I also had a chance to visit several companies' booths. I heard the latest about CheckVideo's Ruggedized Outdoor Mobile Sentry (dubbed the CMS4000), which is a self-contained, cloud-based, wireless video surveillance solution that only requires power be added to provide remote video monitoring capabilities, from company CEO John Estrada. Estrada told me CheckVideo is experiencing as much as 25 percent increases in sales month over month.

Mark Jarman, president of Inovonics, told me about Radius, the company's enterprise mobile duress system. The product, which was originally introduced at the ASIS show in October 2010, has applications across markets, but Inovonics for now is targeting the healthcare industry. Jarman also stressed his company's commitment to supporting the open standards trumpeted by the Physical Security Interoperability Alliance. Though the company's not ready to make any announcements or offer any details, he told me that Inovonics has developed a product in complete accordance with PSIA open standards. "We're walking the walk," he said.

I heard the from Verint about the facial recognition software it's beta testing and its new, all-weather 5-megapixel cameras. I also saw new cameras from Pelco and JVC. The latter is introducing 18 new cameras this year, including several analog cameras, which John Grabowski, JVC's national sales and marketing specialist, was not shy about admitting are still the company's "bread and butter."

I saw a demonstration of IDV Solutions' Visual Command Center. The demo was actually given by a shift manager of Microsoft's GSOC in Redmond, Wash., which uses the platform to monitor its facilities across the globe.

Over at the VidSys booth, I was able to get a demo of the PSIM provider's new collaboration with Bridgeborn to integrate 3D modeling into its software. Another big partnership VidSys recently announced was with BRS Labs to integrate its behavioral analytics software into its PSIM software.

For more updates from ISC West, check out the blogs from Security Systems News' team, who were blogging throughout the event: Martha Entwistle's On the Editor's Desk; Rich Miller's Monitor This!; and Tess Nacelewicz's This Blogs on Fire.

The interface I create my blog with has been acting funny all this week — so I apologize about the infrequent postings.

Anyway, yesterday the news about Dean Meyer joining Pelco became final. Dean was named COO of Pelco and will report to David McDonald. (My sources originally told me McDonald was stepping down. Where were they getting their information?)
Dean spent seven years as president of TAC Americas, where he grew the business five fold to its current $500 million annual volume level.

So who is replacing Dean? That would be Jeff Drees, who is now president of TAC in the Americas region and executive vice president of TAC worldwide. Drees joined TAC in 2001 and has served in the Partner, Energy Solutions and Systems Integration divisions.

Two companies are making changes to executive management. One is official, and one isn't — yet.
I'll start with the rumor first. TAC president Dean Meyer is rumored to be taking over the reins of Pelco from David McDonald, president, CEO and part-owner of the video surveillance company. Schneider Electric finalized its $1.54-billion
purchase of Pelco last week. My sources say an announcement regarding changes at TAC/Pelco is coming soon, but the company is not commenting on any rumors at this point. I'll post additional information as it is made available.
Secondly, Bosch Security officially appointed Chris Gerace president of Bosch Security Systems in North America. Gerace has served as acting president since the company's former leader Shamus Hurley stepped down in July 2007. Hurley left Bosch for a post as chief executive officer and president of Kinetico, a manufacturer of water treatment systems.