I’m boxing clever, but no winner
Happy Halloween. Yep; the Olympics have finished as have the summer holidays, the kids are back at school, the nights are drawing in. It’s a long, hard slog to Christmas and the time where everyone makes their job moves, so who are they?!
Here is an update on Norbain, as I have been telling you about ever since that news of them going into and out of administration on July 2. OK, it would appear that Barry Shakespeare (MD), Huw Edwards (Marketing Director) and Victoria Bori (HR) all went last month. Andy Coles, one of the tallest men in our industry, has joined Frontline Security Solutions as their sales and marketing manager. They’re the privately owned installers based at Chalfont St Peter. I cannot tell you much about Chalfont St Peter except that it is in Buckinghamshire, but this time last year I was a guest of Frontline and Tyco Security Products at Claridge’s in London’s Mayfair. Frontline director Peter Goodenough gave a good speech – so good in fact I have stolen some of it, since! And did you know that when you go to Claridge’s now you get an iPad to order your food from. But you don’t get to keep the iPad, unfortunately.
Supplier
You may recall that Liz Kenward who also left Norbain, some time ago, is at Frontline too. Did I ever say, she is married to Dave Petrook of DVTel? I have now. Also I hear that Heather Constantine has joined Tyco Fire and Integrated as National Account Director; and that Chris Webster has joined the BDI Holding group as Commercial Director. As for Norbain’s suppliers, it seems BC Technology who are the UK distributors of Aiphone have decided they will drop Norbain as one of their distributors and will sell their products through (take a deep breath to read on): ADI Gardiner, Advanced Access, Pro-vision Distribution, Enterprise Security Distribution, Alarm Supplies, Safelink Services. Niche Security Solutions, Lightstream Technology, Northwood Technology, and Beacon Communications. Plenty there to choose from!?
Distributor joiner
Talking distributors, Claire Stead, has joined the Leeds-based distributors CCTV Direct as Marketing Manager; and above is a photo of Paul Dodds, the new Sales Director who I told you of last month.
Open day
I went to to an open day at Kempton Park run by the guys at ezCCTV.com. The CCTV event was run by them I mean, not the Surrey racecourse. Seems they have become an official distributor of Hikvision products. Tony Yang of HIK was very excited about the new collaboration. After some presentations, the distributor gave out some awards to the best IP integrator and the best installer. More about these next month. After the presentations we were off racing in the Royal Box. It sounds nice; it would have been better if I could have backed a winner!
Mobile in NW
ACSS – Advanced Communications and Security Solutions, the mobile CCTV company, appointed Jeff Berg to a new post; business development manager for the north west.
IQinVision
To other gossip. In the US, Sony has acquired the chipset maker Pixim. Alex Dooduyn has joined IQinVision as their Director of Product Marketing, you may recall Alex moved to America from Wales some years ago to work for Rainbow. He left, and joined Pelco for a while and was recently director of product management at Intransa.
Guard firm recruits
The Middlesex-based SIA approved contractor Systematic Security has been recruiting. Alan Barrett, Business Development Manager, covers London and the South East. Rosemaria Addis is Telesales Executive. Maheesha Ukwatta is Office Manager. All three report to Nobel Sampson, Commercial Director and are based in Greenford.
Engineer
Samsung has added to its technical support with Farooq Hejazi as Field Service and Test Engineer. Farooq has worked within the electronic security industry for nine years. Earlier he was the Products Evaluations Engineer for Norbain and he has had development engineering roles for MoD contracting companies. And look, that brings me back to where we started!
In memory
Sadly I heard last month that we have lost some members of our security world. Andy Blair unexpectedly passed away in September and those that knew him would no doubt remember him as a lively and well-liked contributor to the word of manned guarding. Andy started his working life with the Royal Navy, where he spent 18 years, before joining the guarding sector with Initial Security where he worked in senior management for 14 years. Andy leaves his wife Gina and son Jack. And Alan Townsend the former chairman of Banknote Watch and former Met Police Flying Squad man lost his fight against cancer and died at home on September 1. Alan did a lot of work in recent years on ATM crime. Our thoughts go out to their family and friends. P
