Welcome to February, the month of romance. Come on guys, let’s not be forgetting Valentine’s Day. You have been reminded, so no excuses now.
Let me start this month’s gossip by asking you to join me in congratulating our own Ryan Lunn. He has just been promoted to sales manager for us which means he will be working closer with me on more of those accounts of ours. Ryan joined Professional Security some six or seven years ago and my how he has changed, when he first joined me he was young single and living with mum and dad, but now he is in a serious relationship, he has bought a new house, has a son called Louis, and a dog called Dolly. Yep I did say Dolly, not that I expect any of you to repeat that to him. Yes they do dress the white Bichon Frise up. His house looks like a Next showroom, well that’s because everything in there has come from Next. Anyway, well done Ryan.
Hot to trot gossip for you, you will not know but Simon Nash has returned to Pelco. Simon left Pelco in 2005, to join Sony, where he was until recently. However you will not know that Simon started in our industry in 1988 where he was working for Panasonic for some 13 years. He is now working with Phil Tennent in the European arena.
Some of you may be wondering where Tony Yang of Hikvision has gone, well he has been asked to manage the Latin American division, as he has done such a great job for Europe. As a result Jason Yang, (no relation) has taken over the role of general manager. At the same time Mike Tolley has been promoted to the UK Pre-sales Director. The company has also recently recruited Steve Dobby; you may recall that Steve was at Bosch for nearly six years and before that was with Derwent for more than 12 years; they were acquired by Bosch as you may remember.
Now let’s talk about for a minute about that fast growing distributor in Wales, DVS. It seems they have just taken on Paul Jones from the network recorder company, Nuuo. Before that Paul was with distributor Norbain. Paul also spent some time working as a technical support engineer for Dedicated Micros. Remember them?
Now you can never keep a good man down, as you will know; and Yash Patel is just one of those guys. It seems that he has entered into a collaboration with Icomply, the control room management software company. What does that mean? Well ‘Mr JVC’ or ‘Mr CCTV’ is a true gentleman, and has done a great deal for the security industry in the quarter of a century that he has worked in it. (He’s still a baby compared to my 43 years.) In the last few years much of his time has been focused in developing business in India and this is where he’ll be helping icomply gain a stronger foothold in the market.
SSAIB the 20-year-old fire, security and telecare certification body, has appointed its new Chief Executive. Alex Carmichael, pictured, is taking over from Geoff Tate, who announced last summer that he was stepping down as CEO after 16 years. Alex Carmichael is joining the inspectorate from the security industry trade body the BSIA, where he’s Director of Technical Services and Exports. At the Worcester-based BSIA he’s been coordinating technical and quality matters. Alex’s duties on various UK and European committees, his technical background and working relationships with industry bodies, provides him with the credentials, the inspectorate says.
In brief
At Unipart Security Solutions, Johan Gerber, pictured, is joining the sales team of the company. He has 20 years of experience within the security industry, within the security systems and the guarding sectors. The Wirral-based IP installer, NW Systems, has opened a new London office. Robert Kidd will be office manager of the new office as well as sales manager for the South of England. NW Systems plans to recruit four more people to staff this new office during 2015. And Security Solutions, a division of ASSA ABLOY UK, has appointed Allan Henry as Commercial Manager. Overseeing brands including UNION, ASSA, Adams Rite and Trimec, Allan will be joining the dedicated Security Solutions trade team, dealing with distributors and wholesalers.
