JMG Security Systems Partners Feeling Secure : Contract for Anaheim Arena is won by small company in competition with 4 of industry’s biggest competitors.
This is a David-and-Goliath story about a company that just won a contract over four competitors, each about 100 times its size.
“When we finally got the call, we did high-fives around the office,” said Ken Jacobs, president of JMG Security Systems in Fountain Valley. His $1.2-million-a-year, 11-person company will be installing the alarms and cameras and other surveillance equipment at Anaheim Arena.
Brad Mayne, general manager of the arena, said the job is worth around $100,000. JMG was the low bidder, he said, but that was not necessarily what sold him on the firm.
“We checked their references,” he said. “It was their attention to service with the people they had contracts with that impressed me.”
JMG’s customers include Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park and many of Southern California’s El Torito restaurants, HomeBase stores, FHP International offices and Stroud’s linen outlets.
The security company’s competition included four of the biggest names in the business: Honeywell Inc., ADT Security Systems, API Alarm Systems and Wells Fargo Alarm Services.
One strategy Jacobs used to win the contract was to bring representatives from Panasonic and Radionics, who supply JMG’s equipment, to meetings with Anaheim Arena officials. “What we were trying to demonstrate was that even though we are a much, much smaller company, we have the support of the manufacturers behind us,” Jacobs said.
JMG also started small: It applied for and won the contract to secure the construction trailers at the arena, which is scheduled to open next fall.
The 19,000-seat arena--the largest facility of its kind in California--will be a new challenge for Jacobs and his partner, Mike Christensen. Christensen is in charge of installation and service, while Jacobs handles sales.
For starters, arena security officers need to be able to identify unruly hockey fans who, say, throw something out onto the ice. So, JMG will install indoor cameras that zoom in and record color images for security guards so they can escort the fan out of the Arena.
What’s more, the arena’s management wants cameras that can do the same in the dim light of a rock concert.
The other challenge to the job, Christensen said, is that JMG’s wiring and camera installation must coordinate with the many tradespeople who are laying electrical wires, building walls and painting. Other than that, he said, big jobs such as the arena break themselves down into a series of small systems. And that, they know how to do.
JMG has installed residential surveillance systems for about 400 homes in Southern California. They are a mid-priced installer in this market, Jacobs said, charging an average $1,500 to $2,000.
The company monitors home and commercial alarms from a facility in Santa Ana. Residential customers pay $25 a month for the service. About 50% to 60% of the company’s revenue each year comes from monitoring services, which helps insulate them from the recession: If people aren’t buying new systems, at least they usually pay for those that already are in place.
Before they went into business together in 1987, Jacobs and Christensen worked 18 years for API. They started with the company within months of each other, Jacobs as a salesman and Christensen as an assistant installations manager. Each worked his way up the ladder in his separate division, and both became vice presidents on the same day.
They became best friends and now have children who are about the same ages.
And they both became disenchanted, at about the same time, with working for a large company. “My day was reading office memos and throwing them in the garbage, then attending meetings,” Christensen said. “Nothing happened, and I did not feel at the end of the day that I had accomplished anything.”
They left API with their sights on building a company that would become just as big. But that changed, gradually. The first decision that started them on the path to staying small was ruling out outside investors or going into debt.
They also agreed that they liked the hands-on work of a small company. Jacobs makes sales calls, still, and Christensen responds to customer complaints.
And there were personal considerations.
“We’re both family men, and we knew, coming from the other side, that those things get sacrificed” when a company grows too fast, Jacobs said. “We’re both approaching our middle 40s, and we realized we don’t need to be corporate giants.”
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