'20 under 40' Class of 2015 winners show drive and enthusiasm

YARMOUTH, Maine—We are happy to present the “20 under 40” Integrators Class of 2015. See the list and links below: It's another great class of talented young people. This is the eighth year we've profiled up-and-coming professionals in the security industry and it remains one of our favorite projects here at Security Systems News.

As we interview the winners and write the profiles, we discover that each class has its own personality. The Class of '15 is characterized by exceptional drive and enthusiasm for the future of the industry. These folks love what they do, and they're excited about what the next decade will bring.

Comprised of 17 men and three women ranging in age from 26 to 40, this class has the fewest number of women that we've had since 2007.

In terms of industry sector, the winners are pretty evenly spread among residential-small business installers, commercial and systems integrators and people who work for monitoring companies.

Three of the honorees served in the military—two in the Navy and one in the Air Force.

I'm always interested to see how many legacy winners there are. By legacy, I mean people who were born into the industry and work for the family business. This year we have three legacy honorees.

However, we have three others, who do not work for their family's business, but have family connections to security. Matt Vellek and Shawn Crocker both have family members who work for security companies.

As in years past, several winners told us they came to security via IT. As usual, the folks who came from IT were pleasantly surprised to see the cool things the security industry is doing with IP-based technology and integration.

Joe Cestra has a family connection and also came from IT. After college he helped his mother do some work at a central station she owned. In doing so, he realized how valuable his IT knowledge could be to a security company. Today he's the director of technology for World Wide Security.

Rob Simopoulos is the only one who has a degree in security. Drawn in by “spy cameras,” Simopoulos was doing high-level integration projects as an intern before he graduated from college. Simopoulos believes it would be “stellar” if we get to the point that people are getting security degrees in college.

We agree with Rob.

If you'd like to meet some of these talented young people, they'll be honored at our new and emerging technology conference,�TechSec Solutions, Feb. 2-3 in Delray Beach, Fla. Below are this year's honrees:

Holly Borgmann, ADT

Ben Brookhart, Power Home Technologies

Joe Cestra, World Wide Security Group

Andy Chambers, Tech Systems Inc.

Matt Cooper, Protection 1

Shawn Crocker, Wayne Alarm Systems

Brian Duffy, Per Mar Security

Brian Fabiano, Alliance Security

Brent Van Haren, SecurAlarm Systems

Corey Hendrix, Femac Security Solutions

Barbara Holliday, Monitronics

Henry Hoyne, Northland Control Systems

Josh Long, Diebold Security

Adam Matlin, Think Protection

Jake Mrkvicka, Affiliated Monitoring

Scott Ranger, CONTAVA

Rob Simopoulos, Advance Technology

Nicole Swartwout, CallTeks Security

Berkly Trumbo, G4S Secure Integration

Matt Vellek, Security Equipment Inc.

Security Systems News�will also profile its end user class of “20 under 40” winners next month.