“40 under 40” Class of 2019 — Andrew Morales, 38

Andrew Morales was introduced to the security industry in 1999, when a good friend of the family gave him the chance to serve as a security officer at the Tiffany & Company flagship store in New York City. “I liked working with the employees and teaming up with management to ensure employee safety while also protecting the company's assets by following and understanding the policies, procedures and processes in place,” Morales said.

After his first year, Morales moved into a lead position, assisted in the day-to-day operations and was exposed to the technology side of security. “I've always had a natural act for understanding how software and hardware interact, and how to extract data to identify patterns.”� Fast forward to today, Morales' role is demanding but fulfilling. “My core responsibility is to maintain a forever-changing Technology and Guidelines spec for the physical security program here at Cargill, globally,” he said. “I do this by partnering with our security vendors and manufacturers and also by benchmarking with other local companies. My other responsibilities include project management, system design and physical security site assessments.”

Trending within the industry, according to Morales, is facial recognition, people counting and heat mapping as he sees more and more manufacturers deploying these analytics at the edge. He predicts in the next five to 10 years, the majority of all analytics produced will be offered at the edge and in the cloud.� To engage more talented, diverse, young people, “I think it would be beneficial for a person to see how a corporate security department develops their strategy and how we rely on the standards and guidelines we build to be successful, while staying in line with our company's overall strategy.”

Morales identifies machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) as technology that is promising to the security industry. “I can see one day where the end user will be able to access a configuration wizard on a device and setup complex analytics to fit their business needs.”