Home Article Meet SSN's '20 under 40' Integrator Class of 2017

Meet SSN's '20 under 40' Integrator Class of 2017

Meet SSN's '20 under 40' Integrator Class of 2017 Winners highlight the ability to help others and the benefits of including experience from outside of the security industry

20 Under 40

By Spencer Ives

Updated Wed October 4, 2017

YARMOUTH, Maine—Every year Security Systems News receives a great list of nominations for its “20 under 40” awards and we are proud to announce this year's integrator winners.

The “20 under 40” Integrator Class of 2017 is full of outstanding young professionals that are really showing a passion for the industry and helping people.

Several of this year's honorees discussed how rewarding a career in the industry is, with the benefit of making a positive impact in someone's life. Additional, a couple of this year's winners mentioned a benefit of bringing in outside experience.

Rusty Fouse, central region field operations manager for MONI Smart Security highlighted this aspect. “For me, I really enjoy the fact that we really make an impact on people's lives, and what we do � can impact them in the time of an emergency and a time of need,” he said.

“It really pushes me � to make sure that we're all focused on the big picture of protecting people and their property and really pushing my team to � gravitate toward that same line of thinking,” said Fouse.

Dan Eller, Tennessee operations manager for COPS Monitoring, said, “I like that I get to help people every day. I truly feel like I'm making a difference in multiple people's lives every day when I come to work, and [also] training others to do the same thing.”

Ben Scott, ADS Security's SVP, East region, mentioned that he likes having a positive impact on people inside of the industry.

“I really love being in the branches, helping our managers grow, become better financial managers—obviously—but watching them become leaders,” Scott said. “I would say that has been my primary focus for the last year and a half � teaching and training the general managers and branch managers how to become leaders in our company and in our industry.”

Two winners noted on the benefit of bringing outside experience into the industry. Joe Young, senior director of cloud and enterprise solutions at G4S, worked outside of the industry in an engineering team for an IT MSP organization for a few years.

“Leaving the security space and then coming back was probably one of the best things that happened. It gave me the ability to have a fresh look at things from the IT perspective,” he said. “Coming back to the physical security space, I was able to take all of the best practices around Cyber, ITIL & ITSM that I learned from the IT side and make them a part of our offerings in the physical security space.”

Alexandra Curtiss, VP of Alarm New England, noted that her entire team is from outside of the industry. Curtiss herself left the family business to work outside of the industry before returning in 2015.

“I worked for a couple of really cool companies, learning about a data-driven, metrics-orientated sales organization and what a world-class software tech support organization looks like as well as how to do marketing,” Curtiss said. “So I brought some of those ideas back to the family security business. I came back specifically to integrate smart home automation, build an inside sales organization, an inbound marketing funnel and digital marketing program, a DIY installation process and a stellar tech support organization.”

SSN is very happy to recognize every winner in this year's class and will honor all of its “20 under 40” honorees at a special reception during its TechSec Solutions conference, an event focused on new and emerging technologies in the physical security space. TechSec will be held in Delray Beach, Fla., Feb. 26 and 27, 2018.

SSN will be announcing another 20 noteworthy professionals with its “20 under 40” End User Class of 2017 next month.

Below is the list of our "20 under 40" Class of 2017 Integrator winners and their companies:

Steven Alter, Dynamark Monitoring

David Beckett, Security Grade Protective Services Ltd.

Heather Berg, Securitas ES

Caroline Brown, Security Central

Alexandra Curtiss, Alarm New England

Dan Eller, COPS Monitoring

Breck Ellison, Gallaher & Associates

Rusty Fouse, MONI Smart Security

Brandon Freedman, Wayne Alarm Systems

Ryan Fritts, ADT