NEXgeneration picks up National Guardian pieces, goes national

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—NEXgeneration Central went through a sizeable growth spurt recently, more than doubling in size by accounts and expanding its footprint from the New England market to nationwide.

NEXgeneration general manager Matt Bergeron said the growth—resulting from an acquisition of mixed resi and commercial accounts from Richardson, Texas-based National Guardian—was a bit of a shock to the daily work of doing business at NEXgeneration, but that the company took it all in stride. “Up until January of '09, National Guardian had an office in Queens, New York, and one in Texas and they worked out a deal with us where they transferred all their accounts to us. A lot of accounts went to Stanley, too, but a lot went to us … So we went from 65 dealers to maybe 200. We were mostly Rhode Island and Massachusetts and Connecticut. But with this we went national and we had to get all our licensing,” Bergeron said. “At the time I was ready to have a breakdown. There were quite a few lines to transfer, too. But we managed to get it all done.”

NEXgeneration Central is a UL-listed, FM-approved, CSAA Five Diamond certified central monitoring station that performs wholesale monitoring exclusively. They've been in operation since 1990. Bergeron said NEXgeneration's account mix was probably 80/20 resi/commercial prior to the acquisition but that it was a pretty even mix now.

In attendance at the Northeast Security & Systems Contractors Expo in Marlborough, Mass., in May and the ESX show in Pittsburgh in June, Bergeron was excited for the future. “All the dealers that we took on here love us. They're all happy … We had to hire additional staff in order to handle this … So it's worked out well for everybody,” Bergeron said, noting his hope was to continue growing while keeping his small company feel. “We were at ESX this year to just scope it out, but we'll definitely be exhibiting next year. We have a lot of clients down that way, down in North Carolina, Virginia.”