From people to technology
By L. Samuel Pfeifle
Updated Wed February 1, 2006
SAN ANTONIO--Now that Julie Smith Nelson has sold her guarding firm, Smith Legacy Security, to Initial Security, what's next? Installation and manufacturing, through her seven-year-old company SLS Systems.
"I always had a installation arm running parallel to the guarding," Nelson said, and she's launching a new product that she's developed after years of working with guards. Called the Interactor, "it's a time-keeping and security-officer tracking product," Nelson said, "a tech-advanced solution to the old guard tour system." It's a wireless, weather-proof biometric product, a real-time tracking device to make sure that officers are making their inspections. It will provide electronic reporting for the customer and guard company both.
The Interactor will be manufactured overseas, and Nelson unveiled the product at the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, in early Jan. "I know the historical challenges of knowing where your guards are," said Nelson.
Does Nelson regret getting out of the guard business, in which her family has so much history in San Antonio?
"No." She laughed. "Did I say that too fast? ... It's a great business and I love it and enjoy it, but sometimes it's the right move to move on. It's not that I'm getting out of the industry, per se, it's just that I'm getting out of the people part of it."
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