Red Hawk chooses Affiliated for monitoring

BOCA RATON, Fla.—Red Hawk Fire & Security announced this week that its accounts will now be monitored by Affiliated Monitoring as part of a new alliance between the companies. Additionally, Affiliated will now own and operate Red Hawk's central as a load-balancing monitoring center.

“The strategic partnership with Affiliated really allows us to focus on our core business … [and] really put all of our energies forward into providing the best customer experience,” Mike McWilliams, Red Hawk Fire & Security's president and CEO, told Security Systems News.

Daniel Oppenheim, VP of Affiliated Monitoring, told SSN Red Hawk's decision to focus more on integration and form a partnership for monitoring is becoming more common in the industry.

“It was a rigorous process. They met with every major monitoring company and we are honored at Affiliated that Red Hawk selected us to be their monitoring partner,” Oppenheim said.

Red Hawk's central station, based in Houston, is about 30,000 square feet, Oppenheim said, and joins Affiliated's monitoring centers in New Jersey and New York. All of the station's employees are joining Affiliated.

Red Hawk has been focusing lately on managed services and gaining national accounts, McWilliams said. Red Hawk has about 20,000 monitored accounts, according to McWilliams, and more than 50,000 total customers.

Red Hawk completed its first acquisition in February this year, and McWilliams said the company will continue to seek growth organically as well as through more acquisitions in the future. “We'll continue to go down the path of adding the right acquisitions, that either add footprint to our map or increase our capabilities out there in the field,” he said.

“We're excited to add this purpose built UL Listed facility in Houston, Texas to our network,” Oppenheim said. “It gives us a complete team of seasoned operators with broad monitoring experience and a specialization in video. It also puts us in the backyard of some of our largest and fastest growing dealers.”

Red Hawk and Affiliated used the same central station automation provider, Mastermind, which helped in the transition, according to Oppenheim.

This alliance also gives Red Hawk access to more customer-facing features related to monitoring, including “Some of the applications that can be accessed on peoples' smart phones, some of the texting applications that we weren't offering,” McWilliams said.