40 under 40: Heath Callihan, EyeQ Monitoring

YARMOUTH, Maine—Heath Callihan truly enjoys what he does.

Callihan serves as Jr. Vice President of Operations at Atlanta-based EyeQ Monitoring, one of the largest providers of live video monitoring in the United States. He has been with EyeQ for three years, taking on his current role in December 2021 after previously serving as Director of Technology Operations and most recently, Senior Director of Operations.

Callihan explained that he got his start in the security industry through his father-in-law, who worked as a national account sales manager for ADT.

“He introduced me to a small integrator after graduating high school, and I got the bug and never looked back,” he said. “This industry is exciting, and I love solving issues, protecting people, protecting property by leveraging traditional security and IoT technology to automate and improve business operations, not to mention the excitement of the arrest and deterrence that our SOC actions on daily. Talk about inspiration.”

Callihan calls EyeQ’s SOC (Security Operations Center) the “heartbeat of our organization. This team kills it 24-7, 365!” In addition to the SOC, he is directly responsible for leading and managing day-to-day operations in three other departments at EyeQ - Customer Success Team, Field Service, and TSS (Technical Services and Support).=

Trends and Technology

Physical guard services are among the top trends in security today, according to Callihan.

“Physical guard services equate to $54 billion in annual revenue,” he noted. “We are excited about the future and augmentation of these services to reduce cost, raise efficacy, and give situational awareness to first responders.”

In regard to promising new security technology, Callihan said that he is “excited” to see where virtual reality and guard augmentation go, not to mention drone technology.

“I’m also excited about incident code as we picked this up in our SOC,” he added. “It was an absolute game-changer for reporting and providing officers and customers real time video and situational awareness.”

Changing and Growing

Callihan cited the importance of changing and growing with EyeQ’s customers as keys to success during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“If you know the why, you can always find the how,” he noted. “You must be nimble and be okay with change as the customers are going through changes; we must find ways to change and grow with our customers.

“A motto we adopted in 2020 was fortune favors the bold as we closed out 2020 with our first acquisition. Leadership is also key; you must know where you are going in order to be able to get there. A shout-out to our CEO Markus Scott for his servant leadership during this time!”  

Technology Offerings

When asked about his views on the security industry going forward, Callihan excitedly replied, “Come on 2022! Things are starting to get exciting, and the technology offerings with ROI opportunities are growing daily.”

He added that it is imperative to attract as much young, diverse talent into the security industry as possible, based on the movement toward new technology.

“I have already seen this trend in hiring new employees,” Callihan explained. “This industry changed a few years ago; it's not all about fishing walls and reading meters (this is still important). It's about software, network, infrastructure, AI, scalable technology solutions, and servers. This industry has moved more to SAAS/technology, so the need for talent grows exponentially daily.”