Bradley builds ECD Systems

TEMPE, Ariz.—Systems integration firm ECD Systems is up and running in its new headquarters here, with a goal of moderate growth for its first couple of years.

“The first year is all about establishing our new identity and making sure our brand and our culture are set,” ECD Systems CEO Mike Bradley told Security Systems News.

“We want to grow moderately, at 10- to 15 percent so we don't outstrip our resources, and then we'll see where the market leads us,” he said.

ECD Systems is a new brand, but the business is well established and its employees are well-tenured. ECD Systems, a PSA Security owner, is the former commercial integration arm of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Safeguard Security.

John Jennings, the former owner of Safeguard, bought ECD Systems in 1997 and rebranded it as Safeguard. Mike Bradley joined Safeguard three months later. When Jennings sold Safeguard to SAFE Security in October, Jennings retained the commercial integration business for a short time before selling it to Bradley.

Bradley resurrected the name ECD Systems and has spent the past several months transitioning licensing and rebranding the business. In May, ECD moved from Scottsdale to its new headquarters here. Bradley's two business partners are Ben Wilson and Rich Aliamo, who serve as COO and CFO, respectively.

In the new office all systems are cloud-based. “We thought if we're going to be selling it, we ought to be living it,” Bradley said.

Bradley said that he sees “cloud storage and cloud-based access control as nice growth markets for us.”

ECD Systems has 55 employees and does about $10 million in business annually. It does a lot of work in health care and schools, and it has a large presence in industry and commercial businesses, primarily Fortune 1000 and Fortune 500 companies. Multi-dwelling units are strong spot for ECD Systems. “We dominate the MDU market,” Bradley said.

Many MDUs are under construction in Arizona; ECD provides security and commercial-grade fire systems for the units, which Bradley said are really communities. “They have 500 to 600 units spread out across 30- to 40 acres,” he said.

In addition to its security business, ECD does a lot of Rauland nurse call systems, which it integrates with several other systems at health care facilities to yield big data business information. “We're very good at that, and we're also very good at mass communications—we call it critical communications for schools. We're a Notifier dealer,” Bradley said.

At hospitals, ECD integrates nurse call and wireless phones that are specific to the health care market and RTLS (real time locating system) sensors to provide workflow management solutions for hospitals. “It can track staff and equipment. … The hospital can make predictive decisions on patients' needs and it can be used for risk mitigation,” Bradley said.

“We do a lot of unique things,” Bradley said. “That's how we built the business before, and that's how we're building it now.”