Convergint acquires Total Recall

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.—One day after Convergint Technologies acquired New York-based systems integrator Total Recall, Total Recall president Jordan Heilweil was boarding a plane to meet a new customer in Savannah, Ga.

“We're working on projects together, right from the starting line,” Heilweil told Security Systems News. “A lot of acquisitions involve a lot of internal changes and take a while to integrate,” he said, but that is not the case with this deal. “Very little has changed [for Total Recall] since yesterday, but there are all sorts of new opportunities,” he added.

Those opportunities include “adding smart city expertise to Convergint locations across the country,” Heilweil said.

Total Recall is well known for its “robust smart city solution,” Convergint executive chairman and cofounder Dan Moceri told SSN. Its customers include the Statue of Liberty and other “unique and elite” customers. For example, Total Recall is currently working “on a very large system for an entire country outside of the U.S.,” Heilweil said.

Total Recall specializes in “surveillance solutions, command and control centers, wireless connectively and video network design and management.”

Heilweil and his staff of 28 will all join Convergint, which has more than 60 offices in North America, Canada, in the Asia Pacific and Europe. Convergint does more than $500 million in revenue annually and has more than 2,100 employees around the globe.

This deal is Convergint's third acquisition in 30 days. It purchased Enion in Switzerland two weeks ago, and H&E Comfort Controls in Ontario on April 8. In January, it bought Dakota Security.

Heilweil said he's looking forward to “expanding projects we've been asked to participate in in the past but we didn't have the reach across the country, and in some cases outside the country.”

Jeff Kessler, Imperial Capital managing director of equity and industry research group, said he gives Moceri “five stars for running this business,” which he said stands alone in its ability to grow quickly and maintain margins.

Kessler believes Convergint's success is because “the customer relationship is incredibly deep.” Convergint's culture is focused on understanding customers' needs, and making business decisions to meet those needs. Kessler said Convergint's staff “can easily converse” with end users' IT department, HR department, its CTO and CSO. Regardless of how technologically complicated an end user's need may be “these guys can handle it,” Kessler said.