Eagle keeps an eye on governor's mansion

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Until recently, the California Governor's Mansion here had very little in the way of fire protection and electronic security.

“They basically had nothing,” said Leo Weiss, president and CEO of Eagle Security, who just finished installing a new Bosch fire and security systems (donated by Bosch) at the mansion. The mansion hasn't been used as a residence for the governor since Ronald Reagan was governor, but it's a much-visited historic home that's sited on a state park.

“I personally like doing work for the [California Dept. of] parks and recreation and I give them a good price to get in there. And, there's lots of work in this vertical, he said, given the number of parks with buildings, many of them historic throughout northern California.

“The biggest job I ever did was the Hearst Castle,” he said. “It took a year.”

In business since 1979, Eagle Security is based in nearby Chico, Calif. It does security, fire, access control and CCTV. Its work is evenly split between residential and commercial and fire makes up about 15 percent of its work. The company has 16 employees.

The three-story governor's mansion has a dining room and a kitchen on the first floor, bedrooms on the second floor and a game room and dance floor on the third. It also has two additional tower rooms above the third floor.

“Because of the way the structure [was classified by the state fire marshal] all of the components we used were wireless, except for some areas in the basement, where there was existing conduit we could use, we did some hardwiring,” he said.

“The fire marshal decided that some areas—the basement of the mansion and a carriage house were commercial, so we used hardwire there. The rest of the mansion was classified as residential, so we used wireless there,” Weiss explained.

Bosch also donated an energy efficient heater for the mansion. In a prepared statement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “Maria and I are thrilled that Bosch stepped up to support one of our state treasures. By using state-of-the-art building technology to retrofit this historic site, we will improve security as well as energy efficiency, resulting in lower carbon emissions and lower utility costs in the years to come.”