Five Questions: Caine Mathy

Caine Mathy, who is now the security technology leader for Enterprise Fire and Security based in Milwaukee, has been with the company for nearly six years working with access control, video surveillance, security system and the integration of those systems. Security Systems News asked Mathy five questions.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in the Milwaukee area, and grew up in the upper peninsula of Michigan, very small towns, very sparse. After high school, I moved to Boston and spent five years there, and then spent five years in Vermont, which is where I first started doing electrical work, as a commercial, residential and light industrial electrician.

Is that where you first got involved in security?

Yes. I worked with a company that did HVAC controls in Vermont and they had a small division that did access control and cameras and that is when work really began to get exciting for me.

What are some of your hobbies or interests?

I just bought a house, so all of my hobbies and interests revolve around home renovation, and I have begun to set up a shop and do some woodworking, which I am very interested in continuing to get better at.

Have you read any good books lately?

With the new baby and the new house, and the fair amount of travel I do for work, I don't have much time to read, but I do a lot of podcasts and audio books. I like Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast, and he just came out with a great five-hour episode on the ramp-up toward the cold war, and how the nuclear bomb changed everything in the face of world politics. I also enjoyed Nick Offerman's book Good Clean Fun, which is about his woodworking shop in California. Most people know him from the TV show Parks and Recreation but he is an accomplished woodworker.

What do you like most about the security industry today?

It is constantly evolving, and the race to keep up and to stay innovative requires you to always be on your toes. More so than fire or anything else that is heavily mandated, camera and access control [systems] do tend to change quite often and there are always new innovations coming along. Seeing the industry changing so quickly and seeing where it is going is really interesting.