Integrator opens two offices, looks to open third, grow revenue by $5m this year

ROSEVILLE, Calif.—Surveillance Systems Integration, based here and with an office in Las Vegas, opened two new branch offices in the past month, one in Tulsa, Okla., and one in Seattle. And CEO Todd Flowers said he plans to open another branch office in Southern California in 2012.

“We have installers who live in Southern California, so we can service that area now,” Flowers said, but he wants to ensure all is running smoothly in Seattle and Tulsa before opening another location.

Bill Young, SSI director of engineering, is running the Seattle office. Travis Isom is running the Tulsa office, and Al Croteau is the new business development manager for the Las Vegas office.

Flowers has built his $16 million, 40-employee business around the tribal gaming industry, but SSI also does work in number of other verticals. For example, it has “some of the largest retail accounts in the country—Nordstrom, Macy's and SuperValu,” he said.

Flowers said SSI will add $5 million in revenue annually during the next several years, and he expects other verticals will contribute to even more annual growth.

“All locations with the exception of Roseville are hubs for tribal gaming,” he said. “My strategy is to grow with tribal gaming as our main vertical market, but with offices in major metropolitan areas like Seattle and Tulsa [we extend our reach into other verticals such as] retail, commercial, industrial, education, government and health care.”

“There were opportunities we were missing out on [in Tulsa and Seattle] because we didn't have a physical location there,” he said.

SSI does access control and video, which it integrates with POS and analytics, and some PSIM systems. It does not do intrusion or fire, though it is getting licensed to do intrusion in California. The vast majority of its video work is with IP systems, though many casinos have legacy analog systems that SSI encodes to the IP stream.

Government regulations have propelled video surveillance sales in casinos for years, but new regulations governing so-called “card rooms,” which Flowers said “are everywhere,” have meant even more business for SSI.

As of last year, card rooms have “the same requirements as Indian gaming casinos. Right now they're required to store video for seven days, but in 2012 that will go to 14 days of storage with real-time 30 frames per second,” Flowers said, adding that the regulations are tiered according to the number of tables in a card room.

SSI aggressively pursues business in gaming. It has a large inside telesales group and last year SSI invested $300,000 in a new CRM (Microsoft NAV). “Our CRM has every casino in the country listed,” Flowers said. “We have inside sales who reach out and build relationships with them and the outside group [that] does the same thing.”

This year SSI is also starting a major service agreement program.  Flowers said he's confident business will grow because of the company's reputation with manufacturers and end users.

“SSI has never had a change order,” he said. “Our engineers design the systems so well that if there's ever an issue, we never make the customer feel the pain.”