Integrators '20 under 40' 2016—Amanda Utter

Amanda Utter, 33

Senior account manager, VTI Security

Minneapolis

Amanda Utter has been with VTI Security, a national integration company, for almost her entire career. �“I have been at VTI for nearly 10 years and it has been great place to work and has allowed me to grow both personally and professionally,” she said.

Utter's role at VTI involves managing relationships with a lot of the company's core accounts, many of them on a national scale. “Our philosophy and culture is to strive to be their trusted business partner and sit on their side of the table to help with the planning of their future initiatives centered around security technology, while helping them map that out in a three- to five-year plan. With our core accounts, we are almost part of their internal team in helping to make decisions and figuring out what might be good and comprehensive solutions for what they need to accomplish.”

On the technology side, Utter is excited by “the constant merging of physical security and cybersecurity,” she said. “Even though we are a physical security integrator, we have to stay on top of that and understand what that means and find different partners in the industry who are well versed on the cyber aspect so we can bring a comprehensive solution and knowledge base to the customer.”

As the chairperson for the ASIS International Minnesota chapter, Utter has been very involved in getting young people interested in security.

“We started a young professional group of our ASIS division and we really get out there and market and try to generate excitement with events and by sponsoring different things, which has really started to increase our young professional membership,” she explained. “We also have invited students from the University of Minnesota's technology program to different ASIS events to educate them on different ways that they can get into the industry.”