PrefTech becomes first two-time Bill Bozeman Award winner

HOUSTON—Preferred Technologies (PrefTech) President Shaun Castillo credits his hardworking employees as the main reason why his company is back at the top of the security integration mountain. 

At PSA TEC in Denver, PrefTech became the first two-time winner of the Bill Bozeman Award as the overall top security integrator of the year, an award presented through a partnership between Security Systems News (SSN) and PSA Security Network.  

“It’s a very rewarding feeling,” he said. “Look at the fruit that you're producing, and it's a pretty nice fruit. It's a testament to lots and lots of hard work and making mistakes and dusting yourself off and getting back up. Our men and women just continue to fight day after day to do something beyond themselves. It's a great validation of all that hard work and effort.” 

PrefTech was founded 20 years ago by Castillo’s parents, Charlie and Trisha, who convinced their son – fresh out of serving in the U.S. Army – to join them in getting the company established in Houston.  

Castillo took over as president in 2009, and since then PrefTech has grown from a small cabling company to one of the top security integrators in the U.S., executing projects ranging from small data cabling systems to complex, integrated security solutions in mission-critical environments.  

“I’ve just continued to focus on hiring the right people and taking care of the right people, and in my opinion, that makes all the difference,” he said.  

That people-first approach contributed to the integrator earning $61.6 million in revenues in 2024 – a 12% revenue growth rate from the previous year – with a 30% CAGR since 2021. Castillo noted that the biggest driver for PrefTech’s growth is that it’s based in Texas, which has experienced business growth, as well. 

“We are very fortunate to be in a very rich market, especially in the enterprise space,” he explained. “Texas has attracted a lot of major corporations over the last several years, really since COVID, and the population has increased significantly. Therefore, the need for security has increased significantly. We have tried to do well in serving our customers as best we can to have a long-term relational mindset with those customers, not a transactional one-time project.”  

With a focus on vertical markets including airports, K-12, health care, oil and gas, transportation, higher education, and state and local government agencies, Castillo has as a primary goal his company producing $30 million in profit at the start of 2035, which would require around $280 million to $290 million in revenue, along with increasing its workforce to about 850 employees.  

“We're going to continue to focus in on the enterprise space. We've really learned over the last 10 years especially what customers value us the most, and what customers we can be most successful with,” he concluded. “We're really going to focus on our key vertical markets, doing what we do for our customers, and improving the efficiencies with which we can do it.”  

PrefTech’s vision, or what Castillo calls “our big, hairy audacious goal,” is to be “the most well-respected security integrator on the planet.”  

“More practically, we're trying to build a business that's going to last multiple generations, at least 150 years,” he noted.