Rick Caruthers named Galaxy Control Systems president

The Board of Directors of Digital Systems Corporation, the parent company of Galaxy Control Systems, a leading provider of integrated access control and security solutions, announced the appointment of Rick Caruthers to the position of president at Galaxy Control Systems. Effective immediately, this appointment reflects the company's long-term planning and succession strategies.

“Rick has essentially been working in the capacity as president of Galaxy Control Systems for the past several years, and with this appointment will be able to execute his vision and goals for the company,” Robert Laughlin, chairman of Digital Systems Corporation, said in the announcement. “After 17 years of proven service and dedication to Galaxy Control Systems, we are most confident that Rick is the person best suited to be at the helm of this organization moving forward.”

Caruthers' extensive experience and proven track record in the professional security industry spans over 28 years, where his career was initiated on the integration side of the business then migrated into the manufacturing space. Over 17 years to date, Caruthers has risen through the ranks in positions ranging from regional sales manager, government sales director, vice president of sales, executive vice president, to his current role as president of Galaxy Control Systems.

“I am extremely honored with the Board's decision to entrust me with the continued expansion and growth of Galaxy Control Systems,” Caruthers said in the announcement. “There are so many exciting opportunities that lie ahead for Galaxy as we continue to evolve and supplement our portfolio of on-premise based and cloud access control solutions, and expand internationally. And we will maintain our focus on the core values that have propelled Galaxy Control Systems over the years, including exceptional customer service and outstanding quality hardware and software offerings that will remain designed, developed and manufactured in-house in the USA.”

The Galaxy Control Systems portfolio is centered on the company's System Galaxy v11.02 and Cloud Concierge access control platforms, which accommodate the latest reader technologies and technology trends, as well as holistic VMS integration. The versatile offering provides resellers and users with the unique ability to implement the access control solution that best fits their specific needs and budget.

Caruthers told Security Systems News that some of his short-term goals for the company include bringing both the on-premises and cloud solutions together to provide one platform.

“Early on, our cloud development team worked to get the product up and running so I had two engineering efforts—our on-premises team and our cloud team,” he explained. “What we are doing now is merging the two together, so our focus is to let everyone know that the Galaxy product can be used on premises and in the cloud. We are basically building a platform around the philosophy that the only thing you need to decide is where your database is going to reside: Is it going to reside on a server on site, or is it going to reside in a hosted cloud environment, or in a hybrid set-up?”

He continued, “So all of the tools, the web interfaces, the client stations—every bit of the software behind that—works simultaneously and seamlessly with both. So we are moving those two platforms to one starting in 2019 and hope to have our software in at least a beta format by ISC West, along with a couple of new mobile apps.”

A key long-term effort is “strengthening our core intelligence inside our technology group to reflect that next generation of developers that is going to take us to the next 20 years,” said Caruthers, who noted that more and more clients are embracing cloud-based solutions.

“While SMB companies are certainly embracing cloud, some of our bigger corporate clients are adopting cloud for all of their applications,” he noted. “And many are doing it for cost savings, especially when considering the continual investments in refreshing servers and hardware that are required with on premises data centers or server rooms."