Security Industry Association announces 2022 SIA RISE Scholarship winners

SILVER SPRING, Md.—The Security Industry Association (SIA) has named the recipients of the 2022 SIA RISE Scholarship, a program offered through SIA’s RISE community for young security professionals and students, which supports the education and career development goals of young industry talent.

Through this scholarship program – open to SIA student members and RISE members who are employees at SIA member companies – each awardee will receive a $3,000 scholarship to use toward continuing education and professional development courses, SIA program offerings and/or other academic or education programs.

Scholarship funds can be used to expand knowledge in the areas of business, human resources (HR), information technology (IT), marketing, sales, project management, security engineering and/or risk management, and can also be used toward student loan repayment.

“SIA is proud to offer the RISE Scholarship as a way to foster the next generation of security talent and help them achieve their professional and educational goals,” said SIA CEO Don Erickson. “The 2022 class of RISE Scholarship awardees are an impressive, diverse and accomplished group of students and young security professionals, and we look forward to working with them and celebrating their many successes in the future.”

The winners for the 2022 SIA RISE Scholarship are:

Gracie Bishop, Student, Fayetteville Manlius High School

Gracie Bishop is a senior at Fayetteville Manlius High School in Fayetteville, N.Y., where she is a varsity softball player and a member of the school’s Student Athletic Advisory Council. Bishop has been recognized as a National Honor Society candidate and Spanish National Honor Society member and will continue her education next year as a freshman at Bryant University, where she plans to study politics and law and play on the school’s Division 1 softball team. She will use the scholarship funds toward her undergraduate tuition at Bryant University and is interested in pursuing a career in security and law enforcement after college.

Marquis Chester, Business Development Coordinator, Marketing and Communications, Securitas USA, Inc.

In his role at Securitas, Marquis Chester develops and produces all marketing campaigns for the South region, designs and develops websites and landing pages for marketing pages, leverages search engine optimization for web content, performs a variety of sales enablement tasks, administers the gathering of campaign performance data and develops sales proposals for business development managers and prospective clients. Prior to his time at Securitas, he held roles as a marketing communications intern at the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and a digital media and web design intern for the Athens Regional Library System. Chester holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and entertainment media from the University of Georgia. He plans to use the scholarship funds to enroll in cybersecurity and marketing certification courses to further his education.

Kelly Ann Christenson, Marketing Coordinator, BCD

Kelly Ann Christenson serves as a marketing coordinator at BCD. In this role, she assists with BCD International, BCDVideo and VSS social media content creation and management, coordinates physical and virtual events, monitors social media analytics and trends, creates engaging email marketing content, assists with web posting and content management and monitors and maintains external websites. She is a 2021-2022 participant in the SIA RISE Talent Inclusion Mentorship Education (TIME) program. Prior to her time at BCD, Christenson served in marketing roles at Scotsman Ice Systems, Orion Industries and Aaron Kendell Packaging Equipment. She holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Bradley University’s Foster College of Business. Christenson is exploring options to pursue an MBA and plans to use the RISE Scholarship funds toward student loan repayment.

Jill Frack, Senior Project Manager, Integrated Security Technologies, Inc.

As a senior project manager at Integrated Security Technologies, Inc. (IST), Jill Frack manages a $7 million+ project portfolio, coordinates cross-departmental efforts to meet project timelines and budgetary objectives and ensure smooth transitions, assist clients with scheduling on-site visits and provides updates to clients on installation progress, tracks project performance, maintains installation schedule and coordinates scheduling with other trades, develops comprehensive project plans, creates program management processes and templates and serves as co-chair of IST’s safety committee. Prior to her time at IST, Frack held project management roles at Opportunistic Consulting, Global Defense Inc., Amsec LLC, San Diego Hospice & the Institute for Palliative Medicine and Fisher Clinical Services. She holds master’s degrees in industrial/organizational psychology and business administration from Alliant International University, a bachelor’s degree in business management and industrial/organizational psychology and a human resource certificate from Moravian University and the Project Management Professional certification and is a doctoral candidate studying business administration in information and data science at Alliant International University. She plans to use the scholarship funds toward her academic classes and certification fees.

Suresh Jayabal, Lead Mechanical Engineer, Allegion

Suresh Jayabal joined the Allegion team in 2013 as a technical lead based in Bangalore, India, and currently serves as a lead mechanical engineer at Allegion Mexico, where he initiates, drives and supports new product development/productivity projects in a mass production facility and liaises between the stakeholders of the United States, Mexico and India. Prior to his time at Allegion, Jayabal held engineering roles with Ingersoll Rand, Pricol Limited and Hiwin Technologies. He holds a master’s degree in manufacturing management from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Park College of Engineering and Technology. Jayabal plans to use the RISE Scholarship funds to pursue a Harvard School of Business course on business analytics.

Jenell Jones, Materials Planning Manager, Supply Chain Leadership Development Program, Allegion

Jenell Jones joined Allegion in in May 2019 as a global quality intern, then held roles as a materials project manager and a shipping supervisor and has served as a materials planning manager in the company’s Supply Chain Leadership Development Program since June. She conducts analysis of established procurement, financial and warehousing data from preexisting systems for migration into the company’s new enterprise resource planning system, collaborates cross-functionally to interpret and achieve opportunities relating to new sales and operations planning and purchasing capabilities and prepares project data for data mapping conversion upload during cutover. Jones holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Ball State University and the Certified Quality Process Analyst certification. She plans to use the scholarship funds toward earning the APICS Certified Planning and Inventory Management certificate.

Taylor May, Vice President of Sales, ZeroEyes Inc.

Taylor May joined ZeroEyes as vice president of sales in December 2020 and is responsible for the company’s sales, managing a team of high-performing regional sales managers throughout the United States, managing and creating a successful channel of certified partners, recording and tracking all calls/leads in Salesforce and increasing the pipeline, executing annual recurring revenue goals and ensuring an accurate pipeline for customer relationship management hygiene and reporting to the board on expectations, forecasts and market position. Prior to his time at ZeroEyes, May held sales and management roles at AnyVision, Pro-Vigil Surveillance Services and Bridgestone. He is the owner and host of the SecurityVIP podcast and holds an MBA from the University of Dallas and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Oklahoma State University. May plans to use the RISE Scholarship funds toward student loan repayment and security industry professional development in the areas of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, computer vision, LiDAR and sound intelligence.

Willie Strong, Program Manager, National Accounts, Stanley Security

Willie Strong joined Stanley Convergent Security Solutions in June 2019 and is responsible for managing over $5 million in overall health for national account customers. Strong works directly with customer contacts to provide weekly account updates and project status reports, presents a quarterly business review with the sales team for customers to cover how Stanley is performing on key areas and leverages project management skills to effectively lead electronic security installation projects and service/maintenance calls. Prior to his time at Stanley, Strong held roles as operations manager, department safety and quality team leader and operation point of contact at the Target Regional Distribution Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. He holds a bachelor’s degree in rhetoric from Wabash College and the Lean Six Sigma – Green Belt certification. Strong plans to use the scholarship funds toward student loan repayment.

SIA RISE is a community that fosters the careers of young professionals in the security industry. In addition to awarding the annual SIA RISE Scholarship, SIA RISE offers fun in-person and virtual networking events for young professionals, created the TIME mentorship program for early and mid-career professionals in the security industry, develops professional growth content like the RISE Microlearning Series, hosts career growth webinars and trade show education tracks and presents the annual AcceleRISE conference – an essential experience designed to ignite new thinking, strengthen leadership and sharpen business acumen in young security talent. RISE is available to SIA student members and all employees at SIA member companies who are young professionals under 40 or have been in the security industry for less than two years; learn more and sign up to join.