Security Partners celebrates 20 years

LANCASTER, Pa.—On Feb. 10, Security Partners marks 20 years in the wholesale monitoring space, and as it hits this milestone the company is making improvements and planning for a new, bigger headquarters based here.

“We're pretty blessed. The founding was going to be a local, maybe Pennsylvania-based, mid-Atlantic-based, monitoring center and, of course, we've now grown to a nationwide center,” Patrick Egan, founder of Security Partners, told Security Systems News. He added that the company “never planned on having a second central station, never planned on having redundancy, never planned on doing an acquisition—it just happened.”

Over the past 20 years, the company has expanded significantly, at one point adding three locations in two years. It acquired Response Center USA, based in San Antonio, Texas, in September 2013. Security Partners followed up by purchasing Mace Central Station in December 2013. Then, in November 2014, the company announced a fourth location—a build-out in Las Vegas, completed in time for ISC West 2015.

In early March of this year, the company will break ground on a new headquarters facility in Lancaster, Pa. The build-out will take about 12 months, Egan said, opening in early spring 2019. Security Partners will be renovating a building across the street from its current facility, fitting requirements for the historic building that it will occupy as well as UL requirements.

The finished space will be about 22,000 square feet, according to Egan, and will include 19 indoor parking spaces. The company currently occupies about 10,000 square feet in a building shared with Security Partners' sister company, Select Security.

Security Partners moved into its current facility in 2007, and the shift to its new building across the street subsequently gives Select more space to expand.

When asked about other key points in Security Partners' 20-year history, Egan pointed to the company's switch to Bold's Manitou automation platform as a highlight. “The technology selection was a milestone,” Egan said.

In mid-June 2017, Security Partners brought on a new president, industry veteran Randy Hall—another high point, according to Egan.

Hall said that 2017 was a good year for the company. “We have really created a culture of a passion for helping the subscriber in their time of need,” Hall told SSN. “There's no magic, it's just a commitment to what we do. … This is who we are; this is why we're here. Let's be the best we can be.”

A next step for the company is to increase awareness among customers of what it offers. “If we can help the dealer understand how to utilize what we have for them, we can help them slow down attrition,” Hall said.

Another improvement at the company is a new website that Security Partners debuted in December 2017, which includes a new dealer portal to provide dealers with documents, forms and links to system access. “That's been really, really nice because it's made it much easier for our dealer to get instant access to what they're looking for,” Hall said. The new site also includes a recruiting tool, Hall noted.