Security Systems News welcomes “40 under 40” Class of 2019 winners

YARMOUTH, Maine—Security Systems News is excited to bring you this year's inaugural “40 under 40” class of 2019, made up of a diverse and talented mix of young professionals representing the next generation of leaders in security.

Opening the award up to consultants for the first time added new depth and perspective to this year's class, bringing all winners — consultants, integrators, monitoring professionals and end users — together into one “40 under 40” class. Prior to this year, the award was called “20 under 40” and included two classes, comprising 20 end users and 20 integrators. This year's “40 under 40” class includes 14 end users, 11 integrators, 10 consultants and six monitoring professionals.

While many of this year's winners come from military and law enforcement backgrounds, it is also interesting to see how IT is drawing young talent to the industry. For example, John Harrington, Sr. Engineer and Team Lead, Physical Security Technology and IoT Infrastructure, United Airlines said that his entrance into the security industry “came at a time where it started to become extremely apparent that OT/IT convergence was happening, and it was happening fast. While the aim is and always will be to provide systems that ensure the safety and security of our co-workers and customers, the ability to gain new insights from the data provided by these systems was a huge draw for me.”

The IT world is the key to finding young talent, he smartly observed. “Lean heavy on the IT nerds!” said Harrington. “I say this because I come from the traditional IT world, and after being introduced to and entering the world of physical security, I realized how important much of what we do is — and for what reasons. It took the technology aspect of it to see the other side.”

Many of this year's winners are bullish on cloud, AI, machine learning and analytics, as the industry moves from one of response to one of prevention.

Brian Coulombe, principal and director of operations at Ross & Baruzzini said he is “excited to see what the future holds for artificial intelligence, and in particular the application of deep learning. Deep learning systems will theoretically be able to analyze data from video surveillance feeds and provide real, actionable intelligence to security officers and first responders.”

Travis May, director, Learning Technology & Innovation, Mastercard, said, “Over time, AI can revolutionize many areas of the industry such as threat monitoring, access management, user behavior analytics, operations management, investigations and intelligence collection.”

Chrissy McCutcheon, principal and senior security consultant, Security by Design, Inc. (SBD) agrees, noting “there are far greater opportunities to utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to make sense of the vast amounts of security data being collected daily.”

To help diversify the industry, she astutely pointed out, “A new trend for cyber, homeland and corporate security degrees is leading more institutions to establish new majors in the security field. The problem is colleges and universities are not teaching students about the vast opportunities in the industry. We can reach out to these institutions and participate in career fairs and provide internships or classroom briefings to teach about different opportunities within various security organizations.”

Please see below for winners broken down by Category:

INTEGRATORS

John Bazyk, Command Corporation
Michael Castillo, Aronson Security Group (ASG)/ADT Commercial
Morgan Harris, Harris Technology Services, LLC
Ebony Haywood, Allied Universal
Stephanie Higgins, Securitas Electronic Security Inc.
Deric Morrow, Johnson Controls
Rafael Nader, Security 101
Krystina Stoner, Partner Technology
Matthew Webster, Koorsen Fire & Security
Drew Weston, Codelynx
Tommy Zarna, Securitas Security Services

MONITORING

Matthew Brandon, AvantGuard Monitoring Centers LLC
Jordan Dice, IPtelX
Juergen Henry, COPS Monitoring
Anthony Iannone, Affiliated Monitoring
Nicole Kenny, Criticom Monitoring Services (CMS)
Laura Penrod, Cooperative Response Center (CRC)

END USERS

Joseph (Joe) Biffar, Chico's FAS, Inc.
CJ Campo, Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Brandon Easthon, The Cleveland Clinic
Randy Guarneri, Fresh Value Supermarket
John Harrington, United Airlines
Travis May, Mastercard
JT Mendoza, Air Force Insider Threat Hub
Andrew Morales, Cargill
Jonathan Ng, The Music Center
Sean Owens, Lee Memorial Health System
Trenton Pinson, Amazon
Anthony Sydney, MTA Bridges and Tunnels Internal Security Department (ISD)
Adam Stiffler, Biogen
Adam Worrall, American Electric Power

CONSULTANTS

Joshua A. Charfauros, COMBS Consulting Group
Brian Coulombe, Ross & Baruzzini
Mark Grudzien, CIBC Bank USA
Matt Jones, H. Stephen Jones and Associates, Inc
Chrissy McCutcheon, Security by Design, Inc. (SBD)
Patrick Milnamow, AEI
Sarah Moore, Arcadis U.S., Inc.
Samuel (Sam) Mulholland, Shen Milsom & Wilke, LLC
Allen Roiser, Plante Moran
Ryan Schonfeld, RAS Security Group