Specifically Speaking with John Harrington, ADRM

YARMOUTH, Maine—Security Systems News’ monthly column Specifically Speaking features John Harrington, who is Senior Vice President with ADRM (Advanced Data Risk Management), a risk management and security engineering firm based out of Woburn, Mass. “I am responsible for all design services to include managing ADRM design personnel who are embedded within client accounts,” Harrington told SSN.

SSN: What kinds of systems do you design/specify and what services does the company provide?

HARRINGTON: ADRM is a risk management and security engineering firm. We focus 100 percent on security. We provide risk assessments, design security systems, develop emergency plans and provide managed security services. We also provide outsourced security design and system administration staff for our clients.

SSN: What vertical markets does the company specialize in? Any interesting projects that you can mention?

HARRINGTON: We work in multiple markets including higher education, financial, energy, critical infrastructure, nuclear, tall buildings, biotech, and high tech to name a few. We recently won the 2022 Elliot A. Boxerbaum Security Design Project of the Year Award. This was for a project at One Post Office Square in Boston. We provided assessment, design, design-bid-build, and managed services for this 42-floor building that is undergoing a major renovation, including new windows and exterior cladding. It was challenging because many tenants remained in the building throughout construction. We are also working on the design for the historic Commonwealth Pier in Boston. This building will become the headquarters of a leading financial services company.

SSN: How did you get started in security and designing/specifying?

HARRINGTON: In 1994 I sold a successful business in a different industry. I wanted to use my degrees in engineering and project management, so I decided to give security a chance. I went to work for a large security systems integrator starting as a junior technician, finishing my tenure there as a senior project manager. On one of my projects, I met the security consultants who had performed the security system design and ultimately hired me to be a full-time security consultant.

SSN: Can you talk about what new or emerging technologies you are seeing or specifying today?

HARRINGTON: It’s nice to see technologies like facial recognition gain traction and become user friendly. We are also designing mobile credentials for employees, tenants, and guests into our projects on a regular basis. For managed services, we have implemented software that measures the health for devices such as servers, cameras, readers, panels, and other devices. This allows us to proactively respond to issues as opposed to waiting for devices to fail. This has been extremely beneficial to our clients and integrators.

SSN: What is your view on the industry moving forward?

HARRINGTON: We see our clients shifting to a managed services model post implementation of security systems. The systems are complex and need continual updates to the software and hardware. We also see the access control industry successfully shifting to a cloud services model. We are hoping to see the same shift to cloud for the video systems, but those are less cloud friendly given the bandwidth requirements for uncompressed video.