TEC's new office provides room for growth

TORRINGTON, Conn.—TEC control systems, an engineered systems distributor of fire, mass evacuation, security, sound and CCTV systems based here, has relocated to a new office building that is twice the size of the former one, giving the company room to grow, said company president Bill Capuano.

“Basically, it gives everybody some room to breathe,” Capuano told Security Systems News about the new 6,000-square-foot facility. “We were sort of piled on top of one another in the other building.”

In addition to more warehouse space, the new facility features a new large conference room where TEC, which has 15 employees, can bring customers in to demonstrate equipment, Capuano said. Previously the company's small meeting room doubled as a lunchroom. “We didn't have this nice space where you could bring someone in … and sit down with them without someone next to you chomping on a grinder,” Capuano said.

TEC, founded in 1981, has been a Notifier by Honeywell distributor since 1986. It serves Connecticut and in 2008 opened a satellite office in Windham, Conn., to improve coverage. Capuano said the Windham building helped alleviate some overcrowding but the company again ran out of room. Buying a larger building now gives the company “plenty of room for expansion.”

TEC follows a model of selling mostly to electrical contractors who run wiring and do the installation. TEC then programs and commissions the system and also services and monitors it.

Capuano said the company's customer base is highly diversified and its verticals include education, health care and hotels.

A company project that is nearly complete is a fire alarm and mass evacuation system at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., Capuano said. The 28-building project, for which TEC's contract is more than $1 million, includes wireless voice transmission and LED sign information used for both fire alarm and mass evacuation lockdown.

It also includes video screen directions from a few hundred 22-inch television monitors that show floor plans and give lockdown information in an emergency, he said.