Houston Gulf Coast Alarm Association

November 2017 Newsletter

281-452-6323  (800-222-9836)  281-457-9254 (fax)

10615 Rockley Road  Houston, Texas 77099

Texas Security License #B20451
Texas Fire Alarm License #ACR-20161895

Presidents Message – John C. Helweg

We had a great October meeting. I’d like to thank Donnie at Tri-Ed Pinemont for taking great care of us as usual. Please remember, our associate members support us, so please support them.

Our guest speakers Shay Webb & Scott Plunkett with ipDatatel did a great job covering their new product Helix and the benefits of their merger with Resolution Products. There was much discussion from sales to very technical.

We covered a lot of good industry information and celebrated my father’s birthday.

Our upcoming guest speaker should be Andrea Dahlgren with ARM Solutions. They are a collections company that will share some best practices with us and can discuss their integration with Cornerstone Billing Solutions one of our previous guest speakers.

SPECIAL VENDOR SECURITY NOTICE

To our valued customers,

It has come to our attention that a number of companies have been targeted in a phishing campaign requesting bank details. The e-mails appear to be coming from Anixter employees, via a registered domain similar to ours, but are not.

Please be cautious of any communications that appear as if they are coming from Anixter, using anixteri.com or any other variation of our official anixter.comURL. The fraudulent e-mail we received looks like this:

We are doing away with accepting check as a payment method. We are switching to receive our payments through electronic funds transfer/ACH direct to our bank account. Find attached for our banking details. If you have any questions please let us know. 

The phishing e-mails contain names of actual Anixter employees and their e-mail addresses, with the exception of using fraudulent anixteri.com extensions. The grammar may not be correct within the e-mail and the attached banking details are not Anixter ACH instructions. Please do NOT use ACH instructions with the fraudulent e-mail to pay Anixter invoices.

Anixter is not changing from accepting check payments to ACH only. We do accept both check and ACH payments from our customers, and will continue to do so. If you would like to verify our banking instructions or make a change to an ACH payment, please contact your credit representative.

Please be especially attentive to the e-mail address when you receive an e-mail from Anixter to ensure that the e-mail addresses are from/to an anixter.com or a tri-ed.com domain.

We truly appreciated the valued business relationship we share, and want to take preventative measures to protect our customers and partners.

Sincerely,

Richard Massa
Director of Credit – Global Security Solutions
Anixter

labor rate article

TBFAA REPORT – Kelly Ryan

Planning the convention is a lot of work from a great team of people, and when you reach the big day, you still push to make sure everything goes as planned.

This year’s convention did go as planned, and we had a lot of great feedback from attendees and vendors!  Of course, there are some things that need to change, and we are working on ways to make certain parts of the event to run smoother, but here are a few highlights:

This year’s golf tournament featured the largest number of teams we have ever had!  I was also told that the golf dinner was awesome, and even though we moved the event forward to accommodate a World Series game (Go Astros!), everyone I spoke with told me they had a great time.

But the convention is way more than golf.  The seminars provided a lot of great information for the attendees!  From DPS, SFMO, and Legislative Updates to communication pathways, classifying employees, and emergency preparedness (just to name a few), we made every attempt to provide topics that are important to all alarm companies.  Your suggestions and feedback were the largest part of planning the sessions, and I’m certainly open to hearing any and all suggestions from our members.

During the DPS update, Mr. RenEarl Bowie mentioned working together to find more ways to go after unlicensed activity.  In fact, he stated that one option might be using a Class C misdemeanor and fines as an option that would allow the DPS to enforce without the need to involve the local DA.  Oddly enough, this was exactly what we attempted during the last legislative session, but our bill went through too many modifications to help the DPS achieve this option; however, it was still very nice to hear Mr. Bowie parallel one of the thoughts of our legislative team.

As far as the vendor show goes, we oversold on booths and had tremendous foot traffic by our attendees!  I have received some great feedback from our vendors, and while there are parts of the vendor show that I think we can improve, it was a great, high-energy event that we all enjoyed!  The vendors are a big part of the success of the convention, so please help support those that support us!

While the 2018 convention is still a year away, we’ll be going to Austin for the very first time!  I’m certain this will open up new opportunities as well as challenges, but I know the TBFAA convention team is up to the job!  Be sure to follow the TBFAA on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  The TBFAA is here to support our members and provide the information you need to succeed!  (And Way To Go Astros!!!)

DPS
PRIVATE SECURITY UPDATE

The Department of Public Safety (DPS) regulates the private security profession in Texas. DPS protects the public by conducting fingerprint-based background checks on applicants, licensing training schools and instructors, investigating and resolving complaints, and taking disciplinary action against licensees or seeking criminal prosecution of those who perform private security services without a license.

The private security profession includes armed and unarmed security guards, personal protection officers, private investigators, private security consultants, alarm systems installers and monitors, guard dog trainers, armored car couriers, electronic access control device installers, and locksmiths.  DPS regulates the private security profession under the authority of the Texas Occupations Code, Chapter 1702 and the related administrative rules.