By: Larry Tracy

I had the fortune to be at the right place at the right time for many years, and it all started immediately after my service in the Navy when I went to work for ADT while also attending school where I studied matters related to electronics. During those early years while with ADT, I served as a service manager in their Los Angeles Central Station. Once I moved on to Solfan Systems in the early 70’s, I took on more managerial responsibility, overseeing different facets of the organization, including the sales department. It was during the dawn of the industry’s formidable years that my focus turned more exclusively on the sales aspect of the organization which allowed me to travel domestically and work with dealers across North America, which continued for many years. 

One Friday afternoon, I walked into the office of the President of Solfan and explained to him that we were getting quite the number of international inquires and it may be worthy to consider hiring someone to go develop this potentially emerging opportunity. After being brushed off, he showed back up in my office the next Monday morning and said, paraphrasing, “So about what we were talking about Friday afternoon. I have a great idea. We will hire someone to move into your current role and you go do it.”  

That conversation happened in 1976, less than 10 years into what has turned out to be over 50 years in this great industry.  Little could I have known at that time the drastic change in trajectory it would take my career. With autonomy to decide where I should start this new enterprise into unknown territory, I decided the best thing to do was go to the biggest English-speaking country I could find. Not too much time after, I showed up in England and called the highest official of every security company I could find to introduce myself.

To my genuine surprise, many agreed to meet with me to present what I had to offer, including the head of the largest security alarm company in the United Kingdom. Of course, it helped he was originally from Canada, a fellow North American, which was to explain why he was by far the most interested. After our meeting, it was not long after that we started shipping hundreds of motion sensors to them. After a couple of years of hard charging the English market and expanding my network to other countries, I was responsible for the growth of Solfan’s international business contributing to 50% of the company’s overall sales. Of course, Solfan went bankrupt during this time (another story) but by then I understood what it took to sell outside the United States.

When I received the call in 1982 that Solfan had been forced into involuntary bankruptcy, I called the President of the finance company which had taken over their assets and we agreed to meet. He had 1.8 million in receivables which he could not collect and a 40,000 square foot building chalk full of a usable inventory of parts and product in which they had no idea what to do with. With the diverse background I had developed during my time with ADT and Solfan, I formed him a plan on how to help move the extensive amount of product they had accumulated and within a short time signed a contract with them to get to work. 

Not long after, in 1983, C&K Components purchased our part of the assets and that of the finance company and re-branded as C&K Systems. Over the next 12 years, we continued to leverage the momentum I had built internationally with Solfan as the catalyst in growing C&K Systems to 105 million in total revenue. The international business we developed represented almost 50% of that figure and was directly correlated to the expansion of our footprint into countries like China, where we opened the first ever foreign security factory in 1986. 

After leaving C&K Systems in 1995, I joined Detection Systems as President. First order of business?  You guessed it: we allocated a large volume of our resources in developing international sales.  When I started, the company had only 1 % of their total business outside the United States but In a few short years, we grew the international segment of our overall revenue to 40%. The amount of success we had across the pond required us to open additional offices in seven countries. 

In 1996 we bought Radionics where I was appointed the company’s third President. Radionics was bleeding its’ profits profusely at the time. To turn it around we developed a strategy of buying out many of our international distributors and replacing their inventory containing our competitor’s product lines with our own. Thanks to a great management team we were quick to turn it around in about six months. We learned an effective way to convert a customer base was to retain the local staff who already had strong relationships with their customers. The retention of these employees was more effective when running newly acquired subsidiaries because they knew the local laws and regulations, customs and marketplace.

In the late 1990’s, I read an article on the plight of the California Spanish Missions, the oldest buildings in the State. Many, if not all, were having problems obtaining adequate security as they were having a hard time finding security companies which could work through the standards and construction techniques required, much less afford the additional costs of doing so. To serve this unique need, I had an idea that I could get donations of equipment from manufacturers and labor from alarm dealers. That year, I started an alarm company with my middle son to service these historic Missions by performing equipment installs and providing monitoring services as a donation.  Pivoting from my previous endeavors internationally, we spent three years running up and down California. Today, Mission Protection Systems services many types of customers throughout California, including taking care of these precious and historic sites.

I have had the long privilege of building some of the biggest manufacturers and now a good-sized alarm company along-side many great people. I have performed security work in seventy-nine countries and have many great friends and former managers around the world. If there is opportunity for you to grow your business portfolio abroad, do not let your fears of the risk involved get in the way.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Larry Tracy began his journey in the security industry in 1968 as service manager for ADT.  Over the next five plus decades, Larry has served as President for Solfan, C&K Systems, Detection Systems, Radionics, Ademco Sensor Company, and Aleph America. He has pioneered and patented technology during his time with Solfan and C&K Systems which is still commonly used in today’s security marketplace. Among Larry’s many accomplishments in the industry was his induction into the SS&I Hall of Fame in 2008.