Thursday was clean up day at the college. Our board wanted to be spic and span, clean and professional, at any time a full tour was going to be given to another college board. I made several rounds with different administrators checking things out. I had the contractor straighten up their act as well. They had gotten sloppy with storage. I had Richard Bozman – the auditor – put the screws to them.

Thursday night we had the meeting with Katz and Bradberry. It was four hours long. All of us were there, even Jeanna, because Mid West Bank Delaware branch was going to do the financing on the equipment. They had been there setting up for their presentation since two in the afternoon. They or the girls had placed parts of the presentation around the gym. They had those little cutaway display doors with the security locks on them that you see in hardware stores. They had installed the operating system on one of our servers, linked it to one of the flat screens and had issued activated ID cards to our employees as part of the demo for tonight. They began as soon as we were all there.

“The system is new and revolutionary. It incorporates space-age wireless technology and mixes it with the latest 900 megahertz frequency swapping security features and that is just to run the wireless cameras and ID card identifiers. We can watch the cameras from anywhere there is internet as long as we have the secure access codes and an interface program.

The cameras are totally wireless as far as their communication link. The power for the camera can be two ways, AC plug or a sodium-oxide lithium hybrid battery pack; either direct mounted to the camera or remote mounted and wire connected. The batteries have a 3 year warranty and are rechargeable. A battery pack can power a camera for six months and when down to 5% life left it will send a warning to the console that they need to be replaced. The cost of the special charger is numbing, 3500 dollars, and recharge takes a week. The charger can charge 25 at a time and will indicate when each battery is fully charged. 25 spare batteries will come with the charger and can be left in the charging rack until needed.

The communications link is where most of the security is built in to the system. The 900 megahertz uses 10 radio frequencies with 10 sub-frequencies and can be randomized or mixed and matched as often the operator wants. You can use the same one all day or a different one every two minutes. The computer will choose the frequency and at off times sends a packet containing the day’s order to each device. A simple key-code locked all devices into a basic pair if there is any trouble.

The same battery pack would be installed in the dorm door card locks if AC power is not available. On some doors the system will be installed in the door handle or the striker plate, with a card reader pad on the frame, depending on the usage. All 510 doors will need refitting with one or the other. The main entrance and high use doors will use the pad type and require AC power. The individual dorm rooms will have the hotel style that would unlatch the door handle so it could be turned when authorized by the proper ID card. Next is the bad news.

The system with 600 door locks, 200 cameras, new flat monitors, computer terminals and 1000 ID cards with locator chips – the same as we used at KCC – and 25 terabit storage with the servers and installation is a cool 750,000 dollars. Since this is the first full retail field trial of this system, if we will allow them to demonstrate and use the college in an ad campaign they will waive the installation charges of 25,000 to bring the installed price down to 725,000,” Robert Bradberry said as he finished up the presentation. “The system had been in testing for two years.”

There was no doubt that the only way this would be affordable was with a 5 year contract from the college. With interest and the principal spread over 5 years the equipment would cost 200,000 a year.

My plan was built around 3 full time people on a day shift, two walking a beat and one office supervisor coordinator, 3 full time on the second shift with the same setup, one full time and 2 part times on a third shift. There would be two weekend persons working 2 sixteen hour shifts and being paid for 40 hours and 2 part time doing the remaining two 8 hour spots on the weekends. I was sure that the 16 hour weekend shifts would have to be done on rotation. I thought everyone would like that arrangement.

That would be 8 full timers at $35k starting with full benefits and 2 weeks vacation. There would need to be a pool of at least 10 part-time persons to fill in the spaces and do special event security.

Eight full time plus benefits = $50,000 = $400,000
4 part time working 24 hours a week and no benefits 96 hours required. $90,000
6 to 10 people on call for part time work as needed $100,000
4 cars with special equipment another $100,000
Uniforms, training, cell phones, $50,000
Liability insurance $55,000

The good thing was that all of the cost would be spread over the whole year or the length of the contract. There would be no major front load cost and some of the cost would be a one time thing and could be used for 5 years. There would be other costs that arrived monthly.

After Katz and Bradberry left we beat the presentation to death from every way possible. Jeanna might be able to pull strings on the financing of the equipment and get a lower rate that would reduce the annual cost. We could even buy the equipment from the capital budget. There were tax advantages if we did it as a loan. We would only get 2 new cars and they would be rented from the car rental side. Two of the three year old cars would be pulled out of the rental fleet would do for the college’s other two. We would purchase two new ones to replace them in the rental fleet, ever so slightly upgrading the fleet. The college cars would drive ten miles a day, basically in a circle. Marcy still had a lot of numbers to crunch before tomorrow night’s presentation with the Frost Borough board.

Marcy had called Max Kelly at 8 AM for prices on the 5 Nissans and 5 Fords. He had called back at noon. The price was nineteen five for the Fords and nineteen seven for the Nissans. He had cranked in every manufactures discount he could find and then sold them at cost plus $100. According to Marcy’s internet search that was 7 thousand off list price. Some had been delivered by 5 this afternoon and the rest on tomorrow morning. They were titled to MAAR, tagged, full of fuel and ready to rent when they were delivered. Charlotte needed them; there were NASCAR events scheduled all over Charlotte. All ten new cars were rented by noon Friday. Auto Logistics Security would have to install the selective GPS system that MAAR used to locate missing cars later.

Randy sent a picture of the sign they had posted on the counter, “Like the new car smell? We have some for rent.” It made me chuckle. I wondered if there was going to be an eight week rivalry for the most cars rented at Charlotte by our visiting staff.

Edit by Alfmeister