While we were waiting on Cindy to call back we tackled the map again. I drew in a guard shack at the main gate with a tag scanner. I penciled in a fence separating the traditional college from the industrial buildings that the college had acquired with another guard shack at the one entrance from that area.

There were multiple street entrances to that area. Those entrances would have to be reduced to one and I felt that would be a tall task to get those public streets closed. A security fence was the best option.

I had Mark on the phone working with Melanie back at the office. She had a CAD program on her computer. They were designing a security office from scratch; two desks were not going to do the job. I had repeatedly made the office changes at the sites we took over and Mark was always involved in those discussions. This would tell me how much he had been paying attention to details.

I called Bob of Bob’s construction and began asking questions, “I wanted ball park figures for building a guard shack. Could they be built prefab and delivered on a truck? How far from the gym was he? Could he give me an educated guess for an office structure, say 40×40?”

I had no sooner finished with Bob when Jenny called back with the statistics that I had asked for. She had sent them in an email, but she read them to me anyway. This year’s were not completed yet but 12 and 13 were as she read them to me; all I could say was, “Oh my.” The groups of people giving us their story a while ago were not exaggerating with the claims of crime on campus.

Now was when I kicked myself for not having a price for a turnkey security site. By the time today was over we would be closer to having one.

The clock was ticking and Marcy, Lorrie and Mark were putting things together. I had Marcy use 30 full time people as a base number. I also had her load extra costs into parking permits and stickers for students and visitor passes. I added extra cameras for the parking lot where most of the problems seemed to be happening.

Mark and Cindy had been doing some kind of computer sharing thing on her electronic maps. They were digitally adding the extra cameras to the program and our presentation. Marcy assigned numbers that went into the accounting program that would give the final cost at the click of a button.

With Bob’s estimates for guard shacks and an office plugged in we were finishing up as the board members came in. Needless to say, I was looking forward to hearing their opening statements and what they were looking for.

Albert Kluasman was the college dean. His opening statement lasted 40 minutes. I was amazed that someone could talk that long and say so little. Almost everything he said I had already read on the news story I had picked up at breakfast. Either he wrote it or he memorized it. There was no mention of one security issue. I wondered if we had misunderstood why we were here.

Mr. Kluasman excused himself saying, “I have another meeting; my assistant will sit in for me,” and introduced Alex Bowman as Under Chairman of the Board.

Mr. Bowman had a different point of view and a much different objective in his statement. He began with discussing the problems and the concerns of the staff and the students. He even disclosed a statistic that I was sure few college senior staff ever wanted known. A full 20% of the student body left after the first semester, with the number one reason on the exit form being lack of security and criminal activity on campus.

After he finished he asked, “Are you ready to take the tour so you can evaluate our needs?”

I floored the board when I replied, “We have been on the campus for over two hours and already been in every building and we have talked with staff. I have identified over 100 security faults.”

“We are ready to show you what we can offer you in security, and to show you what we think you need building by building, street by street to improve your campus security by 99%,” I said. “There is no such thing as perfect security. Even the DOD security has been breached.”

Lorrie ran and narrated the slides of the PowerPoint, “This is everything that JGB security offers, from the newest electronic ID cards that could be connected to entrance doors, dorm room doors, and cafeteria charges, as well as most all charge back costs to the student’s account. When the card is scanned by a security terminal the photo ID of the person issued the card is displayed to the officer or college official to see if the person, the card and the on-file records match.

This PowerPoint covers our camera system, data collection and its use, along with tag scanners of all vehicles.” Lorrie had even added standard slides of guardhouses at public entrances; somehow she had Courtney send pictures of the office. She had photos of the security vehicles that we had sent to Frost Borough.

Mark ran his PowerPoint on the hiring process we used: the background checks, current and past employment, the psychiatric evaluation, and the physical fitness requirements.

He then gave a complete explanation of the training all employees would have to go through before ever stepping on campus as a guard, from the weapons, suspect restraint and complaint investigation. He finished his portion of the presentation with our corporate policies, code of ethics and our mission statement.

The next part of the program was mine. It was a step by step explanation of where cameras and guards were to be stationed, also the lighting to be changed. I showed where I would have our security office located by the main thoroughfare, also the fence separating the back public access and the controlled entrance from there. I described the security vehicles we would supply, and the parking permit system requirement for staff and students.

Marcy followed with the cost for our services and equipment. She explained that we would use in-house financing for the equipment, the Federal rate plus 1% on the day of signing, with the cost spread out over the term of the contract. There would be no loaded up front cost or balloon payments required. Marcy said, “I have worked up the cost based on today’s Federal rate for 120 months, with 30 full time employees. Part time employees will be billed as a contract extra, on an as needed basis for sports events and such.

“We are going to be doing a lot at this campus in a short time. The college is going to be responsible for acquiring all necessary permits for the guard shacks and office,” I added to the conversation. The discussions lasted until almost 2 before we reached agreement on the terms and conditions.

While we were giving the presentation Cindy and several more of the clerks had been writing a contract based on all the presentation that they had helped us put together. They had also been listening to the discussion of the final terms and agreements. Cindy emailed the contract for review, print and signatures on the attached letter of intent.

Marcy used one of the printers to print out the contract, a copy for everyone in the room. When the printer finished we went over the contract item by item, made several small changes, and then reprinted those pages. The board signed on all the proper lines.

I made a call to Bob and had him call the planning and zoning commission and the inspection bureau for Altoona to question them about prefab guard shacks and building the office on site, and what he would have to do to be qualified, come up here and build it, and install the fences.

As a final after-thought I twisted Bob’s arm for him to fly up here with Mark on Monday to meet with the college’s building and grounds people to make sure all the right things were done and ASAP.

I also suggested that he get lists of preferred contractors that the college used if he wanted to be the contract inspector. I set up a face to face meeting with Bob for tomorrow to finalize the blueprints with his engineer. There was a lot of work to be done in 60 days.

We flew back to the Island. Wednesday was an ‘in the office’ day for all of us. There were a lot of pieces to put together by our in-house team.

Cindy – in what little spare time she had today – had been putting together the info packets for Thursdays and Friday’s audits.

Edit by Alfmeister