Photo by G. Kohl/SecurityInfoWatch.com

2009 Central Station Alarm Association Excellence Award Winners

June 24, 2009, Baltimore, Md. -- This morning in Baltimore during a breakfast ceremony held as part of the Electronic Security Expo, the Central Station Alarm Association presented its annual awards to the alarm monitoring industry's best individuals and companies. The awards, which are now in their fourth year, recognize excellence in the central station industry.

It's an area where excellence is paramount. No matter how many security and fire systems are signaling in alarm mode, were it not for the exacting efforts of the central station alarm monitoring companies, those alarms signals would never make it to emergency dispatch centers. If these companies don't do their job at the highest level, much of our industry's efforts – the hours spent pulling wire through tight crawl spaces, programming equipment and zones, reading codes and then following those codes – would be for naught.

Thus, it is our pleasure here at SecurityInfoWatch.com to report on the 2009 CSAA Excellence Awards.

The Central Station Operator of Year award is presented to an operator whose excellence at their firm becomes a model for all operators. The 2009 Central Station Operator of the Year award was presented to Jeffrey Karabinos from Vector Security's West-Central Monitoring Center in Pittsburgh, Pa. Also recognized were honorable mention awards for Charles Balletto from DGA Security Systems in New York, N.Y., and Stewart Pittenger from Vector Security's Eastern Monitoring Center in Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

The association followed by presenting the Central Station Manager of Year Award, an award which typically goes to the person who is the real "glue" behind a company's monitoring operations; it's also the person who often bears the stress of keeping the company current with technology, who is the bottom line for top-notch customer service, and whose job it is to ensure that the operations are run like a tight ship. For 2009, that Central Station Manager of the Year award was presented to James Riti for his work with DGA Security Systems in New York, N.Y. Honorable mentions included Greg Hurst of Monitronics International in Dallas, Texas, and Suzie Nye of AvantGuard Monitoring Centers in Ogden, Utah.

The 2009 Central Station of the Year Award followed an was presented to DGA Security Systems of New York, N.Y. The company was described in remarks accompany the presentation of the award as a station designed around the customers. It's current building, which was completed in 2005, is said to showcase all the efforts of the station for customers -- whether that's the operators, corporate offices or even the technical rooms housing the communications technologies. DGA is also notable as providing a wide variety of monitoring services, including burglary, fire, access control, environmental conditions, supervisory systems, GPS, elevator trouble, video monitoring and more. The station is also a Five-Diamond CSAA certified monitoring station.

Honorable mentions for the 2009 Central Station of the Year Award included ADS Security of Nashville, Tenn., and Doyle Security Systems of Rochester, N.Y.