Good luck, Peter!

Nov. 17, 2008

Peter and I were driving back to North Carolina from the inaugural ESX (Electronic Security Expo) on June 27, rolling across the Cumberland Plateau between Nashville and Knoxville and talking guns and the second amendment. It was that week that the Supreme Court had released a decision that affected the right to bear arms, and we were most certainly in a proud right-to-bear-arms "red state" and leaving a show where the presenting chapter had held a skeet shoot as part of the festivities. And being that the show was focused on alarms and cameras and access control and the prevention of break-ins, I suppose you can't stray far from the image of a burglar entering a house, and the "pump" sound of a shotgun being loaded as a homeowner prepares to defend his or her property. We were still discussing the gun laws and what the D.C. v. Heller case meant as the cliff-laden Plateau gave way to the Knoxville valley and even as we left that valley and entered the verdant foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains at dusk.

Those are the kind of times you recall of all your coworkers, much more so than any frantic call on deadline or any conference call discussion of an upcoming project. Idle chat about what hotel to stay at during the tradeshow fades away. Stories about your coworkers fill-in work as a security protection specialist in the days after Katrina stick around. Talk about how to promote the website in the July issue isn't committed to memory, while stories about volunteer firefighting with a Long Island truck unit remain.

So, it's with a touch of nostalgia and a great deal of hope and well wishes, that we report that Peter Harlick, publisher of Security Dealer & Integrator magazine has gone to the other side. Instead of putting together a magazine about security, he'll be working in security. Instead of placing contracts for advertisements and printing, he'll be accepting contracts for aviation security services and protective operations.

Pete, we'll miss you, but glad you're staying in "the industry."

-Geoff