Profile: T&R Alarm Thrives on High-Tech Security
From basic alarms to biometrics and notification systems, Jersey firm rolls with the times
T&R outsources monitoring of its alarm systems to a Lyndhurst company, Atlantic Security, which keeps watch for several other firms as well.
Sansone lost several prison contracts after 9/11, when most of the earmarked federal dollars were shifted toward new security priorities. He now has a large number of private jobs, such as correctional centers in Colorado and Wyoming.
T&R also has become a pioneer in installing "mass notification" systems. In its latest job, the company is wirelessly linking the 50-building system at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia so military personnel can be alerted to an attack, fire or major accident.
Such systems are likely to be a large part of T&R's future.
"There are only a few companies in the country that manufacture these products," he said, "but I think you're definitely going to see it spread into the private sector."
T&R Alarm Systems Inc., Clifton
President/Owner: Thomas Sansone Sr.
Founded: 1971
Employees: 35
Annual revenue: $7.5 million (average for recent years)
Web site: tralarm.com
Advice: Put customer needs first. Sansone tells the story of one employee who left a family wedding to repair a store owner's alarm and two others who slept overnight in the Rikers Island jail to finish a job.
