Photo by Geoff Kohl/SecurityInfoWatch.com

Left to right: Dave Simon, Jon Sargent, Bill Moody, Bill Cooper, Stan Martin and Ron Walters. Simon, Sargent and Cooper were on hand to receive the Moody award from SIAC's Ron Walters and executive director Stan Martin.

As part of the ESX “Industry Ice-Breaker Luncheon” on Wednesday, July 25, 2008, the Security Industry Alarm Coalition recognized a group of individuals who “unselfishly give of their time and talents to alarm management issues.”

The Ice-Breaker Luncheon featured a presentation by Pete Correale, a regular comic on The Tonight Show, The David Letterman Show and Comedy Central, which had the crowd warmed up with jokes about marriage, city safety, and poor health habits.

Correale was followed by an equally entertaining presentation from Nashville Chief of Police, Ronal Serpas. Serpas became Nashville’s youngest chief ever in January 2004, and brought a career that included working as assistant superintendent of police and chief of operations for the New Orleans Police Department.

Serpas’ jovial discussion mixed humor with a recognition of the law enforcement community’s need to partner with the alarm industry.

“We fight crime in partnership with your businesses and your industry,” said Serpas, who noted that Nashville is currently seeing the lowest burglary rates since the 1960s.

Serpas noted that the two groups (police and the alarm industry) have been able to work together on the issue of false alarms in the past and noted that when he was early in his career in New Orleans, that city was facing increasing false alarm rates. Serpas noted that during the 1990s, New Orleans was able to combat the effect of false alarms on police operations by working with the alarm industry.

Serpas’ discussion of partnerships between the industry and law enforcement fed directly into the SIAC Presentation of the William N. Moody Award. The award is named for Bill Moody, a longtime alarm industry champion.