5 Earn Hall of Fame Honors

A peacemaker with AHJs, a champion of technologies and standards, a wizard of finance, a builder of the industry’s finest dealer program and a trade association luminary are elected into SSI’s Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement. Find out how they toppled challenges and maximized opportunity to excel where most fail.

Steve Doyle

[IMAGE]12012[/IMAGE]Current Status

Executive Vice President and CEO, Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA)

Keys to Success

“I have tried to build CSAA methodically with due respect to maintaining budgets and adding to reserves. We look at programs to see if they are viable and useful for members. If so, we redouble our efforts to support them. If not, they are cut. A constant review assures every program carries its own weight. The greatest challenge was about 10 years ago when CSAA faced a difficult economic position. We dealt with it by bringing it right to the board of directors and saying it is your association and your job to help fix it. They all pitched in immediately because we were very frank with them. Every year since then CSAA has been solvent and has rebuilt itself into something its founding fathers would hardly recognize.”

Partnering With First Responders

“Working with first responders has been a real joy for me. All of the AHJ executive directors, many of the leadership, officers and board members are personal friends. I have had the rare opportunity to work with them bringing the public and private sectors together. We approached the AHJs with our word that the trust would never be broken with them. If there were issues, we would work together to solve them, we would never ‘blindside’ them, we would support them when they needed our help and we would never ask them to support us on anything that was not in their best interest as well. This support is relatively small in terms of dollars but very large in terms of goodwill.”

How Things Have Changed

“The greatest shift has been CSAA being mainly made up of ‘good old boys’ or ‘insiders’ to being on the leading edge of new technologies, emerging markets and devoted to education, not just at the CEO level but at many different levels. Also, an organization committed to reducing false dispatches and last, but not least, communicating issues and answers on what CSAA is doing today and tomorrow to expand our communications efforts as broadly as possible.”

Impact of Military Combat

“Two generations of my family have served as officers in the U.S. Marine Corps in combat situations. Others in my family served in every conflict going back to and including the Civil War. These experiences change a person. You learn to subjugate your own personal desires for the good of the group, to put others first and self last. In combat I quickly learned ‘there are no atheists in foxholes,’ many heroes are just doing their jobs as best they can, and people lay down their lives for their fellows. We must all be willing to make uncomfortable sacrifices so our industry and country can survive and prosper. This is not fully understood by many these days who put their own needs and wants first. Many I have seen in this industry do put the welfare of the industry first and that is key.”

Biggest Wish for Industry Change

“That companies understand that the old ‘80/20’ rule is alive and well. Twenty percent of companies are involved with trade organizations and 80 percent still let others do all the work and pay the dollars necessary to keep an industry viable. This is true for ESA as well as CSAA. The 80 percent has to understand we need their involvement and support. That means financial as well as getting involved. Pay your share and help lift the load. History is replete with examples of whole industries failing due to the complacency of the ‘Silent Majority.’”

Why He’s on the List

  • Nearly 20 years of executive leadership for CSAA
  • Led CSAA through financial hardships to new prosperity and success
  • Vital to success of CSAA’s Five Diamond, Online operator training, wiki and Webinar programs, and Electronic Security Expo (ESX) and Fall Operations Management seminars
  • Adoption of some of the above programs extended to worldwide organizations, Fortune 500 companies and government agencies
  • Played key role in improving working relationships with Electronic Security Association (ESA) and Security Industry Association (SIA)
  • Recognized voice of the industry to the public safety community
  • Work with International Association of Police Chiefs, International Association of Fire Chiefs, National Sherriff’s Association, Association of Public Communications Officials and others has raised the entire industry in their eyes

The Doyle File

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  • Born in Charleston, W. Va., in 1945
  • Father was a trade association executive; mother a homemaker and schoolteacher
  • Married with one son and one daughter
  • Graduated from Spring Hill College (Mobile, Ala.) with a degree in psychology
  • Served as second lieutenant in U.S. Marine Corp
    s, piloting CH-53 “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters in 153 combat missions over South Vietnam and Laos
  • Currently serves as board chairman of Foundation for International Meetings, a trade group that annually conducts 400 events
  • Other interests include travel, military history, and trap and skeet shooting

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About the Author

Contact:

Scott Goldfine is the marketing director for Elite Interactive Solutions. He is the former editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Security Sales & Integration. He can be reached at [email protected].

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