Mission 500 Brings Security Industry Pros Together to Share Career and Life Advice
Andrew Campagnola and Martin Huddart team up at Securing New Ground and learn from each other after charity mentor auction.
Photo courtesy of Andrew Campagnola
Andrew Campagnola has never been shy about asking for advice in his time as a security industry pro and HID senior vice president and managing director of physical access control Martin Huddart is no stranger to serving as a mentor to colleagues and others in the industry looking to advance.
So, it makes perfect sense that the two came together when Campagnola made the winning bid in the recent Mission 500 charity mentor auction and he chose Huddart as the person with whom he wanted to spend an hour learning more about the industry, how to advance his career and much more.
Huddart has known Mission 500 co-chairwoman Janet Fenner for several years. She asked him to be part of the group of two dozen potential mentors as part of the fundraising effort for children in need across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico that ended at GSX 2024 in Orlando, Fla.
“Of course I said yes,” he says. “It’s a great cause. Personally, and as an organization, we believe in it, so I was very happy to sign up for the program.”
Campagnola has volunteered for several Mission 500 events in the past but “this was one of the first times that I got to a point where I could financially participate the way that I did,” he says.
“I saw all the amazing people that were on that list of mentors,” says Campagnola. “One of the big things that I was looking for was kind of some mentorship in wanting to get where I wanted to be in the future and Martin is basically where I want to be in the future.”
The Importance of Mentorship
Campagnola has had several mentors in the past, including some who were on Mission 500’s list for the charity mentor auction but his bid was driven by the fact he wanted to “talk to somebody who knows how to get to where they are, so it was a good time to put my bid in to try and make that happen,” he says.
Huddart jokingly asked Campagnola if he was sure he picked the right person when he found out they were paired up after the auction. Huddart and Campagnola got together for lunch at Securing New Ground in New York in October.
“It was a lot of great company,” he says of the other potential mentees who had agreed to a one-hour meeting with the winning bidder ahead of the auction. “I actually personally know a lot of the folks on the list, a lot of terrific leaders in our industry.
“I think Andrew was persuaded by somebody that I might be a good person to talk to, so I’m flattered, but feel some pressure now to live up to that,” says Huddart with a laugh.
“I appreciate it, and hope in the meeting that we’ve had, hopefully there was some guidance there,” he says. “I’ve certainly got a lot of gray hair so I’ve some things along the way and been in the security industry a while. I’m hoping Andrew doesn’t get buyer’s remorse from his choice.”
The Start of Something Special
Campagnola was determined to make the highest bid in the auction. During their lunch, they started by talking about how they got into the security industry.
“Andrew had some interesting stories of what he did as a kid and I shared some of the stuff that I would scare my parents with doing with electricity as a kid,” says Huddart.
“We often joke in this industry that none of us choose security,” he says. “I think Andrew actually is probably one of the few people I’ve met really destined to be in security more than most people I talked to from his interests as an early at an early age. Some of the rest of us sort of find ourselves in it one day and then we never escape—and for good reason. It’s a great industry to be in.”
Campagnola “definitely grew up in in a in a perfect storm of different popular culture in the media—TV shows, movies and whatnot—to make security a very interesting career choice for me,” he says.
“Even people who have left the industry, they always come back,” he says with a laugh. “There’s like a ball and chain that they put on our ankle when we get here, and they don’t let us leave.”
Campagnola is definitely happy with his choice of Huddart as his mentor.
“I was looking for some wisdom (in our first meeting),” he says. “His journey was different. When you look at the mentors that you have in your life, you have mentors that kind of help you with different situations. They coach you, they open doors for you sometimes.
“Martin and I have a lot in common from different worlds. He is somebody that I wanted to understand how he got there and how I could pivot to potentially do that in the future. And that is exactly what I received,” says Campagnola.
Mentors Can Be Mentees Too
Huddart came away with a few pearls of wisdom too, he says.
“The gene of reaching out and trying to find people to get advice from, that’s something I’m personally probably not as good at as I should have been,” he says. “I probably would have benefited from having Andrew’s attitude at a younger age through my career.
“I think he’s being very smart about getting advice and networking and building a network, which is really important in any industry, in any role. Andrew is well-known by a lot of companies in the security industry, and I don’t think he’ll be a free agent very long,” says Huddart.
Campagnola and Huddart also talked about overcoming various obstacles in growing their careers and how to advance in a particular company and in the industry as a whole. They plan to stay in touch as often as possible.
Huddart introduced Campagnola to some of his HID colleagues for additional advice and to discuss employment opportunities.
“We certainly don’t anticipate that was the one and only conversation,” says Huddart. “Andrew is more than welcome to reach out anytime and I’ll be glad to offer any advice I can give. I’m not sure I have the best advice, but I’m always willing to try and give some.”
Campagnola will try to pick his spots when it comes to reaching out to Huddart, but he definitely plans to stay in touch with him.
“I recognize the amount of time it takes to do the job that Martin does as well as his private life so I respect that time,” he says. “Any time that I can get with Martin in the future and when we do see each other at events, because now that we’ve been introduced we know each other, I can assure you that I will definitely say hello and we’ll catch up. I don’t think it was an open and shut door.”
Huddart is not a newcomer to being a mentor.
“Informally, I hope I’m a mentor to a lot of folks in the HID organization,” he says. He’s also served as mentor in the ASSA ABLOY mentor program for senior female executives.
“It was almost a dual direction mentoring program, because I learned just as much from a woman who was managing a team in Asia, and some of her challenges certainly resonate with some of my challenges,” says Huddart.
“Hopefully, along the way you can be a mentor to a lot of people that you come in contact with,” he says.
Campagnola has long understood “the power of networking,” he says, so he’s gotten involved in as many industry groups as he could, including the Security Industry Association’s RISE community.
“Another person on that mentor list told me, ‘you have your day job in the security industry and you have your night job’ and your night job is the volunteer work that you do, the different networking that you do with different people,” he says.
“It’s something that I wish I did earlier in my career,” says Campagnola. “I’m very active in the in the RISE program with the other young professionals and I try to mentor anybody who comes up and try to help them get to a place that I was at or further than I was at when I was their age.”
“I’m never too old to take a mentor. There’s always some help or some advice I can get from anybody that I talk to so I’m always learning,” he says.
If you participated in Security Industry Community Service Day or are involved in other service-based initiatives, contact SSI digital editor Craig MacCormack at [email protected] to be part of our ongoing Security Gives Back series.
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About the Author
D. Craig MacCormack, Digital Editor
Craig MacCormack is a veteran journalist who joined Security Sales & Integration in June 2023 as digital editor. He covered AV, IT and security with SSI's sister publication, Commercial Integrator, from January 2011 to June 2021.
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