Earlier this week, Reitman Consulting Group founder and managing principal Mitch Reitman shared the best advice he’s ever gotten and advice he gives to others about succeeding in the security industry.
Today, Integrated Security Technologies co-founder and 2024 SSI Industry Hall of Fame inductee Andrew Lanning steps into the spotlight to offer his own pearls of wisdom. We’ll have more advice from members of the SSI editorial advisory board, SSI Industry Hall of Fame and more coming soon.
Security Sales & Integration: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Andrew Lanning: “Loyalty isn’t optional.”
When (Lanning and his wife Christine, IST president and 2025 SSI Industry Hall of Fame inductee) first started IST in 1998, I met John Bissell, the western regional sales manager for Lenel, which was still privately held by its founders, Rudy and Elena Prokupets.
Back then there were a lot of expensive training hoops to jump through if you wanted to be Lenel Value Added Reseller (VAR) such as weeks of training in Rochester, becoming a Microsoft Certified Partner, obtaining a Microsoft SQL Administrator certification, demonstration system hardware, etc.
Those were difficult hoops to jump through for a self-funded, self-operated startup, but we got them done and became Hawaii’s first (and only) Lenel VAR in those early years of the system integration industry.
Shortly thereafter, the Tripler Army Medical Center gave a large security system upgrade award to Diebold, who had won the product with Continental. Post-award, the facility PMO decided that they wanted Lenel instead of Continental so they asked Diebold to make the change.
Diebold was a big security company in Hawaii in those days, but they weren’t a Lenel VAR, so John steered them to use IST as a subcontractor for the project, and he made it clear that IST was their only option if they wanted the Lenel product in Hawaii.
When we expressed our appreciation for John’s support, given the industry prestige of Diebold in those days, he simply told us “Loyalty isn’t optional.” I believe that his loyalty motivated our performance and elevated our own self-expectations. His loyalty to IST was proven time and again as Lenel became the industry integration product of choice across the spectrum of enterprise vertical markets in the early 2000s.
IST went on to grow a seven-figure Lenel business in Hawaii and the Pacific alongside Bissell, Charles Duncan, Matt Weigand, and Rich Lyman who inherited the region once John retired. The successes we achieved together, along with that loyalty lesson, never left my conscience or IST’s business practices with our partners.
Those VAR loyalties didn’t survive the perpetual ownership changes and management practices of Lenel after the Prokupets’ years, and the product prestige has waned alongside those decisions and new competitive offerings.
The deeper lesson in the story is to invite the manufacturing community to assess their VAR partnership strategies far more narrowly and support them unwaveringly if they want to maintain a sales channel that operates with ethics, integrity, and earnings potential instead of an integrator race to the bottom for every opportunity within a given territory.
SSI: What advice would you give to those looking to achieve success in the security industry?
Lanning: Sincerely that the sky is the limit. I have witnessed people go from wire puller to account manager, sales manager, project manager, and on into manufacturing roles in software engineering, marketing and executive management. There aren’t many trades that are so closely aligned with the development of technology, and as rapidly adopted across so many market segments, alongside those developments.
The low-voltage industries including audiovisual, fire, communications and healthcare verticals like nurse call systems and infant abduction all offer similar paths for growth and opportunities for excellence in specialization.
Structured cabling firms are a great example of a particular expertise that can become their own career path. It’s also fairly easy to cross over from security to AV, or vice versa, or from integrator to manufacturing as long as one has the discipline to consume our constantly evolving technologies.
The technology changes seem faster to me today than in the past, so to my mind that equals even greater opportunity for anyone willing to work on maximizing them. So my advice is don’t rest. Since you’ve decided to work anyway, find technology that is meaningful for you to implement in a vertical that you’re passionate about helping.
Always share your successes with others and look for ways to improve on the challenges. The opportunities are unlimited.
SSI: If you could point to one person in the security industry and tell up-and-comers, “Make sure to listen to what they have to say,” whom would you pick and why?
Lanning: There are brilliant minds that are out there at the forefront of industry thought, at every event, and in every social media feed you come across. They’re there because everyone is learning from them, their observations and timely and insightful, and they are driving change. Listen to them.
But I’m going to call out a name that doesn’t seek the spotlight. A gentleman who has given his life to an underappreciated segment of our industry, a segment that is still overlooked far too often by facility owners, consulting practitioners, and system integrators. That security component is voice communications and the man is (Zenitel senior vice president of global business development) Dan Rothrock.
Dan’s experience covers the entire spectrum of security applications, and he has come to champion voice as the far-to-often missing link in a whole of security practice. Command and control simply cannot be achieved without the capability of hearing what a camera sees, and/or speaking into an unfolding scene.
Even where video isn’t available, voice communications can direct people to life saving services, or away from life threatening ones. Dan is always available to share his insights, and he generally wraps them in a story that is as insightful as it is compelling.
If you have the good fortune to meet with Dan, take some time to ask him your hardest questions, and he will likely have helpful advice to share on the issue, or know where to find help for it. If you don’t have any issues, ask him about voice communications and get ready to take notes.
Going beyond serious industry discussion, ask him about his favorite recent travel adventure and settle into the comfort of a friendly exchange that will leave you feeling appreciated. Dan has that way of leaving people smiling, and that’s another reason I’d pick him. Who doesn’t like to smile?
Click here to check out all entries in SSI’s Best Advice series!
