One of the biggest surprises at the ASIS Int’l Seminar and
Exhibits didn’t come from a new product or an exciting
display. It was from the fact that CCTV Imports showed up
at all. The seller of CCTV products from the New Orleans
suburb of Covington, La., managed to still set up its booth
and take in expo attendees despite half of its employees
still missing and the company running without phones in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina.
At first glance, there seemed nothing out of the ordinary about CCTV Imports’ booth. Owner Kevin Lazaroe still had an inviting smile on his face as he demonstrated lenses and cameras to visitors. The signs of a heavy heart were subtle – the glaring lack of company representatives at the booth and the collection bin at the front of the booth, trying to raise funds for temporary housing for CCTV Imports employees left homeless by the August hurricane.
“It was important for us to be here for our customers,” Lazaroe said. “We had to displace rumors that we had been wiped out.”
In fact, with Covington lying across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, it wasn’t subject to the levee-breaking floods that have been the greatest disaster to the Big Easy. CCTV Imports’ main office and warehouse weathered Katrina and remain in operation with no damage to product inventory.
That doesn’t mean Covington went unscathed by nature’s fury. Dozens of homes and hundreds of trees were flattened in Covington. As Lazaroe left for the Sept. 12 start of the ASIS expo, the city remained without drinking water, phones and only limited restoration of power.
But despite seemingly being knocked back into the dark ages, CCTV Imports still managed to conduct much of its business in the week following Katrina, losing only 25-percent of its average sales without any delay in shipments. Without phones, the firm managed to still make 75-percent of its usual business off E-mails alone. The company has also hired a runner and has rented a U-haul truck for some of its product movement.
Lazaroe doesn’t know the status of half of his employees. He expected his large booth at ASIS to be manned by seven. Instead, only three were on hand on the show floor of the Orange Country Convention Center – Lazaroe, his wife Nikki and Nunda Talley, who also had to set up the show booth themselves.
“You have to do the best you can,” Lazaroe says. “This makes you appreciate what you had.”
For information on aiding CCTV Imports’ effort to fund temporary housing for some of its employees, E-mail [email protected].
