Opportunity Knocks, Turns Into Lasting Success

10 percent commercial/industrial
Products/Systems Offered:

Specialize in home and office security, including video surveillance, access control, home controls, fire/life-safety and personal emergency response systems (PERS). Also operate a UL-Listed monitoring station.

Company Culture

Judy Randle knows a good opportunity when she sees it. In the early 1980s, the Georgia native was looking for employment that would afford her recurring revenue. She would open a telephone answering service in Albany, Ga., taking calls around the clock for doctors, contractors, property managers and the like.

“That was going really well when one day I was speaking with a local alarm dealer who wanted us to monitor his alarm accounts for him. I said, ‘What does that mean?’”

The dealer explained he only needed to install a simple piece of equipment at her office and when the alarm signal comes, you call the police. Randle replied, “I can do that.” Soon the dealer was signing up his alarm industry brethren in the area to monitor their accounts, while Randle managed the business with a small staff. Central Monitoring was officially launched in 1984. In 1991, Randle bought in as a partner in the third-party operation. Then in 1994, she bought out her partner.

“It just happened. It was like I had this great master plan,” Randle says, chuckling. Adept and driven to provide superior customer care, Central Monitoring flourished under Randle’s guidance. In 2000, having sold the answering service, the company turned its focus solely on security. Randle expanded the operation to become a full service installation and UL-Listed monitoring company with clients in 11 states.

To what does she attribute her success?

“Our primary focus is meeting or exceeding our customer’s expectations. We follow-up on every service call and every installation with a phone call to the customer to be sure they are satisfied and do not need anything else,” she says.