 and welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studios for another episode of Security Matters Hawaii. Today we're gonna be talking with Don Erickson. He's fresh off of a vacation and I got him pegged down in his office for this episode and we're gonna talk about all the things happening of the security industry association is doing across the spectrum of the industry and it's really gotten broad. Don, thanks so much for joining me. I know you're busy back from vacation. I'm sure your inbox is full. So I appreciate you taking the time to join us in the studio today. No, Andrew, I would do anything for you and your company, you know that. I'm thrilled to be here and you're one of my favorite members. So we're gonna have a fun time today. Awesome, thanks so much. So I mean, Cia's just growing and they're like everywhere these days. So let's start with the show. I've been going to ISC for 20-something years. I don't know if you've got the numbers back yet but I think this was one of the biggest shows I recall. It seemed busy everywhere. I agree with you. I've been there about 13 years, ISC West. We had 30,000 people attend this year. About 18,000 were attendees themselves. The rest were exhibitors. It was incredible. I mean, I think it was, in my opinion, really a barometer of the health of the industry. I mean, we look at the PAC networking events, the Cia new product showcase, the innovation we saw from all the products that were entered from the new exhibitors and what they were offering and from the reinvestment from existing exhibitors. It was incredible. And the aisles were full. There was a buzz throughout the industry. The industry's doing really well. I know we talked offline right before the start of the show how well your company's doing, which is great. And we're hearing that from a vast majority of our 1,000 companies that we represent, the majority of whom are small and medium-sized companies. And that makes me feel really good that the industry's doing so strong and continues to be so relevant. Yeah, let's talk about the showcase. Now, I saw some of the products from the showcase. Is that a, are you a judge? I know there are several judges. Tell us a little bit about what was exciting in there. Yeah, so, Andrew, we had, this is about our 30th, the 35th year of running the Cia new product showcase. We had dozens of products entered from intrusion to wireless technologies, to artificial intelligence, to RFID and biometrics. And it was a cross-section of really what's new in the marketplace. In terms of what's being judged and who the judges are, they're integrators, they're peers of yours, and they're security consultants. So we don't have manufacturers participate as judges, and that gives the program more integrity. But the NPS program is really the first place each year that we see new product into the marketplace. And what I'm really excited are the products we're seeing that are leveraging AI and analytics. I think that's really cool. It's gonna have an impact in various markets. I think the one top of mind for me is probably the K through 12 market and what AI could do for that community. Yeah, and that's a community that, I know we'll talk a little bit about some of the funding and some of the activities that you've done with the government to bring funding into that sector. So it's really been important. The other thing that I thought was interesting, and I don't recall it ever being so prevalent is the off-show, off-floor shows and exhibits. All of the hallways were full, and there's large folks there now, like Intel is coming around our industry. And I don't recall the greater technology sector paying as much attention to security as they seem to be doing today. Are you getting that feeling as well? We're seeing that from Intel and obviously from Google and Microsoft and Dell. Companies that have not been traditional physical security companies are getting into the space. But what the beauty of ISC West was, you see the convergence of IT security and drones and robotics and really each component of the ecosystems represented at the show. This whole convergence theme that's been talked about for so long is really becoming a reality. And it's on display at the show. And that's what's attracted so many integrators and end users to ISC West. Probably the largest numbers, Andrew, that we're talking about that we've seen in years. And one thing I wanted to point out, and I've already told your audience, you're one of my favorite members, but you're also one of my favorite speakers. And so your session at ISC West was literally the second highest ranked session in terms of attendance that we had at the show. And I gotta tell you, the session that was ranked first, we're not gonna have them back because I wanna help you get to the number one position. I appreciate being part of it. So your session was on physical cyber convergence, really good topic and extremely relevant to the industry. And you've, to your credit, really been an evangelist on that topic through your involvement with PSA Tech, as well as CNA and ISC West. So that's much appreciated to have your thought leadership. Yeah, I think Bill Volin told me into that about, I think Christine actually volunteered me and then Bill got me hooked in. And that's been, I've learned a lot along the way. And when you know, one of my models is always be learning, always be sharing. So I'm happy to give that back. I was surprised at the education section because the Tuesdays are always usually really full. We had a few hundred, like standing room only in that one. But on Thursday, I still had another hundred plus in that one, which was typically, there's less people later in the week because the show's open and people are busy. But it was back to back appointments, education. We had customers there more than we've ever had them. It was, I worked very hard. And typically I have a little- Did you feel really good about it? I mean, just following up on this memory, we feel really good about this industry, right? Christine and I walked away going, wow, we have not worked the show that hard that we could recall where it was just back to back to back. And I missed some of my favorite things. Like I didn't even get to interrupt this year, which is one of my favorite sessions of all and I didn't get to go. And now, because we were just had appointments with customers and so it was amazing. Well, then you had a great meeting with GSA, right? So we had a significant government presence at the show as well. That's important for your company, a lot of security companies. And I think for your audience, I mean, people in Hawaii and just around the country and in fact the world, what's important to realize is that this is an industry that's representing every single component of critical infrastructure. From schools, to ports, to airports, to government buildings, think about that mission. It's unbelievable. And to be at an event with individuals that are committed to that mission, to your point about sharing knowledge, is really a unique experience. So we continue to encourage people to be a part of it. Now, Andrew, one thing I want to add about the education, we had 85 sessions and they range from active shooter to workplace violence to your topic on fiscal IT convergence. The breadth of issues we're covering is really significant and substantial. And it shows the number of issues that impact our industry, but it shows that we have the most innovative companies that are there to be trusted advisors to help end users solve the problems in each of these verticals that we're talking about. And I really can't say enough about it. So I appreciate your involvement. Yeah, we, you know, I work also with the InfraGuard. So it was really good to see DHS there, especially the S&T session for the, from, he wasn't from DARPA, he was from DHS, right? The Science and Technology Director, right? So our Acting Director. He spoke directly to what our industry's doing and what we're about. And I, from the InfraGuard, I work, you know, I work specifically in the defense industrial-based sector, but the stuff that he talked about and the stuff that our industry is doing for the remainder of the critical infrastructure sectors out there is a really big concern to the country, to the safety and security of the country. And I thought he was in the right place at the right time. So I was really glad that we had that kind of representation. And I think he reinforced for everyone in that room why they're dedicated to this industry, why it's important and how government wants to share and help our industry grow, our technologies improve. What was your take on getting him in there? Cause I don't recall government sort of being there, you know? So that was Jake Parker on our government relations team, who you know, who does an unbelievable job. He was involved with GSA. It was Jake's relationships that helped bring DHS into the meeting. And that's a relationship we've cultivated over the last five, six, seven years. And what was really cool about Andrew, that the entire DHS team from S&T toured the exhibit show floor. Yeah, they were there. They actually went out, yeah, absolutely. They took the time to learn about the technologies and build relationships. Another value add for the show itself. So it was really great. If I could pivot to something real quick, that's where to what we're talking about. That may be of interest to your audience. You know, we're talking about critical infrastructure a lot and who the suppliers are that serve the operators of critical infrastructure, most of which is as we know privately owned. There's a lot of talk and you alluded to this in Washington. There's a lot of talk right now about what the next stimulus bill may look like and that has an impact on your company and the customers you serve and so forth. So that's something we're really tracking because if you go around Hawaii or really any state, think about it for a minute, the number of bridges, roads, airports, schools, components of critical infrastructure that are outdated, old infrastructure, need new construction. What's going on right now in DC in one of the rare examples of bipartisanship is the Trump administration has begun to talk to Democrats and the majority in Congress about how do we come together and pay for a really robust, significant infrastructure package that's gonna result primarily reconstruction but indirectly in additional security and life safety investments made within the infrastructure. And most importantly, it's gonna create jobs for your listeners. So I think it's a great opportunity for your audience and for your partners and for your end users and for the supplier community to think about where do we invest? How do we prioritize? What are the soft targets and how much money is appropriate to invest? So I think it's exciting time to be in DC and hopefully really see this feeling of bipartisanship come through. Yeah, I for one hope, I believe that Hawaii sort of waits around for that stimulus to occur. We've gotten, we rank regularly at the very bottom for roads and for infrastructure improvement. The state just doesn't take care of those things very well here. And I don't know what the feelings are in the other states, but we've got aged infrastructure across all the islands out here and that needs to be worked on. Of course, there's the DOD work that goes on out here as well. So there's always the refurbishment of the bases, improvement of those types of things and there's other funding for that. I don't know if you intersect at all with the Military Affairs Council that comes out from Hawaii to work with the, I guess it's the defense, would be the defense sort of funding folks up there in DC that the Military Affairs Council from Hawaii goes out because we have such a large component here. So I guess to track the funding and the projects that are really gonna get funded in Hawaii for the DOD. And I don't know if you're across them or not. No, I'm not across that group, we do advocate for funding for security on military bases and military installations, which is an important area. Obviously, I have a lot of respect, you served in the military, appreciate your service. I think a top priority for our industry, probably in large part because we have so many members, former members of the military who are now part of our industry is to give back and support military installations to the extent that they have the most up-to-date infrastructure that includes security investments. So I look forward to working with them, but to answer your question, we do advocate for security installations at military bases. Yeah, and there's definitely a lot of work headed our way in Hawaii. We're not seeing a slowdown for many, many years in that particular component. I think it's probably a good spot for break. We gotta pay some bills, so we take about a one minute and we'll be right back with Don Erickson. Sounds great. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m., aloha. Aloha, I'm Cynthia Sinclair, and I'm Tim Apachella. We are hosts here at Think Tech, Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii non-profit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you'd go to thinktechhawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Hey, welcome back to Security Matters Hawaii. We're talking with Don Erickson of SIA. We're kind of going over what's happened at this show. We're talking a little bit about what's happening with government. And Don, there's another place SIA started showing up. SIA there. All these cities all around the country hosting these evening events. How are you getting all of those yourself? Or how's that working out? Andrew, I want to see you at more of those. But in any case, SIA there is a networking event we have around the country. Hopefully, we're going to bring to Hawaii as well. Hopefully sponsored by Integrated Security Technologies, right? But it's a pure networking event. So there are no PowerPoints involved. It's an opportunity to meet current and prospective business partners as well as customers. And the value of the program is that it's intimate in its nature. So as much value as we get out of large-scale events like ISC West, which is the best, the small intimate events complement those larger events. And it provides for attendees very unique networking. So this year, Andrew, we're going to bring the program to about 13 cities. Wow. We'd love to have some of your partners and attendees be there and customers and enjoy the experience. Awesome. Yeah. Well, if you could get one on Honolulu and if I'm on the mainland, I'm always tracking what's going on. So Christine and I show up here and there for sure. Let's talk about the women's events. So we've got, of course, I'm a woman-owned company, as you know, and we have women in industry, women across the spectrum of industries and businesses in the country finally starting to get their due. We're not at a 50-50 yet, where we need to get to for sure. But great event, see a women's event at ISC West a few weeks ago. Excellent. Excellent. I don't know. Was that a kickoff for the group? Because I think it had already started. The group started several months ago. Okay. We have an incredible steering committee that's developed the programs for it. What that was on the Friday of ISC West was a standing room-only audience. Yeah. Do you hear a keynote speaker that inspired everybody, including myself, including all the women in the room, but a lot of gentlemen around the room as well, talking about her experience as a working, as a mom who has built an incredible career, including being serving as an advisor to the president of the United States. And as I mentioned, we had over 200 people standing room-only. This is indicative of the type of events that we produce through the Sea of Women and Security Forum. But, Andrew, I agree with you. As a dad who has an incredible daughter, is 12 years old, Meredith, as well as two sons, married to, like you, an incredibly accomplished woman, a business person like I am as well, who has an incredible career, a woman, a business person like I am as well, there's much more we can do, and it's incredibly important for men to be involved in these initiatives and show their support and help them grow. You're right. We haven't made enough progress. It's, the numbers are still too low. We've got a long way to go. It's not a new problem, but we've got to keep chipping at it, right? We've got to really show some fashion around it and get other organizations such as PSA involved, among others. But let me talk about diversity a step further. So, diversity for women is extremely important, and you practice that within your own business. We try to do it at sea itself with a very diverse team, but also it involves men and women of color, right? So, diversity extends beyond women, and I had the pleasure recently of speaking at the International Association of Black Security Executives Meeting, and Andrew, I have never walked into a meeting with many people that was as energetic as this particular meeting. The conversations were free flowing. We didn't cut off conversation. Incredible people. A lot of college students there who are interested in the security industry could be future employees of yours or any supplier listening today. But we've got to also do more with the community involving men and women of color. And hopefully we'll expand our diversity program to include them. And I also want to tip my hat to you because this ties into the whole issue of promoting the industry to non-traditional audiences. So we're talking about women, we're talking about men and women of color, but you've been really essential in our efforts to promote our industry to non-traditional audiences so we can compete with the Googles and the Silicon Valleys and make this really, as you said earlier, a sexier industry to be attracted to because as we've talked about in this conversation, think about what you're doing as a company. I'm inspired by that. And I'm inspired by all these thousand companies about you're protecting my family, you're protecting my friends, you're protecting people traveling all over the world. And we all should be motivated by that. But we have a challenge to attract college students and people from vocational schools in particular, as well as community colleges into the industry. So with your help and guidance, which was essential, we've identified three ways we're going to do that by working with other organizations such as the Electronic Security Association, and hopefully say, is we're going to promote the industry better. We're going to work with our media partners across the country, include local news outlets, including public television, and talk about the merits of working with the industry. Second, we're going to conduct research in terms of what the demand for jobs are. When we go out and talk to colleges and universities, they say, look, Don, it's great. You're telling me that Andrew's company is going to hire, how many jobs? You're telling me other companies are going to hire in what positions? You've got to do a better job of communicating about that. And in terms of providing more technical education for various positions. And if we do all those three things, I think we're going to see this industry grow and we're going to, as an incredibly innovative industry, we're going to blow the top off. This is going to be the most appealing industry in the world if we can accomplish those goals and we'll get young people involved, we'll get more engineers involved, more project managers involved, but with a diverse background. And that's going to be really exciting and that's what keeps me motivated every day. Yeah, I share that. Just in the last week, I spoke to a group of retiring Air Force Guard veterans, all of them with avionics technical experience, all of them with a lot of leadership, you know, 20 plus years, had a group of about 14 selling them, not just on security, but on the low-voltage industries. I told them, you know, AV is a little sexier than security, right? Because they get the great screens and the great sounds and everybody goes, ooh, you know, when the security works, everybody goes, oh, great, thank you. But we are protecting lives and protecting business. We all, I think, have an ethical binding to our industry. But in the same week, I also spoke to Hacker High School. So that's a group that runs, it's a global group. I was with a group of seniors graduating from Milani High School. Some of them want to go work, you know, for the NSA, some of them want to work in cyber, but they were completely unaware of the low-voltage industries in the on-ramp that we have to technology and to technology professions. And so I got to talk, well, first we did some hacking, you know, hack some security law, showed them how to get around some circuits with magnets and things like that. And then we got to, I got to pitch our industry a little bit. And so I'm expecting a few emails or phone calls from that group. They're young folks, they're ready to work. And, you know, not all of them are necessarily college bound. So, you know, they can look at our industry as sort of that trade. But we have a unique opportunity to get folks, start them off with really no experience whatsoever. And if they can, you know, teach them these hand tools, teach them how to move around, how to run wire, and ultimately start to configure and program. And then project management or sales or whatever it may be. And beyond integrators, we have a whole group of manufacturers that are doing some of the most advanced R&D in the world, I think right now. Especially with machine learning and some of the stuff that we're doing. I don't see an end to careers in our industry. I mean... No, absolutely. And the important thing is you don't have to be a technical expert, right? No. As you're talking to me, you can be in human resources, you can be in project management, you can be in sales. Yeah. You know, any of these positions. I think the important thing is, what I've learned about, and you know this from all the extensive outreach you do with colleges and universities, it's the mission, right? Yeah. And I think the college, high school students, college students, they can get behind this mission if they knew more about it. Yeah. And that's the challenge we have as an organization and as an industry just continue to promote that. And I think shows like this that are watched by so many people through social media and otherwise, really goes a long way to accomplish that. So I'm really glad to be a part of it. Well, I hope so. Let's talk about, I think you're on ramp as Accelerize. So Cia started Accelerize a few years ago. I think Brandon, I remember Brandon from Northland, Brandon McFall maybe was running that. How's that program going? Andrew, it's really taken off. We're launching a new event in Minneapolis that I know you're going to send some folks to and your listeners will be there. We're having Accelerize, which is part of our RISE young professional program. So we feel an obligation to give young people a step up in the industry and provide them with the tools and the mentoring and the resources that are going to help them be extremely successful one day and hopefully own their own companies if that's what they want to do or be the head of engineering if that's what they chose to do. So Accelerize is an event that'll be in Minneapolis in mid-August and it's going to be a professional development conference purposely intimate designed by young people for young people about the security industry. So on the one hand, it's going to provide basic knowledge security 101 if you will about the security industry, the entire ecosystem, who is an integrator, who's a manufacturer, how do you get to market, what are the common technologies as well as some soft skills training. So how do you work with a team? I mean, how do you have difficult conversations with your boss? How do you handle constructive feedback? So all of these things are really important. So the blended learning of soft skills development with knowledge of the industry I think makes for an incredible event. And if it's any indication of our women's security events going, this one's going to be a phenomenal as well. Yeah, I do think it's important for the senior folks in our industries. I used to, I still talk about in many rooms when you go to a lot of our conferences and it's changing, but it used to look like a room full of bowling balls. They got all these ball-to-hit of guys with goatees or ex-military, ex-police, whatever. And we're starting to see that change, but we, I think we that have been around the industry have got to provide mentorship for those young folks because it is in some ways who you know, you know, or knowing how to get the answer that you need or from who it may be in that particular sector or with that particular experience with a certain type of project or a certain vertical or a certain product or whatever it may be. And that's the breadth of our, of the knowledge in our industry is kind of hard to wrap your arms around when you're first getting started and maybe that some of the mentorship stuff that we can do could help folks, you know, get there a little quicker. Exactly. Yeah, so is, are you taking that also to, are you going to pull from government? Is DHS and the FBI are those folks lending a hand? Are they interested in helping some of the, the CIA, I'd say the momentum that CIA is starting to create are you, can you, can you get some assistance from those folks? At least, you know, the speakers and not. Professional topic, do you mean workforce development? Yeah, and knowledge sharing about the, you know, the importance. I think a lot of people don't know that some of the problems with our critical infrastructure, just for example. So for example, let me, let me speak in two ways. First on the young professionals. So I actually spoke to the office of the director of national intelligence. I was a keynote speaker at their private sector partners meeting where I talked about the challenges associated with workforce development in our industry, which are not new, right? They're not distinct from other industries. And it's a war, what I like to say, unfortunately, is there's a war for talent going on. We're competing with other industries for talent. And I think government absolutely agrees. Government, when you look at the cybersecurity positions they have, there are thousands and thousands of positions, for example, that government agencies are trying to fill. So number one, they share the same problem, getting qualified individuals into the workforce. And with our converged environment that you've spoken about, we can work together and should work together and have started that through S&T. But in terms of best practices, our agency's security committee, which sets the security requirements for federal agencies, we're working with them. We have great relationships there to share their guidance. And Andrew, we do that on a vertical by vertical basis. So not just government, but we work with associations and organizations that represent bus systems, for example, or ports, or as I mentioned, K through 12 schools through our past partner alliance for safer schools guidelines. The sharing of information around best practices is really critical. And one other thing that we're working on is a concept called Good Better Best, which we're actually going to be providing recommendations to integrators about the level of investment they should have in security technology to achieve a certain level of security. But look for more information about that as well. That's awesome. Don, we're about out of time. I really appreciate you sharing your insights today with us and giving us sort of that insider perspective of what's going on with the industry. I'm going to ping you again, maybe Q4, maybe Q1. Try to keep sharing some of these insights because it's, there's a lot going on that people don't know. So we really appreciate you sharing today. Andrew, I really appreciate the chance to be on. You know a lot of people. So there's a lot of people you could have asked to be a guest today. It's really important. And I'm really sincere about one thing. You and Christine run an incredible company. And as you know, we put Christine on the cover of our annual report because we're proud of your company. And thank you for being a member. It means a lot to us. And thanks for the opportunity. Thank you so much, Don. We'll see you soon. And folks, check out the Security Industry Association if you want to get engaged with our business. It's important because security matters. Thank you.