Chapter 178

The flight to Altoona – Blair County Airport was full of discussion. The type of sales presentation that we did at Lewisburg was a first for Marcy and Lorrie. They spent almost the whole flight discussing the presentation and how they could improve it. I listened for most of the flight without offering an opinion.

I interrupted the conversation to remind them that the presentation was multipart. "The complete presentation could not be choreographed. It has to be broken down into individual segments. First was the research that Cindy had done that gave us a starting place," I said.

"The next was the site tour. It allowed me to look for soft spots that were potential trouble spots. Those determined where we needed cameras and how many from what angle, fixed or sweeping the area. That also determines how we map out the foot patrol for after hours and how often the spot is visited by the uniform. Does he walk by it once or uses it as a cross point at random intervals? You cannot allow the patrol to be stop watched," I added.

"Someone planning a serious intrusion into the secure space watches for a routine to know they have 5, 10 or whatever minutes not to be seen by real eyes, assuming the camera operator is snoozing or disable the camera," I said.

"Once all that is completed you have the framework for your presentation. The three of you read and interpreted all the notes we put on Cindy's maps very well. You may not have known why I wanted a particular type of camera at that spot. That will come with time," I said.

"To run the PowerPoint with everything we can offer sets the tone that JBG Security can meet their expectations. That is the one area that we need to stay on top of with technology changing so fast," I said.

"You remember the big open athletic fields at Frost Borough that we fretted so much over and requested those special expensive cameras, and will have to patrol with a four wheeler several times a day. Now for the price of one camera we can buy a dozen drones with cameras and get button quality video. A laptop, a game controller, sitting 100 feet in the parking lot and the operator can see much more. In ten minutes the entire grounds can be covered several times, looked at by several people and recorded to the servers for posterity," I said. "Can you imagine sending the feed from the drone to a big screen on the office wall?"

"The last part is putting your plan out there. Then you look them in the eyes and basically ask, this is our plan, do you want more? This is what we recommend. And then selling them the plan," I said.

That started another review of the discussions and the process that lasted until we landed at Blair County. Again we had to rent a car from our competitors; we did have several sites in Pennsylvania, but none at this airport.

We found our motel with no problem. This time Mark had a room all to himself. Marcy, Lorrie and I had a room with two king size beds. We went to supper as a group before calling it an evening. Marcy, Lorrie and I made the usual video conference call home for updates. I do not know if Mark partied.

The girls and I spent a while looking over the maps we were going to use tomorrow and doing a little research.

The three of us snuggled into one bed for some tender fun before sleep.

A bright sun made its presence known early. After a round of touch and feel and good mornings we made our way to the free breakfast. To my surprise there was plenty and had a variety of fruits, cereals, eggs, bacon, waffles and sausage.

I glanced through the local paper while I was eating and enjoying the better than average coffee. Altoona was the tenth largest city in Pennsylvania with a population of 50 thousand. Ninety percent of Blair County's one hundred and fifty thousand people lived within a five mile circle of Altoona.

Altoona was started as a railroad town and in its peak, more than 15 thousand worked for the railroad. Today that number was down to less than 500 and they worked in the maintenance yard doing mostly emergency repairs on trains passing through. According to the article, engines were assembled and rebuilt in the shops during its hey-day. The other major industry was coal mines. The mines in the area were deep mines; labor intensive. The high cost of labor and the environmental attack on coal was the double hit on the local economy.