Chapter 179

While we were waiting on Cindy to call back we tackled the map again. I drew in a guard shack at the main gate with a tag scanner. I penciled in a fence separating the traditional college from the industrial buildings that the college had acquired with another guard shack at the one entrance from that area.

There were multiple street entrances to that area. Those entrances would have to be reduced to one and I felt that would be a tall task to get those public streets closed. A security fence was the best option.

I had Mark on the phone working with Melanie back at the office. She had a CAD program on her computer. They were designing a security office from scratch; two desks were not going to do the job. I had repeatedly made the office changes at the sites we took over and Mark was always involved in those discussions. This would tell me how much he had been paying attention to details.

I called Bob of Bob's construction and began asking questions, "I wanted ball park figures for building a guard shack. Could they be built prefab and delivered on a truck? How far from the gym was he? Could he give me an educated guess for an office structure, say 40x40?"

I had no sooner finished with Bob when Jenny called back with the statistics that I had asked for. She had sent them in an email, but she read them to me anyway. This year's were not completed yet but 12 and 13 were as she read them to me; all I could say was, "Oh my." The groups of people giving us their story a while ago were not exaggerating with the claims of crime on campus.

Now was when I kicked myself for not having a price for a turnkey security site. By the time today was over we would be closer to having one.

The clock was ticking and Marcy, Lorrie and Mark were putting things together. I had Marcy use 30 full time people as a base number. I also had her load extra costs into parking permits and stickers for students and visitor passes. I added extra cameras for the parking lot where most of the problems seemed to be happening.

Mark and Cindy had been doing some kind of computer sharing thing on her electronic maps. They were digitally adding the extra cameras to the program and our presentation. Marcy assigned numbers that went into the accounting program that would give the final cost at the click of a button.

With Bob's estimates for guard shacks and an office plugged in we were finishing up as the board members came in. Needless to say, I was looking forward to hearing their opening statements and what they were looking for.

Albert Kluasman was the college dean. His opening statement lasted 40 minutes. I was amazed that someone could talk that long and say so little. Almost everything he said I had already read on the news story I had picked up at breakfast. Either he wrote it or he memorized it. There was no mention of one security issue. I wondered if we had misunderstood why we were here.

Mr. Kluasman excused himself saying, "I have another meeting; my assistant will sit in for me," and introduced Alex Bowman as Under Chairman of the Board.

Mr. Bowman had a different point of view and a much different objective in his statement. He began with discussing the problems and the concerns of the staff and the students. He even disclosed a statistic that I was sure few college senior staff ever wanted known. A full 20% of the student body left after the first semester, with the number one reason on the exit form being lack of security and criminal activity on campus.

After he finished he asked, "Are you ready to take the tour so you can evaluate our needs?"

I floored the board when I replied, "We have been on the campus for over two hours and already been in every building and we have talked with staff. I have identified over 100 security faults."

"We are ready to show you what we can offer you in security, and to show you what we think you need building by building, street by street to improve your campus security by 99%," I said. "There is no such thing as perfect security. Even the DOD security has been breached."

Lorrie ran and narrated the slides of the PowerPoint, "This is everything that JGB security offers, from the newest electronic ID cards that could be connected to entrance doors, dorm room doors, and cafeteria charges, as well as most all charge back costs to the student's account. When the card is scanned by a security terminal the photo ID of the person issued the card is displayed to the officer or college official to see if the person, the card and the on-file records match.