For almost four decades, I’ve spent my career behind the scenes in the professional monitoring industry. That’s where I’ve always been most comfortable.
I’ve never felt the need to make myself part of the story. But today, after nearly two decades with COPS, I thought it was important to write a personal message to those of you willing to invest a few minutes to read it.
Because what we’re introducing today is deeply connected to why I’ve spent nearly four decades in this industry, why I chose COPS, and why I believe so strongly in what we do.
My story started when I walked into a central station for my first shift as a dispatcher.
At the time, I was working nights and preparing for law school. I thought it was just a job.
I had no idea I had found a calling.
It didn’t take long before the work became very real.
I listened to homeowners trying to decide whether they felt safe enough to stay in their own homes until their alarm system could be serviced.
I listened to a frightened mother checking her house with an infant in one arm and a .357 in the other.
I handled PERS signals from elderly customers who didn’t always need emergency help. Sometimes they just needed reassurance. Sometimes they simply needed a connection with another human being.
Those experiences changed something in me. It wasn’t just a job. It wasn’t even just a calling.
It became part of who I was.
I spent the first 20 years of my career working in operations.
I built five UL-listed central stations in several states. I was involved in the acquisition of dozens more and worked closely with many others through user groups, industry associations, and professional relationships.
Building and managing multiple monitoring centers, maintaining UL compliance, consolidating operations, conducting due diligence, and acquiring companies gave me exposure to virtually every aspect of professional monitoring.
I saw different technologies. Different monitoring platforms. Different levels of redundancy. Different approaches to hiring, training, recognition, and retention. Different cultures, policies, procedures, disaster recovery plans, management philosophies, and ways of serving dealers and their customers.
That experience gave me something else, too. It gave me the ability to recognize the companies that really stood out.
After 20 years, I liked to think I knew a thing or two about a thing or two.
- Nearly4decades in this industry
- 5UL-listed central stations built
- 18years with COPS
Then, eighteen years ago today, I joined the COPS team. Immediately, COPS stood out to me as exceptional.
It wasn’t simply because of the technology. It wasn’t the proprietary monitoring platform, dealer access, redundancy, incredibly detailed SOPs and documentation, disaster preparedness and recovery planning, comprehensive training, performance measurement, certifications, infrastructure, attention to detail, or relentless pursuit of excellence.
Those things were exceptional. But the biggest difference was the culture and the people.
COPS had built a culture around service excellence. Around accountability. Around doing the right thing.
Most importantly, the people understood something I had come to believe years before:
We don’t “monitor alarms.”
We help protect the people who trusted you with their safety.
I recognized those people because many of them had a story much like mine. They started a job without realizing how much it would change them.
Today, 96% of our upper management started in positions much like I did. They learned the business from the front lines. They received extensive training. They accepted increasing responsibility. They learned to lead others, solve problems, make difficult decisions, and understand this business from the inside out.
Above all, they discovered that protecting people, supporting alarm companies, and helping dealers become stronger and more profitable wasn’t simply work.
It gave their work purpose.
When I eventually transitioned from operations into marketing, I faced a very different challenge:
How do you explain the difference between monitoring companies?
It’s a story worth telling, because there really are differences.
Some of those differences may not be obvious when you’re choosing a monitoring partner. But you’ll definitely see them when when it matters most.
Over the years, we’ve talked about our dealer access, advanced technology, how we pioneered redundant monitoring long before it became common, our people, applications, certifications, training, response times, infrastructure, and capabilities.
We’ve hosted countless webinars. Traveled around the country conducting training programs and dealer meetings. Held Grow Your Business Seminars. Created our Synergy conferences around the idea that dealers, monitoring companies, and vendors can accomplish more when they work together.
We even hosted what I still consider some of the best parties I’ve ever attended at ISC West in Las Vegas, with headliners like Kellie Pickler, Parmalee, Scotty Alexander, and LoCash.
We did all of those things for our dealers. They matter.
But we’ve always considered many of them part of the price of admission to earn your business.
There’s something deeper behind all of it.
The team at COPS has a genuine passion for helping alarm companies succeed.
- Helping you build a stronger, more profitable company.
- Helping you operate more efficiently.
- Helping you serve your customers better.
- Helping you become a stronger community leader.
- Helping you be a good steward of this industry.
- Helping you protect the reputation you’ve worked so hard to build.
- Helping you deliver the kind of protection and service that earns lasting customer trust.
Because your customer may have chosen you, but when something happens, they may be talking to us.
In that moment,
we represent you.
It matters to us. A lot.
Yet none of the technology, programs, events, advertising, or marketing we’ve talked about over the years has ever completely captured the essence of what makes COPS different.
Today, on my 18th anniversary with COPS, we’re introducing something that finally gives a name to what we’ve recognized all along.
It’s Human Intelligence™. We call it…
The growth of technology and AI didn’t create that realization. It simply shined a brighter light on it.
As technology and AI have become more capable, their benefits have become increasingly clear. So have their limitations.
We use technology and AI every day to improve speed, process information, identify patterns, automate repetitive tasks, and help our people work more effectively. We should.
But technology can only go so far.
Protecting people is personal.
Your customers didn’t just buy a keypad on a wall, an app, a camera, or a wearable.
They trust you with what happens next.
When that moment comes, you trust us to represent you. That trust depends on more than technology.
Technology doesn’t care about your customer. People do.
It takes a person to understand context when circumstances don’t fit neatly into a programmed response.
- Judgment when information conflicts.
- Empathy when someone is frightened.
- Communication when someone is confused.
- Reassurance when someone feels vulnerable.
- Experience when seconds matter.
- Accountability when somebody needs to take ownership.
- A caring voice when someone desperately needs a connection.
Sometimes it takes something even harder to define: someone recognizing that something simply doesn’t feel right and deciding to look a little closer.
That’s Hi in practice.
- Hi is Human Intelligence.
- Human Intuition.
- Human Insight.
- Human Instinct.
- Human Initiative.
- Human Ingenuity.
- Human Integrity.
- Human Imagination.
- Human Interpretation.
- Human Interaction.
- Human Influence.
- Human Involvement.
Technology can support all of those things. It will never replace all of them.
You’re part of Hi. Your employees are Hi. First responders are Hi. Our dispatchers, trainers, supervisors, technicians, managers, support teams, and leaders are Hi. We’re all Hi.
Go ahead and smile at the name. That’s okay. In fact, that’s part of the point.
Hi is human.
It’s friendly. Approachable. Welcoming. Personal. Even a little playful.
“Hi” is one of the simplest ways one human being acknowledges another.
Before the technology, before the process, before the data, before the automation, there are people. That’s what Hi is about.
The backbone of the security industry has always been people applying uniquely human intelligence to technology.
COPS has intentionally built a culture around those people. We identify them using proprietary methods developed with the assistance of an Industrial Psychologist.
- We hire them.
- Train them.
- Educate them.
- Support them.
- Challenge them.
- Develop them.
- Recognize them.
- Promote them.
- Listen to them.
- Learn from them.
- Trust them.
- Give them the tools they need.
- Hold them accountable.
- Encourage them to ask questions.
- Teach them to think critically.
- Give them opportunities to grow.
Then we celebrate them when they choose to exemplify the values that make COPS different.
That culture is one reason 96% of our upper management began in frontline positions.
It’s one reason our employees average 8.4 years of service.
It’s one reason people who thought they were starting a job often discover they’re beginning a career.
Hi in Action.
Some of what makes COPS different has always been difficult to explain.
Much of our hiring, training, policies, procedures, processes, and operational practices are proprietary. We’re understandably reluctant to publish the playbook we’ve spent decades developing.
So instead of simply telling you what makes COPS different, we decided to show you. That’s why we created Hi in Action. Hi in Action is proof.
These are real stories about real people making real decisions that mattered.
- A dispatcher noticing something that didn’t look right.
- Someone taking extra time with a frightened customer.
- An employee recognizing a procedural problem before it affected a live alarm.
- A team working together when circumstances didn’t follow the script.
- Someone asking one more question.
- Making one more call.
- Checking one more detail.
- Taking ownership instead of assuming someone else would.
- Recognizing that “good enough” wasn’t good enough.
- An employee who may have helped save a life with a song.
These aren’t carefully constructed marketing examples.
They happened.
At launch, we only have a few dozen stories posted. More will follow. Lots more. Because they’re examples of what happens inside COPS every day.
Hi in Action serves another important purpose inside our company.
It recognizes the people who demonstrate Human Intelligence. It reinforces the behaviors and values we want throughout COPS. It gives employees examples they can learn from. It reminds all of us why the work matters. It strengthens the culture that created those stories in the first place.
Most importantly, it gives you a window into what happens behind the scenes when your customers are depending on us.
Because unless your customer tells you, you may never know about the dispatcher who asked one more question. The person who noticed something wasn’t right. The extra call. The reassurance. The mistake caught before it affected them. The employee who simply cared enough to do more.
You may never see those differences. Your customers will feel them.
And because they’re your customers, those differences become part of your reputation.
There are differences between monitoring companies.
The difference isn’t simply technology.
It isn’t an app. It isn’t automation software. It isn’t APIs. It isn’t receivers. It isn’t certifications. It isn’t beautiful redundant facilities. It isn’t AI.
Those things matter tremendously. But increasingly, they’re expected.
A fast response is expected. The right response is required.
The real difference becomes clear when technology reaches its limit and a person takes over.
Someone has to understand what is happening. Decide what matters. Communicate effectively. Exercise judgment. Take responsibility. Determine what happens next.
That’s Hi.
After almost four decades in this industry, I’ve built monitoring centers, managed multiple operations, evaluated technology, consolidated facilities, performed due diligence, participated in acquisitions, worked with monitoring companies across the country, and seen this business from almost every angle.
I’ve seen the technology. I’ve seen the processes. I’ve seen the facilities. I’ve seen the cultures. I’ve seen the people.
And I can confidently say what I believed shortly after joining COPS:
Nobody does Human Intelligence like COPS Monitoring.
Your customers trust you. You can trust us.
We understand that when we answer an alarm, we’re representing more than COPS. We’re representing you, the company that earned that customer’s trust in the first place.
That responsibility is personal to us.
If you’re already a COPS dealer, thank you for trusting us with your customers, your company, and your reputation.
If you’re not, I hope you’ll spend some time learning about Hi and reading the stories of Hi in Action.
Then talk to us. Ask hard questions. Compare us.
Give us the opportunity to show you why there really is a difference in monitoring companies. And why the difference ultimately comes down to people.
AI detects. Hi Protects.
Sincerely,
David Smith
VP of Marketing & Business Development
COPS Monitoring
