Washington, DC watchdog brings security ideas to NY

Real Estate Weekly, Feb 24, 1993 by Lois Weiss

It's President's Day and by noon-time Kastle Systems' monitoring center operators ahve already responded to 10 fire alarms, a dozen tampers and intrusins, several stuck elevators, over a hundred propped doors and long access indications and spoken with thousands of visitors who have appointments at offices that are open while the buildings are closed.

This is a just typical morning for a command center that is guarding more thatn 650 properties. There is no panic, just a quiet murmuring as callers are greeted politely and computerized signals are dealt with efficiently by the highly trained operators.

Behind a glass wall, racks of computers blink religiously, testing themselves in what is one of the coolest spots in Kastle headquaters. Several levels of back up generators are part of the company's ongoing attention to its customers.

Kastle Systems is also now concerned about the safety of New York City's offices and is bringing its distinctive method of securing office buildings to one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Kastle is completing an installation at the Louis Dreyfus propert at 527 Madison Avenue and more are being contracted by other top owners and mangement companies.

Cushman & Wakefield, JMB Properties, Charles E. Smith Management, The Olive Carr Company, Boston Properties, Jones Lang Wootton, GalbreathRuffin and Boston Properties are among Kastle's Washington D.C. area customers where they guard 74 percent of the office properties.

Kastle also operates in Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago and Sydney, Australia for a total of about 1,200 properties worldwide. Each city has its own command center.

"The tenants in New York City do not realize they're operating in buildings that just aren't as safe as buildings in Washington, Houston or Dallas," says Kastle Systems President Zachary C. Fluhr, an MIT grad and former ATT exec.

The reason Kastle is so successful, says Fluhr, who also holds an MBA from Chicago, is that it has developed a system that is unduplicated in the industry.

The Kastle system provides security through perimeter control, which must allow people in; tenant secruity, which keeps people out and has intrusion capabililty; a life safety element to de tect fires and respond to elevator emergencies; and building operations protections that provide early detection of technical failures that could harm equipment.

Additionally, buildings where HVAC system can be individualized for tenants are candidates for the Kastle TONE control that permits off-site operation by touch-tone telephone -- a way to create the right climate when heading for the office on nights and weekends.

"That totality of capabilities is something nobody else provides," says Fluhr. 'It's an amenity for an office building to provide the Kastle Systems security to its tenants and in some cases, money can be saved.'

Founder Gene A. Samburg agrees: 'It makes that building more leasable than a building without a Kastle System. '

The two have been friends since their days as undergraduate lab partners in electrical engineering at Cornell University.

Samburg, a former Westinghouse Electric security expert who developed the system that guard the White House, says his mother has a saying, 'they should ... ' So if 'they should' make a locked door open automatically from the inside, Kastle does it.

If "they should" make one electronic key to fit the front door and the tenant's door, they do. Samburg says Kastle has so many 'they shoulds,' the system becomes transparent to the user.

"It's hard for us but easy for our clients,' he explained, since they have to work hard to make the devices easy.

Kastle cards, for instance, swipe upwards in what Samburg calls a natural motion. The in-house research and development staff is constantly modifying equipment and methods for particular user situations.

"We don't sell this stuff and run, we put it in and we monitor and operate it," Samburg observes. "So there is a gigantic additional incentive to make sure it works."

Samburg learned the analytical method of threat analysis from working with the Secret Service securing places like San Clemente and the Johnson Ranch. Today, Kastle employs these procedures to assess and meet the physical and operational requirements for each individual building.

A recent installation was made to President Bill Clinton's transition headquarters and the then presidentelect carried his own swipe card and Kastle ID number, as did Bush during his transition period.

One Thanksgiving parable is that if the Watergate complex had been secured by Kastle - as it is now -- the 'plumbers' never would have gained access to the Democratic National Headquarters suite.

Joan E. Mazzu, now vice president of operations in New York and a longtime Washington, D.C. Kastle representative, says every building has its own personality. "We treat every building differently because every company operates their building differently and every tenant operates differently than another,n she explained.