Caught on Camera

Caught on Camera

A Gulf Coast startup is bringing new technology concepts and software to a most decidedly old business: The gated entry.

technology by Dave Szymanski | Tampa Bay Editor

The online video streaming through Tom Swain's laptop tells the story: Two young men, one with what looks like a beer can in his hand, sneak into a gated pool area inside a housing community.

The up-to-no-good doers look around and figure no one is watching them, so they can have free use of the pool. Then, a booming voice bellows from the background: "This is Envera Systems, monitoring the pool area. This area is closed. You need to leave immediately."

The two youths look around and discard the voice as a useless recording. But then, the voice booms again, telling the trespassers he "could hear and see everything." And they need to leave, the voice continues, before he calls the cops.

The omnipresent voice is actually a technician for Envera, a Sarasota-based company founded by Swain in 2007 that uses a combination of proprietary software and Internet technologies to serve as a new kind of 21st century security guard.

In this case, the security guard is monitoring the pool via a remote access camera and high-tech digital video recording system. So no matter if the pool is in Bradenton or Brooklyn, an Envera employee can still monitor it from the safe confines of the company's 4,200-sqaure-foot office, just east of the Fruitville Road exit of Interstate 75.

The service is most commonly used to replace guards patrolling the entrances of gated communities, but, says Swain, "there's a lot of different applications this could be applied to."

Those include working security anywhere from parking garages to power plants to pools and other common grounds of housing complexes. In addition to the Sarasota-Bradenton market, the company has clients in Tampa, Naples, Orlando Jacksonville and Miami. It's currently wooing clients outside of Florida, too, in places such as North Carolina.

But as high technology as Envera can be, the company is really positioning itself in the marketplace as a value play, given the current state of the economy.

It has zeroed in on developers and homeowners associations as a top client base, saying it can trim the six-figure plus costs of having human beings run a security gate by as much as 50% year.

Envera has about 25 employees and will finish 2008 with annual revenues just under $2 million. Swain expects revenues to reach $3 million next year, as long as the economic conditions don't worsen significantly.

'More efficient'

In at least one way though, a tough economy has been a boost for Envera. It has helped the company find people like Chris Reese, a vice president for Lakewood Ranch-based Neal Communities who was charged with finding ways to cut costs at Harborage, a new-home community the company developed in northern Manatee County.

After meeting with Mark Midyett, Envera's director of business development, Reese decided to experiment with Envera. He kept a daytime shift of security guards at the gate for marketing purposes but he saved the company roughly $50,000 by going to Envera overnight, he says.

Other clients, including Lennar and Taylor Morrison, have reported similar savings. Reese also says Envera's overnight monitoring system is a cost-saver when it comes to gate crashes - which tend to happen as often as once a month. A gate crash could be anything from a driver trying to sneak in and join another driver's opening to a full-fledged ram effort.

Envera's technology allows the company to take snapshots of each license plate that approaches the gate area. For Reese, the upshot is that over the past six months, he's arrived at work a half-a-dozen times with an e-mail from Envera containing a video of a gate crash. Reese can then find the driver and work out a payment plan in lieu of calling the police. "It's a lot more efficient" this way, says Reese.

Besides capturing license plates, Envera's cameras can log audio and video of the driver's face. Also, the human element is not totally eliminated, Midyett says, as people who pull up to Envera-controlled gates can have two-way dialogue with Envera's technicians. The employees in Envera's secure facility answer each call as if they worked for that particular community. Envera employees then interact with the community's residents via phone calls, to see if the person at the gate should be allowed access to the community.

Termite detection

Real-time interaction with clients such has that is one of the reasons Swain jumped at the chance to develop Envera early last year. Since 1999, Swain had been operating the Sarasota-Bradenton franchise of Sonitrol, a high-end commercial security alarm system company.

Swain had grown his security career with Sonitrol, initially running the company's Panama City franchise. He later worked for the suburban Philadelphia-based company's corporate office, developing its Florida franchise base, before buying the Sarasota operation.

Like Envera, Sonitrol made its name in the security alarm business by harnessing technology: The company was a pioneer in placing hidden microphones in its client's facilities for security purposes, to monitor the buildings during closed hours. In 1960, the company's founder, Robert Baxter, initially placed microphones into the walls of businesses to detect termites.

Sonitrol has since grown to become one of the largest commercial security firms in the country, with clients in 180 cities across the U.S. and Canada.

Through 2007, Swain had grown his Sonitrol outlet into a $2 million a year operation, with clients ranging from Sarasota-based valve manufacturer Sun Hydraulics to Doctor's Hospital in Sarasota to the local ABC News affiliate. Swain still operates the Sonitrol business, but in late 2006 he thought about branching out.

Swain discovered his opportunity in Sebring, where he heard about Hidden Eyes, a local gate-monitoring company. That company focused on remote gate access in the late 1990s and the early part of this decade, but couldn't get much traction in terms of ideas marrying technology with the core business. The owner "was ahead of his time," Midyett says. "He couldn't exploit the technology like we could today."

Hidden Eyes' owner died in 2007 and his family sought to sell the high-tech part of the business to focus on more traditional, human-touch gate access. Swain, along with a few investment partners, bought the company. They changed the name to Envera - derived by using linguistics to signify grant entry upon verification - and relocated it to Sarasota. They have since spent about $1.5 million on upgrading Envera's technology and infrastructure.

Midyett, who started and sold several of his own companies, from a business-to-business e-commerce Web site to a winery, had been friends with Swain for years. He saw the potential in Envera quickly, offering to be an investor at first. He later joined the company in its lead sales role.

A looming challenge now for Swain and Midyett is how to grow the business fast, but not too fast, for their own good. Midyett sees a point where the company can sell distribution and installation rights nationwide, keeping security control of all the client's properties in Sarasota.

"We know this product can work anywhere in the world," Midyett says. "Our only limit to growth is to find people who can install it and people who can sell it."

REVIEW SUMMARY

Businesses. Envera, Sarasota

Industry. Technology

Key. Company uses proprietary software and old-fashioned Internet technology to secure properties.