Jay Hauhn, a security industry stalwart for the last 35 years, has added yet another important security industry role to his repertoire. The current CTO and vice president of industry relations for Tyco Integrated Security assumed the presidency of the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) last week, succeeding Bob Bean, vice chairman and director of Alert Alarm of Hawaii.
“I’m hoping to first and foremost increase the value members receive in return for being a part of the CSAA,” Hauhn explains. “To do this, I am going to establish a small working group within CSAA that consists of industry veterans, and we can work together to create solutions for the needs important to the advancement of business in the industry.”
Hauhn says he has been involved with the CSAA — the national nonprofit trade organization for central stations that created the noted Five Diamond certification program — for the last six or seven years. He most recently served as first vice president of the organization from 2011-2013. His term as the 32nd CSAA president began this past Friday, and will span the next two years.
In order to help in his goal of advancing business in the alarm industry, Hauhn’s first mission is to make further progress with CSAA’s Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP) program, billed by the organization as “the next generation for the processing of information from alarm monitoring stations needing emergency dispatch.” The computer-aided dispatch system designed by CSAA and the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) went live in mid-2011 and has been quickly growing in the years since in many areas of the country. In a nutshell, the system rapidly transmits alarms to local emergency communications centers once they are verified by a central station.
“One of the most important initiatives I plan to work on in the first few months as president is to help committee chairs Pam Petrow and Ed Bonifas in any way needed to aid Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP), Hauhn says. “Right now, if a monitoring center wants to dispatch a situation, it’s being relayed verbally via a Public Service Answering Point (PSAP). If more monitoring centers take advantage of ASAP, it will benefit the industry by not only enhancing efficiency, but increasing accuracy as well.
“Additionally, I’m hoping to bring the Partnership for Priority Video Alarm Response (PPVAR) into the CSAA fold in order to become a premiere standing committee,” Hauhn adds. “I believe it’s important that our industry has one solid voice to back law enforcement, and by having the PPVAR more involved, we can achieve this.”
President of CSAA is another major hat that Hauhn wears as one of the security industry’s thought leaders. In addition to his duties with Tyco IS, Hauhn is also Chairman of the Board for the Security Industry Association (SIA) and a member of the board of the Security Industry Alarm Coalition (SIAC). Makes you wonder if the man can find time to get a decent night’s sleep.
“Ah, sleep...that’s an interesting concept,” he jokes. “In all seriousness, my hopes with becoming president of CSAA, as well as my connections with the other associations in the industry, are to work more cohesively — the work we do together on state and federal legislative issues cannot be understated. I see the coming together of these groups under government issues as key, and have no doubt we will continue to foster these important partnerships.”
