MTC Group

Every yard I was responsible for had the same weak spot: the back fence at 2:00 AM.

Early at SAIA I walked terminals where the guard check went up every year. The terminals still got hit. We just kept adding and adding.

The fix was never another post. It was a camera that could see the fence, a sensor that confirmed it, and someone watching the moment it moved.

Today that fix rolls up on a trailer. A mobile surveillance unit from Vision Detection Systems sits on the fence line the day it arrives. One person sets it up. No trenching, no power, no building.

VDS puts the savings against guard or fixed-camera spend at 70 to 90% (visiondetectionsystems.com). That is money that stays in your budget and buys the next layer. Same budget. More layers.

Thirty minutes tells you which fence needs it first.

What would you cover first on your yard, and why?

CFOs pay a premium for the easy button. I have watched them do it.

Without it, a new build puts ten people on every call: real estate, IT, security, safety. None of them has general contracting experience. You get wasted time, red tape and three years.

With me, the design is already built and proven, not invented on your site. The partners who install it have worked with me for more than ten years. The hardware talks to one another. Training is included. Design, equipment, build and service sit under one scope and one number.

In my experience that is six months instead of three years. You deal with one person instead of fifteen trades and a general contractor you argue with. Your team gets its time back.

At SAIA I asked for six months to prove the model. It is still the clock I run.

What slowed your last security build down the most?

You bring the account. We split the profit on it with you, 50/50. Every hour, for as long as it runs.

I worked off-duty shifts for years to make ends meet. I know what sits behind every one of those shifts.

Coordinating is phone calls at night and texts on the weekend. It is filling the post somebody dropped and chasing pay for officers who already worked it.

That is a second job. It should pay like one.

Here is what changes. The app does the scheduling and the paperwork. Your officers get paid in one to three days. You keep the officers you already trust.

You keep the part only you can do: the relationships.

MTC Group is an independent partner of illuno. I agree the rate and the terms with you before anything is posted and stay on the account after it goes live.

What part of coordinating takes the most of your week?

The complaint comes in Monday: cars broken into over the weekend, again. The lot has lights and no eyes. The owner wants the complaints to stop. The residents want to walk to their cars at night.

A mobile surveillance unit from Vision Detection Systems sits at the entrance and watches the lot all night. Anyone who walks the rows at 2:00 AM is seen and recorded.

When something happens, live video can be shared with responding law enforcement through illuno.

One person sets it up. No trenching, no power, no building.

The Single Zone unit starts at $850 a month. Month to month, with no long-term contract. Built in Baltimore, Maryland.

That is a number you can take to the owner before the next Monday complaint. No guard hours to sell you. I sit on your side of the table.

Which lot in your portfolio gets that call every Monday?

The first delivery lands Monday. The site has no power, no fence line worth the name, and nobody on it after the crew leaves.

That is the week a mobile surveillance unit earns its keep. Solar, cellular and Starlink, on the pad the day it arrives, watching the laydown yard all night.

Delivered within 48 hours in 48 states. Month to month if the job is short. Once we confirm the specs, the calculator number you built is the number on your invoice, with full maintenance and replacement coverage included.

Thirty minutes sorts out which unit, if any, your site needs. Link in the first comment.

College was not for me. Not at eighteen, anyway.

COPS was big on TV back then. I became a police officer figuring I would try it for a couple of years.

It turned into more than fourteen years.

My chief moved my schedule so I could work off-duty jobs to make ends meet. Off-duty jobs put me through college. College is where the business mindset came from.

We did not have anything like illuno back when I was a cop. I know what those shifts are worth to officers. That is why officers on our accounts are paid in one to three days.

What was your first off-duty job? Link in the first comment.

A low number to win the site, then the change orders. You have seen it.

We don't play the change order game. Build your number on our calculator. Once we confirm the specs, that number is your invoice. Month to month. Maintenance and replacement included.

Units in stock. Delivered within 48 hours in 48 states. I sit on your side of the table.

Build your number, link in the first comment.

Tampa, two years into SAIA. I had a big presentation built. The kind that loses a CFO in fifteen seconds. Instead of the big production, I kept it real.

I told our CFO the truth: a bigger guard check every year, and the terminals would still get hit. I asked for a fixed sum to bet on automation and technology.

Back then, the industry viewed security as a dead hit to the P&L. Our CFO was a numbers guy who could see past that, and he bet on me. What he said in Tampa has stayed with me ever since: the moment you stop investing in the business is the moment your competitors are flying right past you.

When I left, the company spent the same dollars on guards it spent in 2012, after 18 new Northeast terminals. Automation and technology paid for every layer, and paved the way for the AI on top of it today.

That CFO runs the company now, and it has never been stronger. The numbers guy called it.

How the model works today, link in the first comment.