CHICAGOBUSINESS.COM l JUNE 4, 2007
FASTFIFTY
Right place, right time, right on
NO. 1
CONVERGINT TECHNOLOGIES LLC SCHAUMBURG
For a company that grew
16,502% in five years, there has
to be a good explanation. In the
case of Convergint Technologies, it was a single date: Sept.
11, 2001.
The Schaumburg company
designs, installs and services security, fire alarm and climatecontrol systems in commercial
buildings throughout North
America. When Dan Moceri,
53, and Greg Lernihan, 47,
started the company only a few
months before Sept. 11, they expected each division to account
for one-third of the business.
“After (Sept. 11), it was clear
that building security would
take over,” says Mr. Lernihan,
who had worked with Mr. Moceri at Siemens A.G., in the company’s building security division.
“That’s 60% of our business
now and half of that is installing
cameras.”
A major source of the company’s growth, especially for
security cameras, has been the
Department of Homeland Security. DHS funding has more
than doubled since the terrorist attacks in New York and
Washington, D.C., to $42.70
billion, and DHS-funded projects account for 10% of Convergint’s work.
One $300,000 project was
for the Army Corps of Engineers near St. Louis, where
Convergint fitted dams with
digital cameras designed to see
through mist and water. It also
won a $1.4-million contract
for Washington state’s Port of
Tacoma in 2005, where it installed cameras that can see 10
miles out, even through thick
fog and snow.
Other DHS-funded projects
include work on the George
Washington and Jefferson
Memorials in the U.S. capital
and a University of Virginia
building that houses original
documents related to the Declaration of Independence.
The firm’s revenue, which
was $82 million in 2006, also
has been fueled by companies
looking to merge their physical
and IT security systems. Convergint’s systems allow employees to use the same card to
get into their building and onto
their computers. They also prevent those who have accessed
the building without a card
from signing onto the computer system.
The market for these types
of “convergence” projects,
which was $1.1 billion in
2005, is expected to reach
$11.3 billion next year, according to Cambridge, Mass.-based
Forrester Research. “Convergence of physical and IT security systems saves money by
eliminating the need for parallel networks,” writes Jeffrey T.
Kessler, a New York-based analyst with Lehman Bros., in a
2005 report.
The increase in ID theft is
also boosting growth. Each
time an incident occurs, such
as the January loss of two laptops from the Chicago Public
Schools that held Social Security numbers for 40,000 employees, Convergint gets more calls,
Mr. Lernihan says.
These technology shifts, and
terrorism fears, help explain
the extraordinary growth spurt
at the private company, which
says it has posted a profit every
year since 2003. But why did
Global Hyatt Corp., Boeing
Co., Texas Instruments Inc.
and others choose this young
firm for such big jobs? The
owners say it is the wide net
Convergint casts.
“We wanted to have a
North American focus so
clients with several offices
would choose us over other
systems integrators, which are
only in maybe one or two
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cities,” says Mr. Moceri.
“We’re in 19.”
And it got there quickly: On
its opening day in June 2001,
Convergint already had set up
offices in Chicago, Dallas,
Seattle, Portland, Houston and
Atlanta. It did so by luring
away eight managers who used
to work for the founders at
Siemens to open and manage
Convergint offices.
That infrastructure helped
Convergint become the 14thlargest systems integrator in
the United States, according to
Security Distributing & Marketing magazine. It also helped
it grow faster than any other
company in the Chicago area.
Christina Galoozis
FIVE-YEAR GROWTH: 16,501.8% 2006 REVENUE: $82 MILLION EMPLOYEES: 437
Convergint Technologies LLC
www.convergint.com
847 620 5000
Posted with permission of Crain’s Chicago Business. Copyright Crain Communications Inc 2007
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