About ten years ago, I arrived at work to find two sheriff’s patrol cars and a CSI van surrounding a big boat on a trailer in the back of our parking lot. Turns out someone had stolen the boat from a storage lot, parked it in my parking lot and removed the two 250 hp Yamaha outboard motors. The deputies’ presence seemed a little excessive until I found out that the boat belonged to our sheriff. CSI was taking fingerprints and whatever other clues they could find, maybe even DNA. They caught the guys within a couple of days. Not sure if they got the motors back, but the thieves picked the wrong boat to steal.

Since then, we have wanted to do something about our building security. We came up with a plan but either did not have the time nor the money. We don’t really have the time now but we finally just bit the bullet. The first step was installing digital wifi locks on the doors. This allows us to give employees access and eliminates the need to rekey the locks if they leave. It also notifies us who is opening the building and when.

The next step is to install security cameras outside. I bought a pack of them same as I use at my house. I had not realized that because they are battery operated, you can’t monitor them continuously. So they are going back. Now we have to figure out how to run power to the camera locations.

Another problem with both the cameras and the locks is that they use wifi. We recently installed a new mesh router system which includes wifi service in the shop for the employees but it is not strong enough for either the locks or the cameras. We have additional mesh nodes on order and once installed, we can determine our camera locations and the type of camera system we want. Eventually, we will also install cameras in the shop. Because the shop is so large, it isn’t unusual for a person to be working alone in a bay and this will add to the safety.