American Alarm Acquires Security Design Consultants

Arlington, Mass. — American Alarm and Communications today announces the acquisition of Security Design Consultants (SDC) of Westwood, Mass., further solidifying American Alarm’s security and life-safety customer coverage in eastern Massachusetts.

A respected, family-owned, security systems company for more than 40 years, SDC served 1,800 customers primarily in Boston and the metro-west suburbs, along with a concentration on Cape Cod and the islands.  SDC also served several municipal clients including security for the Weston Public Schools. All former SDC employees have transitioned to American Alarm.

“This is a great fit for our company, because the culture at SDC and the quality of their work is aligned with our approach to customer service,” said Louis Sampson, chief operating officer and co-owner of American Alarm. “We look forward to serving SDC customers for many years to come.”

SDC’s affiliated company, Audio Video Design, is not part of the acquisition and will operate independently from Westwood and Osterville, Mass. They will continue providing advanced integrated home entertainment and automation systems under the direction of its owner and president Brad Smith.  “Looking to the future, I decided that my security customers needed the services of a company with more resources, one that can provide the very best service at a competitive price,” said Smith, former president of SDC.  “American Alarm is the hands-down leading regional security company in New England. It is the model of the phrase ‘Big enough to serve you, but small enough to know you’.”

Founded in 1971 by three engineers who met at MIT, American Alarm is a family-owned business now led by the second generation of the Sampson family. The company is a comprehensive security systems integration and monitoring firm providing intrusion, fire, access control, video surveillance, environmental hazard and other related systems and services. The American Alarm group of companies operates from five locations: Arlington, Auburn and Weymouth, Mass., Warwick, RI, and Manchester, NH. American Alarm protects all classes of property, from single-family homes to businesses large and small, to major public and historic venues. The company owns and operates a 24-hour UL listed Five-Diamond Certified central station in Arlington that is solely dedicated to monitoring its customers’ security and life-safety systems.

“With technology advancing so rapidly across consumer and enterprise electronics, we believe it’s important to specialize in security to offer customers the highest possible levels of protection and advanced security services,” said Wells Sampson, president and co-owner of American Alarm. “We also invest in people, over-staffing by industry standards, because we want the talent on board in our monitoring center, engineering group, and in the field to respond quickly to customer needs.”

 The SDC deal is the third acquisition in Massachusetts for American Alarm in the past year. In September 2016, the company acquired Electralarm Security Systems which served 500 residential and commercial customers in the greater Abington area. In January 2017, American Alarm announced the acquisition of Atlas Alarm of Weymouth, a major regional provider of commercial fire systems and services for more than 3,000 customers in eastern Massachusetts.

Barry Epstein, president of Vertex Capital, advised SDC on the transaction.