My TechDecisions Podcast – Episode 22, Steve White of Vector Security

In this episode of MyTechDecisions Podcast, host Jonathan Blackwood speaks with Steve White, Corporate Vice President of Business Development for Vector Security.

Steve White has a passion for security and technology of all kinds. One of his main areas of interest is the Internet of Things, and blending physical and logical security. Which is important, because access control doesn’t always fall strictly under physical security any longer. These systems are often tied to the network, centrally managed, and very much a blend of physical and logical security.

Steve expands on this idea in our interview. Access control can mean ten different things to ten different people. It can range anywhere from a simple keypad, where you type in a code and gain entrance, to a scaled up enterprise application with multiple sites and integration into different systems. You can give everyone the code so they can enter, or you can centrally manage access control in order to keep up-to-date, specific access clearance up to the minute.

Steve gives a few scenarios to demonstrate his points. Contractors that can be given temporary access cards that expire on a certain date. Employees in the building that are given access to certain rooms but not others. Executives that travel across multiple sites, whose same access card for a building in Boston can be remotely updated to allow access to the San Diego facility when he or she travels there for the week. The possibilities are truly only bound by the institution’s imagination.

Of course, not all of us are going to need a full-scale access control solution. And none of us can get started until we write an RFP. Steve explains the needs you should describe in your access control RFP. He gives different tiers of needs, from basic to very complicated, and mentions what you need to include for each. Most importantly, however, he explains why it’s a bad idea to consider access control at the end of the project. His beliefs are that access control should be considered in the very initial stages of construction, and he makes a compelling case for why that is.

It’s an interesting interview that anyone in facility management, security, IT, construction, or really anyone that uses access control at their workplace should listen to.

Listen to this podcast using the embedded player below.

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