Integrity growing in Greenville, Miss.

GREENVILLE, Miss.--Louis McCray, president and CEO of Integrity Systems, based here, believes the key to building a successful security company is to diversify. “I do it all, [residential and commercial] CCTV, access control, intrusion. I don’t live off of one thing. You have to be able to do any and everything when it comes to low voltage,” he said. An engineer by trade, McCray has a background in cable and wireless sales. He founded Integrity in 2002 with his two brothers after doing some research and deciding that there was a demand for security installers in the area. He now has 11 employees and a growing business. His accounts are split evenly between residential and commercial accounts, which are monitored by a third-party central, Sentry Net. His residential customers are mainly looking for the “basic systems plus some add ons … really looking to just make sure the home is covered.” He does smoke alarms, but no fire alarm systems, yet, though he says, “in the future I will.” McCray is the president-elect of the Mississippi Burglar & Fire Alarm Association and has been working closely with the national organization to help members of the Mississippi organization. McCray worked on last year’s effort to pass licensing requirements for security dealers. And, he said, Mississippi has already seen the results of the passage of legislation. The requirements, passed one year ago, have helped. “We’ve seen a lot of ‘pirates’ leave town, the guys that try to operate below the radar. ‘Trunk slammers,’ we call them, guys who install a system and then leave people without service.”