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End Users '20 under 40' 2014—Drew Neckar

End Users '20 under 40' 2014—Drew Neckar

Drew Neckar, 37

Director of security services, Mayo Clinic Health System, Northwestern Wisconsin, Eau Claire

Neckar is responsible for physical security, security officer staffing and investigations. His department of 26 is responsible for providing security services to more than 6,000 staff providing health care during more than 900,000 patient visits annually at hospitals and clinics spread over 3,000 square miles.

What inspired you to get into the security industry?

It was a little round about. At the age of 18 I got a job bouncing at a bar. I had a lot of contact with the police and went to college thinking I wanted to be a cop. Then I moved into security management with the club and from there moved into health care security.

If you could have any technology you wanted, without regard to budget, what would it be?

The most useful would be higher-end PSIM platforms. Right now I'm responsible for five different hospitals that have all come together over the past five years, most were small hospitals with a lot of legacy systems. We do have one card-access system and cameras pretty much on one system, but that's been a five-year plan.

What's your biggest physical security challenge today, and what do you think it will be five years from now?

Recently we set up a security control and monitoring center for all our daily operations. With all the disparate systems, that was difficult. Five years from now manufacturers will be moving away from proprietary systems, � the issue then will be making sure that technology in the security industry can keep up with technology in other aspects. A cyber attack can take down physical security.

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