Video monitoring company Virtual Guard Inc. is securing its future in the San Fernando Valley region with a larger office and plans to expand its sales force. The company, which got its start in Calabasas three years ago, recently moved to a new 3,000-square-foot-facility on Nordhoff Street in Chatsworth. Vice president Owen Devir said the company plans to hire 24 employees at the Chatsworth office within the next two years. Virtual Guard also plans to open an outside sales office near Century City in September, and hire five people to support that office, he said. The company currently employs 12 people in Chatsworth. Virtual Guard provides video monitoring services to a variety of high-profile corporate and residential clients. “Our customers include the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum, a few downtown Los Angeles restaurants and actors,” Devir said, declining to be specific in order to maintain clients’ confidentiality. Here’s how the Virtual Guard video monitoring system works: When a motion detection system is activated, an alert is sent to the command center in the form of a video. The video is then reviewed and determined if the activation was caused by a false alarm or an actual threat. Employees at the command center are able to speak to the “threat” and relay instructions that the customer desires. If necessary, the authorities will be contacted. Each camera monitored is classified as one channel, and every customer will have between six and 15 channels, Devir said. The company started with about 15 channels and grew to 100 channels by the end of its first year. Now there are about 250 channels, with expectations to reach 400 by the end of this year, Devir said. “We monitor locations in Canada, and we are working on an installation in Puerto Rico,” he said. The system has the ability to reduce the amount of security guards employed by companies, Devir said. And the technology used for the motion detection is also used in systems in the Israeli Parliament and airports in New York, Devir said. “We plan to just keep bringing more customers in,” he said.
Video Monitoring Firm Locks Down Future Expansion
