An HSDW conversation with John Stroia, vice president, Government Security and Monitoring Solutions, Diebold

The sheer number, variety, and complexity of protective mechanisms being employed by government and industry are constantly refining the concept of integration. They also play to the strengths of a company like Diebold of North Canton, Ohio, which has been engaged in security for almost 150 years. “We furnish layers of protection for our customers, from physical security right up through data protection,” said John Stroia, in reference to the broad range of products and services that have come together under the Diebold aegis since 1859. Stroia is Diebold’s vice president for government security and a director of the Security Industry Association (SIA). “The company made its name on the strength and security of the safes and vaults it started out manufacturing,” he told HSDW. “And strength and security are our stock-in-trade today.”

Now one of the largest security integrators in the United States, providing one-stop shopping for technology-based electronic systems, software, and services, Diebold is active in all four major security markets: financial; commercial (retail); enterprise (large corporations); and government. From the company’s Washington, D.C.-area office in Sterling, Virginia, Diebold provides its 100-plus government agency and department customers with a full array of integrated product, installation, and service solutions for security applications across the country and around the globe. Diebold’s government work is concentrated in its Electronic Security group, whose General Services Administration (GSA) program develops total electronic security solutions for any size government application administered by the GSA. For the agency charged with finding and delivering such solutions to all other government agencies, Diebold may provide any or all of the following: site surveys, system designs, written proposals, a selection of security products, installation, programming, training, and contracts for service and support - local and across the country. The appeal that a Diebold package would hold for the GSA, with its government-wide slate of management tasks, is obvious. “The GSA can’t tolerate a breach in any part of the system,” Stroia said, calling attention to Diebold’s nationwide service network — inaugurated in 1915. “It also has to conform to its own cost-reduction policies. We help out on both counts, with over 4,000 technicians across the U.S. supporting one of the finest service and maintenance programs in the security industry. We were among the first companies to offer nationwide coverage and we’re constantly expanding and improving it.”

Diebold enhanced its position in the government security market through the acquisition, in April