National Burglar & Fire Alarm Association (NBFAA) President's Response to Executive Update

By George Gunning, President, NBFAA

The old maxim, "in unity there is strength" seems to have been lost on some of our industry friends, and it is regrettable if not embarrassing to air our differences before elected state representatives, or the state regulators who are trying to help our business operations but are being mislead. After reviewing Dr. Randy Lemke’s (Executive Director, InfoComm) recent article 'EST Smoke and Mirrors', and seeing the November 1st CEDIA statement 'CEDIA Fights Back', from Don Gilpin and Ken Smith (Executive Director and President respectively), as President of the NBFAA I felt that the record should reflect our support for InfoComm's position and there should be no question within the entire industry that this "fighting..."is detrimental to all of our efforts, especially at the state level. Let me make it very clear that NBFAA was told directly at an industry meeting over a year and a half ago that CEDIA and NSCA would embark on a state-by-state, well financed lobbying campaign to forge licensing and certification laws and that they had "no interest" in NBFAA’s position or in working with us on this initiative. In other words, they intended to do this without respect to NBFAA’s position.

While these organizations have a right to undertake whatever position their leaders and members wish, we have found during the last year (2006) that CEDIA and NSCA have lobbied various legislatures to the exclusion of other groups. We cite as an example the New Hampshire experience this year with House Bill 1595 that, according to Don Gilpin and Ken Smith "was intended to be inclusive not exclusionary." This is not factually correct, since the bill had an advisory committee on Electronic Systems Technicians (to help the Board establish an EST certification requirement) with 3 reps from CEDIA, 2 from NSCA, 2 from a "trade union" and 2 from the Retail merchants. Well, what are we to make of this? Is this not an exclusionary bill? It seems to me and many others who worked to defeat the bill as exclusionary.

And perhaps that is the issue we should all be addressing. If in fact, Mr. Gilpin is sincere when he says that "CEDIA's intent with our legislative efforts is for the betterment of the whole industry. It is not to position one’s education or certification as the standard" and if in fact Dr. Lemke is sincere when he says about CEDIA and NSCA "Over the years we have worked together in many ways, and we would like to see that cooperative spirit revived", then their actions going forward will be the proof.

If we have all misinterpreted each other's actions, and we are all truly working for the good of the industry and our members, we need no longer focus on what has been done – but on what we will do going forward. Given that there are no hidden agendas or selfish motives, it should be easy enough for the volunteer leaders to reach an agreeable solution.

I do believe that an effort by the industry leaders to reach a consensus in the legislative realm could lead to a more productive state legislative session in 2007 than in 2006. I welcome a meeting with each of the presidents and executive directors of the associations concerned to discuss how this might be accomplished.