SIA Member Profile: Louroe Electronics Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary
Louroe Electronics, a globally renowned audio monitoring technology solutions firm and longtime Security Industry Association (SIA) member, recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. The company – headquartered in Van Nuys, California, with a 15,000-square foot facility including its manufacturing plant and senior staff offices – has solutions deployed in over 60 countries. Louroe marked the occasion of its anniversary with a Sept. 16 visit from Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.). At this special event attended by key partners, customers and representatives of the business and security technology communities, Rep. Cárdenas – who has represented the 29th district of California for the past six years – presented a commemorative certificate to the Louroe team and congratulated them for their achievement.
In conjunction with Louroe’s milestone anniversary, SIA spoke with its CEO, Richard Brent, about the company’s evolution over the years, its services and accomplishments and working with SIA.
Tell us the story of your company.
Richard Brent: Louroe Electronics was founded in 1979 by my uncle Louis Weiss and his wife, Rose. Louroe was initially a small company that primarily made audio solutions for law enforcement and juvenile protection organizations. Over the years, Louroe’s product demand increased and the portfolio of products expanded. Today, our solutions are now used to enhance physical security systems across the law enforcement, transportation, education, commercial, health care, retail and safe city sectors.
Now in its 40th year, Louroe is globally recognized as the industry leader in audio capture and analysis within the security market. Today, Louroe offers 135 products and works with 17 manufacturing supplier partners.
What solutions/services does your business offer in the security industry? And what makes your offerings/company unique?
RB: At Louroe, we continually provide market-driven, sustainable and innovative audio solutions to the commercial, industrial and institutional security industries. Our signature line of analog Verifact® microphones, active speakers, complementary base stations and communication accessories enable live audio monitoring, with the capability to record and enable full-duplex and two-way communication. When deploying our Verifact® microphones, users capture additional evidence, providing a much-needed second source of event capture to improve alarm verification. Good and clear audio enhances dispute resolution and improves real-time response.
In the last few years, we stepped into the digital world, adding value with our market-driven digital audio solutions premiered with our Digitfact™ “A” IP microphone as well as a co-developed suite of audio analytics software that features in a suite: threat detection – aggression, gunshot, glass break and car alarm. Our Digifact® microphone simplifies setup through plug-and-play installation. Our threat detection solution classifies sounds, alerting security personnel of threats so that action can be taken before the situation escalates. Most notably, our aggression detection solution detects fear, anger and hostility by assessing the sound patterns in one’s voice. By detecting verbal aggression, the solution allows security personnel to quickly intervene before physical violence breaks out. We see our aggression detection solution as a game changer for crime prevention.
What’s something we might not know about your company – or something new you’re doing in security?
RB: We regularly participate on boards, committees and trade missions in the federal government sector to further economic growth and trade. In 2015, then-Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker presented Louroe with the President’s “E” Award for exports, which is the highest recognition a U.S. organization can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports. Secretary Pritzker presented a plaque and an “E” flag to us. We later asked Secretary Pritzker to sign the “E” flag, and to this day, I believe we are the only 2015 “E” award recipient to have had Secretary Pritzker sign the flag to mark the special achievement.
What are some of the biggest changes the company has seen since its founding?
RB: When I joined Louroe as CEO in 2009, our team worked hard to expose that audio was an acceptable tool that was and is legal and that expanding the applications of audio security solutions served multiple values into existing and new arenas of use – this started by raising awareness that audio capture was an equally critical component to video surveillance for all security solutions as well as a tool to verify alarms and reduce false positives. Now, the security industry is increasingly accepting the need for audio solutions, and we have seen this reflected in our sales. In 2011, Louroe conducted business in 22 countries; now, Louroe delivers products to more than 63 countries.
For 36 years, Louroe manufactured analog microphones. We came to the conclusion and decided in late 2013 to develop a product road map for a line of digital solutions that would expand our audio features and integration capabilities. In 2015, we partnered with Holland’s Sound Intelligence to launch our suite of audio analytics solutions, including aggression, gunshot, car alarm and glass break detection. In 2018, we launched our first IP microphone known as the Digifact® “A” IP microphone, which received the honorable mention at the 2018 SIA New Product Showcase Awards at ISC West.
What are some of Louroe’s biggest accomplishments in its 40 years?
RB: We are most proud of our quality of audio security solutions that we’ve been delivering, as they are backed by 40 years of audio expertise. Our team has maintained rigorous standards to ensure our products offer reliability, durability and industry-leading performance. We’ve had many satisfied customers tell us that they’ve used our microphones for over 20 years without needing to replace them. Others have been impressed by the coverage of our microphones, able to capture sound often beyond a 30-foot diameter.
Louroe products have been the recipients of many awards, including the SIA New Product Showcase Award at ISC West as well as many awards from the security trade industry.
What does SIA offer that is most important to you/your company? And what do you most hope to get out of your membership?
RB: At Louroe, we value how SIA fosters initiative, awareness and change throughout the industry. SIA works hard to ensure its members are offered the opportunity to become educated and informed so that architects, engineers, consultants, integrators, manufacturers and end users can have a real-time dialogue about solutions that address today’s security challenges. At Louroe, we look forward to participating in SIA committees, conferences, webinars, publications and trade shows to increase awareness on important topics and leverage opportunities to forge new technology partnerships that create total solutions that enable a safer world.
The views and opinions expressed in guest posts and/or profiles are those of the authors or sources and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Security Industry Association (SIA).
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