The Physical Security Interoperability Alliance (PSIA) today announced it has elected Jason Ouellette, head of technology business development at Johnson Controls, as its chairman and Ewa Pigna, chief technology officer for LenelS2, as its vice chairman. In addition, Peter Boriskin, the chief technology officer for ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions Americas, will continue in his role as the organization’s treasurer. The PSIA membership develops specifications for enabling standards-based sharing of digital data and intelligence throughout the physical security and enterprise ecosystems.

“Jason and Ewa are long-standing board members with strong technology, commercial and industry leadership skills,” said David Bunzel, executive director of PSIA. “They and their companies have been important advocates for open standards in the physical security industry and also active proponents for the PSIA’s access control specification, PLAI.”  

As PSIA chairman, Ouellette will work closely with the PSIA board to expand membership, commercialize its specifications and identify industry needs for new and enhanced PSIA specifications.

“Open standards are critical to large scale deployments and solving complex enterprise problems,” Ouellette said. “With that in mind, I truly see the value that PSIA and PLAI bring to the security industry where multiple physical access control systems, biometric solutions and other integrations exist in the market. The PLAI specification provides a means for reducing complexity and cost in these environments with the application of open standards which provide a method to share personnel, credentials and biometrics in a way that respects PII and security concerns.”

Pigna’s role as PSIA vice chairman will include defining the technical aspects of PLAI necessary to make this an effective commercial standard. This will include enhancing and promoting the PLAI specification in order to assure industry compliance and interoperability.

“My involvement with PSIA and promotion of physical security standards is focused on delivering solutions to our customers that derive value from integration and interoperability,” Pigna said. “Our mission is to simplify the complex world of disparate systems and enable technical information sharing for more holistic decision making.”

At Johnson Controls, Ouellette leads technology business development for its access and video security products group. He is based at the company’s Westford, Mass., office. Ouellette joined Tyco International in April 1999, and has served as a customer support specialist, software engineer, engineering manager, director of R&D for the American Dynamics Intellex products and software house access control products and director of product management for the global access control business. In 2017, after Tyco merged with Johnson Controls, Ouellette was promoted to product general manager for access control. In 2019, he was the general manager for direct to channel access and video products. Prior to this, he served in the U.S. Air Force from 1989-1996 as a medical laboratory specialist and later as a computer implementation specialist. Ouellette also held positions at CDSI and SAIC in development and network roles before coming to Tyco.

Pigna is the chief technology officer at LenelS2. She started her career at IBM in Boca Raton, Fla., where she was a software engineer in the robotics group. Pigna held senior management positions at GE Security before her current role at LenelS2. She has a BS in computer science and mathematics from UCLA.

Boriskin is the chief technology officer at ASSA ABLOY Americas, leading the Americas innovation team. He has more than 20 years’ experience working with security technology and enterprise security. In his previous roles, he was product management leader for UTC Fire and Security in their Lenel business and the vice president of product management for Tyco International’s access control and video systems division. Prior to joining Tyco, Peter founded a networking company where he was owner and president.