Jerry Linder, an icon of the security industry, died Oct. 24. “Jerry was truly one of the pioneers of this industry,” said friend Les Gold, a partner of the firm Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, Los Angeles, and SDM's contributing legal columnist.

At 15, he was building alarms and knew he wanted his own alarm company. Linder formed American Fire Dispatch (AFD) with his two partners just a few years later. They sold AFD to Baker Industries, which later became Wells Fargo Alarm Services. After leaving Wells Fargo, Linder started two other California alarm companies: General Protection Services, which he sold after a short time, and ElectroSecurity, which was sold last year to Bay Alarm Co.