Along Manhattan’s Hudson River lies Chelsea Piers, a 28-acre waterfront village for public recreation and waterfront access; so with flowing water and boats of all shapes and sizes in view, what better place to host SIA Honors Night. The chosen venue was Current, an open space filled with natural light, wooden floors and a custom lit ceiling, all of which created a modern setting.

While drinks were being poured and hors d’oeuvres were being served and sampled, people within the security industry spent some time networking before being ushered to their assigned seats for dinner. It was during this time that two major awards werebestowed .

The Jay Hauhn Excellence in Partnerships Award, named in honor of Jay Hauhn, a previous SIA chairman of the board, was awarded to Ray Coulombe, founder and managing director of SecuritySpecifiers and RepsforSecurity.

“I am thrilled to be the recipient of this year’s Jay Hauhn Excellence in Partnership Award as it represents an industry’s recognition for an important effort that was long overdue, namely the proposed overhaul of the Construction Specification Institute’s (CSI) MasterFormat Division 28 – Electronic Safety and Security – structure,” said Coulombe. “While I have been selected as the official recipient of this award, I accept this on behalf of the dozens of people who contributed to the submission and subsequent approval of our recommendations. Further, I must note that SIA played a crucial role in providing the security industry’s credibility and backing for the project.”

The SIA Insightful Practitioner award is given to a security practitioner who demonstrates leadership and excellence in promoting the implementation of innovative security solutions through education, advocacy and teamwork with the industry and other stakeholders. This year’s award was given to Ray O’Hara, CPP, executive vice president, international services and consulting and investigations, AS Solution. In addition, O’Hara was instrumental in preparing offerings for security practitioners during the 2015 SIA Securing New Ground conference.

“It’s certainly an honor to be recognized by SIA, an organization I have great respect for,” O’Hara said.  “We are at a turning point in our industry: mergers, technology advances, cyber issues, global expansion, unrest in the world; and yet at the same time we need to move forward to accomplish security strategies to better protect our assets around the world. It’s clear to me that technology is the driver in these protection plans. And as we know, technology is moving at the speed of light along with the “Internet of Everything”. I think it is incumbent to the combined security industry of developers, integrators, practitioners and end users must work closely together to define the next generation of what will work best to protect our assets around the world. SIA is well positioned to be the leader in this collaboration with a reach out to bring the eco system together.”