This year’s Monitoring Center Excellence Awards looked a bit different than usual. While the awards have historically been announced live at the Electronic Security Expo (ESX) annually held in the summer, due to COVID-19 the in-person awards were canceled, along with ESX. The commemoration of this year’s recipients of the Monitoring Center Excellence Awards was not lost, however. In lieu of an in-person celebration, The Monitoring Association (TMA) held a virtual ceremony in June, in which Karyn Hodgson, editor-in-chief of SDM, congratulated the finalists and unveiled this year’s award recipients to online viewers. 

Since 2006, TMA has been recognizing the top performers in monitoring with its Monitoring Center Excellence Awards (previously called the Central Station Awards). Though no in-person event could be held this year, the celebration of each finalist and award recipient in the categories of Support Person, Operator, Manager and Monitoring Center of the Year is anything but diminished. The 2020 finalists and recipients serve as prime examples of the outstanding personnel who make significant contributions to the advancement of the monitoring industry as a whole, taking the responsibility to protect life and property seriously and emanating helpfulness, care, dedication and service each and every day. 

“While we all wish we could have been together in person to celebrate the accomplishments of these monitoring centers and their employees, it was a pleasure as always to present these awards,” Hodgson says. “I congratulate all the winners on their well-deserved honor.”

The Excellence Awards, hosted by TMA and co-sponsored by SDM, recognize personnel and monitoring centers in the industry (both TMA members and non-members) that are certified by an approved Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL), such as UL, FM Global and Intertek/ETL.

The purpose of the TMA Monitoring Center Excellence Awards is to promote the inherent value of professional monitoring services, as well as honor those who have made significant contributions to the industry. These winners are the employees who keep the monitoring centers running through every challenge imaginable; the people on the front lines of the monitoring process helping customers every day; and the people who oversee the functions of the monitoring center to achieve the best performance possible. These are the companies who lead the industry by example through industry involvement, mentoring and advancement. 

This year’s TMA Monitoring Center Excellence Award winners are: 

• Securitas Electronic Security Inc., Monitoring Center of the Year
• Jacqueline Brogan, Alarm Detection Systems, Manager of the Year
• Amanda Edmunds, AvantGuard Monitoring Services, Operator of the Year
• Gavin Butterfield, AvantGuard Monitoring Services, Support Person of the Year

Continue reading to learn more about this year’s award recipients and their stories, as well as the finalists. To learn more about the TMA Excellence Awards program and past recipients, visit www.sdmmag.com/CSAACentralStationExcellenceAwards or www.tma.us. Award applications open at the beginning of each year and the final deadline is in early spring.