Press Release

IQ Public Comment Period Begins

FOR RELEASE  July, 1997

Contact: Jennifer Burnstein, IQ Program Coordinator

Bethesda, MD -- The Installation Quality (IQ) Certification Board announced today that it is circulating the proposed Policies and Guidelines for IQ Certification for public comment by the members of NBFAA and the electronic security and life safety industry in general. The sixty-day public comment period is required by the Installation Quality Certification Board Bylaws.

According the IQ Certification Board Chairman Dave Mandel, who owns Liberty Lock & Security in Rockville, Maryland, "This program is the product of over a year of work, first by the NBFAA False Alarm Prevention Committee and more recently by the newly established IQ Certification Board. Now the Installation Quality Certification Program is ready to be reviewed and critiqued by the industry."

The other current members of the IQ Certification Board are Lisa Prosser, who owns General Alarm Co. in Indianapolis, IN; Lamar Fuller, who is Vice President of Rollins Protective Services in Atlanta, GA; Ron Cain, who owns Cain Security in Alexandria, VA; and Assistant Chief James Foley of the Atlantic City, NJ Fire Department.

The IQ Program designates certification which will allow alarm companies that are proactively addressing quality and false alarm issues differentiate themselves from those that are not. By modeling the program after such totally voluntary concepts as the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, the IQ Certification Board anticipates that those companies choosing to participate in the IQ program will receive in return a distinct marketing advantage as well as improved relations with law enforcement. They also feel that this can be accomplished without an undue burden on companies that are already taking effective steps to reduce false alarms.

Said Mandel, "Our vision is that this certification can be an alarm company’s badge of honor on the false alarm issue. We see it as a way for companies to market themselves to the public and to law enforcement as a good guy in the industry, and become the proverbial carrot for alarm companies to take the proven effective steps that reduce false alarms. Frankly, we all know what false alarm reduction measures have actually worked in the Model Cities and other programs, and the IQ Board has simply made those steps the requirements of the IQ Program."

The centerpieces of the program are a compliance officer for each certified company or branch who is responsible for certification requirements of the company and an Installation Quality Checklist that must be completed and signed by the customer and an NTS Level I or equivalent installer for each installation. Each participating company is required to abide by a set of guidelines designed to achieve maximum false alarm reduction and quality.

According to Matt Wald, NBFAA’s Director of Government Relations, "This program is terrific because it is incentivized self-regulation. Voluntary self regulation through certification is considered a far more effective and efficient means of raising professional standards than government regulation. While certification often exists in tandem with licensing (or state mandated standards), it is generally accepted that certification is the more effective of the two at actually raising the professionalism of a company and an industry."

According to NBFAA Government Relations Chairman Emil Wengel, "We don’t expect the IQ program to replace state or local licensing requirements or false alarm ordinances, but we sure hope that both states and municipalities will be aided by the use the IQ certification mark in figuring out who has attained professional standards when they begin to allow for recognition of requirements across jurisdictional boundaries."

To obtain a copy of the proposed Policies and Guidelines send a request to: The IQ Certification Board,  8300 Colesville Rd, Suite 750, Silver Spring, MD 20910, fax: (301) 585-1866, e-mail info@iqcertification.org.
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