Burns International Security Services has seen business pick up sharply this year after a downturn in 1998, says OC branch manager David Huenergardt.
Revising numbers that had previously been reported to the Business Journal, Huenergardt said the security guard firm’s Santa Ana office billed 680,350 hours for the 12 months ending June 30, ranking it as the sixth busiest firm of its kind in OC. The hours billed were a 54% increase over the prior-12 month period, and represented a turnaround. Burns’ hours billed had declined by 19% in OC for the 12 months ended June 30, 1998, Huenergardt said.
He attributed the recent growth to new customers, including the gated South County community of Coto de Caza, and to the consolidation of sister businesses under the Burns name.
Previously, Burns’ staffers had reported to the OCBJ that business was flat, at 546,000 hours billed, for both the 12 months ended June 30, 1998 and June 30, 1999. Burns said he concluded after looking into the matter that his predecessor as office manager had given the paper an incorrect figure last year to mask the decline in business, and that another staffer had simply repeated that figure for this year’s Business Journal list, which ran Aug. 2.
Huenergardt’s corrected numbers will appear in the upcoming Book of Lists. The annual publication will be included free in the Dec. 20 issue for paid subscribers.
The Business Journal’s policy is to call attention to significant revisions that occur in the lists’ reported figures, in part as one way to encourage list participants to provide accurate information.
