GE Buys Garden Grove Company
By CHRIS CZIBORR
Garden Grove security products maker InfoGraphic Systems Corp. just became part of General Electric Co.
GE Industrial Systems last month bought the company for an undisclosed sum. InfoGraphic now is part of St. Paul, Minn.-based GE Inter-logix Inc., a unit of GE Industrial Systems.
GE approached Info-Graphic in October, President Joseph Maskrey said.
“GE said they thought our product lines could complement their offerings in the security business,” Maskrey said. “We’re glad to be using the GE name and to benefit from the exposure the brand name will give us.”
InfoGraphic has 75 workers in Garden Grove and 100 in all. About 25 of its Orange County workers are designers and engineers.
“We plan to add another 10 to 15 people over the next year,” Maskrey said. “Those mainly will be people who implement our systems for clients. We’ve added about nine people over the past year.”
InfoGraphics was owned by Maskrey, two friends,one an executive at the company and the other outside,and two unnamed investment firms.
The company makes electronic security control panels, access cards and readers and computer-based digital video recorders that link to security cameras.
Maskrey didn’t disclose revenue figures but said the company has been growing sales by about 30% a year for the past few years.
“We have grown substantially this year mainly by taking market share rather than the market expanding,” Maskrey said.
While the terrorist attacks led companies to think more about security, the security market hasn’t grown as quickly as some thought, Maskrey said.
A sluggish economy has hit corporate budgets, he said, and government has been slow to provide security funding.
“One problem with the marketplace is that it is short of cash,” he said. “The government has not found a way to fund projects that need funding. We expect that will change with the homeland security bill.”
Late last month, President Bush signed the homeland security bill, creating the Department of Homeland Security.
InfoGraphic uses products from companies such as Irvine security card maker HID Corp. to make security systems for access control, alarm monitoring, photo badging and video imaging.
“The product lines get used for commercial, industrial and military applications,” Maskrey said. “They’re similar to systems used at airports.”
Customers include Sun Microsystems Inc., BellSouth Corp., Raytheon Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp.
InfoGraphic also sells to the Air Force, Army and Navy.
The company counts a small amount of global sales, about 5% of its total, Maskrey said.
“We plan to get that up to 10%,” he said.
Most of the company’s global sales are in Europe. InfoGraphic has a distributor in London as well as Singapore. It started one in Costa Rica this year.
InfoGraphic now has 16,000 square feet on Lincoln Way and is shopping around for extra space.
“We’re bursting at the seams,” Maskrey said. “We plan to get more space over the next year.”
InfoGraphic has sales offices in Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, Chicago and San Francisco.
A few of its rivals include Somerset, N.J.-based Software House International Inc. and Milwaukee-based Northern Computers Inc.
“There are a whole load of companies in the industry,” Maskrey said.
InfoGraphic officials peg the electronic security industry at $20 billion annually.
