Roy Cooper is a well-known, much loved figure in the Security Industry. As Managing Director of Professional Security Magazine, he’ll celebrate his 50th year in the sector in 2022 and has no intention of retiring.
It made a change for him to sit in the interviewee seat, but because Roy is still buzzing with energy and commitment, bringing his charismatic personality to every encounter, it wasn’t hard to get him talking about what makes him tick.
How has Roy ended up where he is and why does he stay plugging away?
Roy started off his career way back in 1972 as an apprentice at what was then Chubb. He quickly realised that he was training up security engineers who were being paid more than him which lead him to become an Intruder Installation Engineer himself, before moving sideways into Sales. Here he got promoted and sent up to Glasgow before returning to London 5 year later with Modern Alarms, now part of ADT.
The next stepping-stone in Roy’s breadth of industry knowledge came when he was headhunted to join Rediffusion as their National Sales Manager which took him into the world of CCTV. Roy helped the business grow significantly and then moved into security camera manufacturing before becoming responsible for Sales at the security equipment distributor Multi Video, now part of ADI Gardener.
Around this time, he was organising a regular annual roadshow for suppliers at Woburn Abbey and invited the owner of Professional Security Magazine along. Every year, the magazine owner would say to Roy, “I’m ready to retire, you’re just who I’m looking for to take over the reins, come and work for me”.
So, in the end Roy did. That was almost 20 years ago, so why does Roy stay at ProfSec and what keeps him getting up to do a solid day’s work every morning?
Roy says that all his mates are in the industry, and he’s made it his life. He really loves the job he does, sitting smack in the middle of the industry, hearing all the gossip across installers, manufacturers, and distributors. And he still manages to have lots of contact with end users too, finding out which businesses are getting it right and which aren’t so favoured.
Last year, Roy was honoured to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK OSPAs 2020 for services to the Security Industry. He’s certainly experienced many changes and interesting moments over the years too.
What’s the biggest calamity you’ve had to deal with whilst organising an event or during one?
At a ProfSec show in Dublin, an attendee collapsed and couldn’t breathe. Roy recalls, “Because we were abroad, someone had to act as the attendee’s next of kin, so I ended up going to hospital with him. I eventually left at 11pm that night, having missed the entire show and my flight home! (But the attendee did make a full recovery, which was of course the most important thing)”.
There were other similar instances, often caused by the atmosphere of intoxication and gaiety that goes hand in hand with such events but luckily none so serious.
In another Irish story, Roy and his team arrived at an event venue to find water pouring through a ceiling into the conference room. A hotel guest had left his bath running and it had overflowed!
But the funniest (in hindsight at least) was when they arrived at a venue in Harrogate to find it was actually boarded up. On close examination, a tiny sign directed you to Reception at the back of the hotel. The management team had omitted to tell ProfSec about a major renovation. 50 vans in the carpark, a boarded-up entrance door, scaffolding everywhere complete with builders outside bedroom windows were just the start of the challenges. There was no electricity in several rooms, no bulbs in many others and, when Roy attempted to make the best of it, heading off to bed at a reasonable hour before event day, he discovered that his mattress had been stuffed with pillows to hide how broken it was!
At the same event, a coachload of pensioners mistakenly joined the occasion and drank most of the alcohol, thinking the hotel had put on a welcome drink for them!
What’s been your funniest or strangest experience of interviewing someone for ProfSec Magazine?
There have been all sorts of embarrassing moments such as the time one of Roy’s salesmen couldn’t help but fiddle with a button under the table in a customer meeting until suddenly a projector screen began its slow descent from the ceiling.
Another very strange experience was when a security industry manufacturer – who shall remain nameless - invited Roy to conduct a product range interview with the owner and, on arrival, asked him to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement!
Roy’s been invited to interview people in all manner of venues too, everywhere from dusty old basements to the top of London’s Shard. Of course, the last 15 months have meant many chats over video rather than in person.
How do you pick what to publish in ProfSec Magazine and what’s just background noise?
Roy and the team receive up to 25 pieces of editorial a day, so it really comes down to experience of sifting out good quality, relevant and interesting content.
They do receive some hilarious items requesting promotion – a few years ago, a photo was sent in of some sort of amateur electric gate, consisting of a car battery placed in a box attached to a pram wheel and then the gate itself. It claimed to open in 3.5 mins!!! I guess that gives you a bit of extra transition time after a tough day on the job…
With 400 spots to fill in each month’s edition of ProfSec Magazine, Roy also writes some unique editorial himself including his famous gossip column and he says that people still want to read printed material. ProfSec post out 10,000 physical copies each month and receive two new subscriptions for the paper version every day.
He told me that Reed Publishing have just launched four new magazines, evident of the ongoing demand for them. As Roy said of his magazine “Everyone wants to be in it and they all love it”.
Roy and his team differentiate ProfSec by creating unique editorial and covering over 400 stories a month spread across the breadth of the physical security industry – CCTV, Intruder, Access Control, and Guarding, to name just a few of the topics they cover.
They love case studies and installer stories, including showing challenges faced so readers can see how others are overcoming adversity. They are also always keen to showcase the industry associations. And ProfSec are still running regular events, which Roy finds are a great way to get out and see those working across the industry. He is careful to ensure the events are structured to appeal to all the different elements which make up the security sector.
One thing Roy has observed when it comes to the products and solutions themselves is that there is always someone coming along doing it cheaper – so the Chinese may be the cheapest now, before it was the Taiwanese and before that the Japanese. “We don’t know who’s going to pop up next, only that progress is inevitable and there will be a country that does”, said Roy.
How have you seen things change over the last 15 months and what do you think will be lasting changes vs what won’t in our ‘new normal’?
It’s safe to say that Roy hasn’t struggled to adapt to working from home during lockdown - because he was already there! For the last 7 years, he and has slowly rolled out homeworking to his team at ProfSec which has worked really well, allowing for much coveted flexibility. Roy’s business partner even works from his home in Spain!
Roy noted that the one of the biggest challenges in recent times has been that it’s impossible to get out and network in the same way. He personally feels that once we are out of the woods with Coronavirus, people will forget how concerned they were within a few months and be back to cuddling and shaking hands.
With regard to events, Roy believes that physical ones will return, but virtual will be able to sit alongside them as we get better at documenting and broadcasting these. ProfSec went ahead and organised their annual ‘Women in Security’ event over zoom to resounding success. In fact, it got stronger exposure for sponsors and category winners because the uploaded video was viewed by 2,200 people afterwards.
The pandemic has had an interesting impact on the magazine also – it’s given ProfSec, along with other publishers, an opportunity to capture their subscribers’ home addresses (now accounting for 65% of the base), which is beneficial longer term because they are not lost when individuals move jobs.
In January 2019, ProfSec upgraded their digital offering to include ‘video on the page’ and/or animations. And with an increased focus on digital opportunities due to the lack of physical events, Roy saw more advertisers coming on board.
The ProfSec website is also receiving keen focus with 40,000 visitors every month with sustained increasing traffic. Everyday, ProfSec uploads five or more new pages, so it is a great source of information and holds a key position alongside the magazine and the events side of the business.
It was a pleasure to give Roy the chance to tell us more about himself and I’m sure you’ll join us in hoping he sticks around for a good while yet!