Infipro of Greenville:

Infipro of Greenville, a company that installs residential and commercial security systems, has recently celebrated its 20th year in business. Infipro, which stands for "Intrusion and Fire Protection", was founded by Shaw native David Avritt, and in recent years has become one of the Delta’s premier providers of home security systems.

In high school, Avritt originally sold wall-mounted smoke and heat detectors that were priced at $98.00 each, and as the business grew he purchased an alarm franchise from a marketing company called Dynamics, Inc. out of Charlottesville, VA. Dynamics proved to be a real innovator, as it eventually catapulted the burglar alarm industry from just a commercial use product to the home market. However, when Avritt got started in 1976, he found it difficult to sell home burglar alarm systems because residential crime was not as rampant then. These earlier systems, were also not as user friendly and were expensive. As crime in the US began to increase and technology lowered the price on these home security systems, Avritt’s company took off.

"In the early days, it was a one man show," says Avritt. "I did the selling, installation, and servicing for a number of years then I got a couple of helpers and pretty much concentrated on the selling."

Competition for the residential market in Infipro’s early years was almost non-existent as other security companies concentrated on the commercial end. By 1982, Avritt and his company had a base of close to 500 stable customers in the Delta and as Infipro grew, Avritt saw another opportunity.

"Back then when the system went off, a mechanical device would call the police station and give a recording ‘There is a burglary in process at such and such address...’ then it would dial up the second number and then the third. But, the problem was that if the police department number was busy, no one would ever receive it or if the other people the system was dialing were not at home no one got the message," says Avritt.

Around 1983 came the advent of the digital dialer which was a device that would send a data code to a computer system that processed the incoming information showing where the business was located, the type of problem - burglary, fire, etc., all monitored by individuals who could respond to the emergency instead of a mechanical response. Avritt was using a company in New Jersey to monitor emergency calls and found that sometimes it was hard for the New Jersey company to understand Mississippi Delta accents especially in the middle of an emergency. Avritt decided to do something about this problem and started his own monitoring company with investors called, SENTRYNET.

"Initially, we started the monitoring company to monitor Infipro’s calls, then after we got comfortable with this, we started marketing our services to other companies that were like Infipro," says Avritt.

To date, Sentrynet monitors calls for almost 390 companies which brings the number of clients serviced by the company up to 60,000. The monitor service for all these customers, who are located all over the US, is provided from Avritt’s Greenville location.

Avritt has also expanded his home security business to Florida as well.

"It seems as though everyone in the Delta has a condo in Florida, so we just added a location there," says Avritt.

Avritt is also involved in trade shows and in recent weeks he has traveled to Chicago, Washington, and Las Vegas. He also serves on the board of the Security Industry Association which is the trade association for Infipro. The home security industry generates $16 billion per year.

"Infipro and Sentrynet are continuing to evolve, but we are still a young company with a long way to go, with the bulk of our business in the Delta," says Avritt. DBJ

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Site last updated January 10, 1999.