Grandpa John

Grandpa John Sr. loved the grandkids, but he loved his dogs more! John Sr. started John's Lock back in 1968. Listen to Justin, Jon, Ryan and Brandon laugh about John Sr. and all the changes that have happened in their security business over the years.

Website: https://jjlocks.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JandJQC

Transcript

Speaker 1  0:00  
If you hear all those booms, that is because Justin loves to talk with his hands, and so all I hear in my headphone is boom, boom. Yes,

Speaker 2  0:09  
I do talk with my hands. Thank you, Ryan. As I was saying, since you so rudely interrupted, what are you gonna say? You boomed right then again,

Unknown Speaker  0:19  
I'm sorry I'm sitting on my hands.

Speaker 3  0:22  
Welcome to access. Granted a peek inside the real life stories of physical security professionals. Now here are your hosts, Justin, John Ryan and Brandon. Hello, everybody.

Speaker 4  0:37  
This is Brandon with J and J, access and security. I'm here with Justin, John Ryan, the other three, four owners of J and J access and security, we are going to welcome in our new podcast. Hopefully it'll be something that's not only entertaining, but maybe give you a little bit of a security info and knowledge and help you along that route. We're gonna kind of start here today just kind of by telling you about who we are, what we did, how we got started. And we are a family business, local here in the Quad City area. It was started by our grandfather, John's father, back in 1968 and incorporated in 1972 we have been doing locks all over the Quad Cities, locks, cameras, alarm systems, Safe Work. Guys, anything else? I mean that we just got back into our locks, we touch it. That's right, that is Justin's voice. You're here and there, John, do you want to go ahead and start talking about your dad and our grandfather? John Sawyer, I think

Unknown Speaker  1:37  
it'd be a good idea for you to do it because you were there.

Unknown Speaker  1:42  
We're just speaking to your age now,

Speaker 5  1:44  
yes, I am the one of the youngest people here. No. So father started the company in 1968 basically he's a one man person. It was called John's lock back then, in 1972 he got remarried to a young lady named Juanita, and they changed the name to J and J Locksmiths. Then in 1982 the name was changed to J and J lock safes and alarms. In 84 we were going to open up several different companies, including American casino equipment company to supply casino equipment to the New River boats going in. And we changed the name, the corporate name, to international technology and security. And since that time, we've kept the corporate name, and we've ran as a DBA, as either J and J lock safes and alarms, and more recently, as J and J accesses security, to more reflect our total offerings.

Speaker 2  2:50  
Well, yeah, I mean, that's good. It just gives us 58 years, if I'm doing the math right, of not only experience in the industry, but coming from my grandfather, John's experience. He, he was a 56, years, I can't math, Ryan's over here Miami, numbers to me. Experience, he was a machinist and a tool and dyed maker by trade. He could, if he could take a piece of raw metal and he could form a lock from it, and he did that in the local factories here. He worked at International Harvester, and he worked at Oscar Myers, and he had moved here in the in the mid to late 60s for job opportunities and the knowledge as a machinist or as a tool and die maker to be able to make a lock there was, it was an easy transition for him to go and start servicing locks. And that's what he based his his service ability and his knowledge on, going forward, is trying to make that lock as as as tight of a tolerance, as precise as he had in the careers that he had previously. And I think he started working automotive on the side, when he started John's lock making keys to cars, and then he moved into, hey, can you keep my house? And then it was, hey, can you keep working my business? He always, He always spoke that one of his first big, big clients was one of his former bosses at at International Harvester. He had to key the whole plant, and that was one of his biggest jobs. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we've been here for so long and we've got a nice longevity. You hear a lot on the news now about scammers and fly by night companies, and we really want people to understand that, hey, we're here, we've been here, and we're here to stay. So

Speaker 4  4:33  
just to kind of keep it on, our grandfather a little bit longer, he was known by many things to us. He was Papa or senior. People call him John senior. He was definitely a man with a large personality. Ryan, you want to kind of go into what our grandfather was

Speaker 1  4:50  
like? Yeah, sure. So. Senior was a very strict man who did not allow anybody any. Person any kind of leeway. It was always animals that he could see giving away leeway to but anybody else, if they didn't do it his way, it was wrong. But to be fair, his way was right most of the time. Yeah,

Speaker 2  5:13  
he knew it. And the only person he truly loved was the only thing he ever loved was the dogs. They had higher chairs at the Thanksgiving table than everyone else. So

Speaker 4  5:23  
working in a shop with a man like that who loved animals, yes, we I'm sure some of you that might be listening have been into our shop and keep wondering where this big white dog that we're constantly stepping over, and that dog wherever it laid, that's where its spot was. And if you stepped on its tail, you were in trouble so, but yes, he was a very loving man. He loved all of us very much. Again, he was hard on us, but that's because he wanted the quality that he brought this company to.

Speaker 2  5:54  
Yeah, I think that, though, it stemmed from the fact that it was his name. I mean, he came from a generation where a handshake was a word, right? So not only being able to hold someone accountable to their actions and what they were doing to represent his name, but I think that was really big for him, that when somebody went out there J and J, part of that was John, right? So that was he wasn't going to let somebody not only naysay his name, but the quality of work they're going to put out was going out was going to be what he would have done otherwise it wasn't going to get done.

Speaker 5  6:26  
It was not it was even simpler than that, at times, in the fact that he believed that everyone should be able to do certain things, and if you did not do things that particular way, or in a way that was reflected good upon yourself and upon him, then he had no tolerance for you. He just did not even want you around. And he was very blunt about telling you, I

Speaker 2  6:55  
think I remember him throwing some customers out because of their idea of what the service should have been, or the cost of that service was different than him. But I think we, I think we do our darndest to try to keep that spirit alive, and that's why we, we really, truly love keeping our guys trained, not only in the same way that he trained us, but also in the industry standard. I mean, what we don't want to do is bring our guys in and service the community in an insular way where we're not protecting our client base. Because, I mean, one thing that he always did was made sure that it was secure. He's like, I'm not going to do that. And he would tell people No, because it wasn't a good idea, it wasn't smart and it wasn't safe or wasn't secure.

Speaker 4  7:37  
And I'll tell you this, if anybody you know, we're kind of saying that, yes, he was a hard man, but if you ever heard that man laugh, he had a laugh that could crack up an entire room. And what he thought was funny was just another hole out of this world.

Speaker 5  7:52  
He was a little dry when he used in what he thought was funny compared to what everybody

Unknown Speaker  7:56  
else might have. Very funny. Very much so.

Speaker 4  8:00  
But continuing kind of with our grandfather, John, you kind of want to explain how young he had you started getting into the business. Well,

Speaker 5  8:09  
I picked a lock on a pop machine, I think when I was probably seven or eight years of age. My brother Joe and I, he's 14, I'm 16, and there was a local credit union, and they needed a new file vault door installed. So he orders the vault door. We put everything together. He sends Joe and I out on the truck, and the vault door is delivered. And he tells us we're going to put the vault door in. So we, at 16 and 14, picked the vault door up with all the contractors looking around, laughing when they saw us, until they saw us, actually set that door in place, make it swing and lock it. And that's the type of person he was. He says, I trained you to do this, and it doesn't matter what your age is, you should be able to do it.

Speaker 2  8:58  
I think you would agree that the training that we're doing now would reflect that kind of confidence in our people. I think he'd also agree that some of those people deserve a little laughter as we go through and I think we do a pretty good job of building a family along around the company that we've created since his passing. I mean, that's one thing I think it's really good for the customers that we have is that the guys that are with us now, even though we've grown from a local family that just, you know, everybody's last name was Sawyer is now everybody's treated like family. They're all people. I pay them like I would want to pay myself, even though the old man never did pay us that way. But I also I treat them and give them the leeway and the time, and that helps make somebody loyal to the company. Being in a community like ours, if you're going to have longevity, and you want to have that longevity beyond the first or second generation, it's because you got people who feel as if they're as invested in this company as we are, and we do that through not only training, but compensation. Conversation and, you know, and the the camaraderie that we focus there. I mean, I know that one of the things we wanted to highlight is we've done it a lot on Facebook here recently, but is the additional training that we have. Ryan Brandon and I were certified. Ryan's got a certified safe and vault technician from the GSA. I have that also. Ryan's got his professional safe credentials from the National so safe and vault Association. We're all three, at least registered locksmiths, if not certified registered locksmiths through Aloha, which is one of the is the largest and most well known locksmithing Association. And actually, we all, most of us, just left Vegas here a couple weeks ago, getting more qualifications, testing classes. How many people did WE send Ryan? Nine guys, which is, is more than most shops have. And

Speaker 4  10:57  
one of the things that we like to do with Justin is getting into is we like to, we get with a group called Loa, and we we go there for all over the country for different training. This last one we had, like Justin said, was in Vegas. I went out there to that convention two years ago. And I will recommend do never go to Vegas by yourself. It's very lonely and boring. But yeah, we did send a bunch of guys out there just a couple weeks ago. And Justin, you want to tell them how that went, and all the fun things you guys got to do as

Speaker 2  11:28  
a group, for anybody without Brandon, without we didn't take Brandon because we only want Brandon to experience Vegas by himself. Brandon will forever be the Forever alone. I will

Unknown Speaker  11:39  
not wish that on any Yeah, no, we it

Speaker 2  11:41  
was good. I think those of us who people who maybe followed us on Facebook or whatnot and saw the guys had a great time, we want to make sure that not only are they in their classes, but they're taking and experiencing the the area that we're going to they have a lot of them in Vegas. They have a lot of event of these conventions in Orlando. But I mean, the guys went down to the strip. They had classes. We went and saw this the outside of the sphere, even though I just read in the paper that thing lost $98 million this year. But it was, it was good time. I think the guys that we took out there, I think they were had a renewed interest in locksmithing as a whole. They got to take tests to see and prove to not only us and themselves how certified they are, but also have that credential card. I think the classes we took were really good. What classes did you take? Ryan and you two, dad, which ones did you take? Safe manipulation by hand? That one I thought was a lot of fun. I manipulated open four safes while I was in class there as the first one to do it. So that was fun, and that's the process of by dialing the lock with the feel. So like in the What's that movie with Italian Job? Yeah, you knew exactly who I was going for. Yeah? That That scene was a little weird, where she's got the lights off and she's dialing it open, right? That I don't know of any safe technician that would ever do that, but that's similar to what you were learning. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  12:58  
or play music in the background, since you have to hear what

Unknown Speaker  13:02  
you Hey, but she looked good doing it, right?

Unknown Speaker  13:06  
I'll let you say that. I I'm not gonna say that. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2  13:08  
I apologize if, Caitlin, if you're listening to this, I did not mean that this was only for the show,

Unknown Speaker  13:15  
John, what did you take out there?

Unknown Speaker  13:17  
So I took my

Speaker 5  13:20  
friend. I was the one in class most. I don't know why the oldest guy here and I spent more time in class than the rest of them. It's because you're a nerd. Well, there might be some truth to that, but I took electronic locking systems, then I took access control beyond the panel, and then I took a course in computer networking. And the reason I even took that one was because I'm gonna be teaching classes this next year at Aloha, and I wanted to see exactly what someone else was teaching so that I didn't duplicate that for

Speaker 2  13:53  
those people who don't know and are maybe listening and don't know, John, he is a nerd by fact, he's a card carrying nerd. He's a was, what do you have a masters in infrastructure and technology, or some cyber, technology and infrastructure security. A lot of little alphabet soup behind his name. There computers are his. Are his fun toys to play with. But, yeah, I think that's good. I mean, it's a good thing that he mentioned that, because not only are we certified as locksmithing technicians, we're now some of us are certified as instructors to teach this, not only to our own people, which we've been doing for years now, but to other people out there we could get it's another potential job for us, which my wife just likes me taking on more jobs. And

Speaker 4  14:36  
where did you guys go to get your certification for instructor? Oh, we

Speaker 2  14:40  
went so there's a it seems like the locksmithing world always has stuff going on in Nicholas, Nicholasville, Kentucky. Then we went to a place called Lock masters, and it was hosted by Aloha, the which we didn't give the acronym earlier. It was the Associated Locksmiths of America, aloha. And then we was a rigor. Risk three day course where we had to give several different impromptu presentations and and it was more on a class on how to give a presentation, and less on, are you qualified? We've already proven that with our certifications.

Speaker 5  15:13  
Right one night, Justin, I actually preparing for our presentation the next day, because each one of us had to give one. It was midnight before we left the table and decided we might try to get a little rest, but we still had this. Even though we had completed all the parts of the presentation, we started to do the write up. So I think I got in bed around 2am that night. Yeah, it

Speaker 2  15:39  
was a late, late night. But, I mean, we've been hyping on how how strict our grandfather was on the quality that went out, but we wanted to say that we want to make sure people realize that not only has there's a legacy continuing, but we're seeking out other individuals to get different perspectives. We're talking right now about sending our guys to Chicago on the fourth of October, here, just to get more training, we're looking at sending our guys to some automotive classes, which is a newer segment of our business, again,

Speaker 4  16:09  
Justin the last couple years. Let's see off the top of our heads, we can think we have been to Las Vegas, Reno, Dallas, Kentucky, Ogden, Utah, or land. You said Orlando, Orlando, Florida, Chicago. These are all the places that we have traveled across the country and sent our guys to for different trainings. Yeah, correct. We need to, you know, we like to keep the training going and keep up to date on all the newest technologies for hardware and things.

Speaker 5  16:37  
You know, we started out as a locksmith company. That's what we were. We were locksmith. That's what my father did. But at the same time, we've now become more integrators. You know, as we do the locking hardware, we do the closed circuit television, we do the access control, we do, you know, networking. So, I mean, some of the systems that we've been doing recently, we have had to build out everything from the network switching all the way through the wireless in the building to get the electronic locks to work on the doors, because we've done some fairly large apartment complexes and so forth, where everything there is they have a token, or they use Bluetooth off their Phone, which means that we have to connect to networks. So we have had to learn to build the networks and do all these other things. Well,

Speaker 2  17:26  
then let's let's talk about that. So one of the things that we struggle with in in bidding processes or trying to perform what the customer wants, is balancing the overall security of a building with life safety or technology, because, you know, we have certain things it costs money to do, X, Y, Z, or the customer doesn't feel safe unless something's happening. How do

Speaker 1  17:52  
you hear all those booms? That is because Justin loves to talk with his hands, and so all I hear in my headphone is boom, boom. Yes,

Speaker 2  18:02  
I do talk with my hands. Thank you, Ryan. As I was saying, since you so rudely interrupted, what are you gonna

Unknown Speaker  18:08  
say? You boomed right? Then again,

Speaker 2  18:12  
I'm sorry. I'm sitting on my hands, and then you're just gonna hear it squeak. Okay, we have to try to balance what we're doing at the customer's house with as secure as possible and as safe as possible, especially in the commercial atmosphere. I think that as we move forward, I think under having the customer understand, especially in the commercial sphere, that when we're bidding something, or when we're doing something, it's always in the back of our mind, not only security, but life safety,

Speaker 5  18:42  
right? We spend a very large amount of time in our training keeping up on life safety and, you know, and all the life safety codes. Because even though there's life safety codes presented every year, new ones, not every city follows the same rules or the same issuance of codes, so we have to keep track of that. So, you know, if we go to Chicago, Chicago is a lot stricter on a lot of different life safety codes than, say, Davenport or Moline, you know, so and or even say some small little town like Loudon, Iowa. So we get asked sometimes to do things that we say, No, we can't do it. It doesn't follow regulations. It doesn't follow any of the life safety codes.

Speaker 4  19:30  
Well, just to go back to that boom in hands. Comment, yes, I am sitting over here with my hands folded together because I feel like Ricky Bobby in his first interview ever. He just doesn't know what to do with his hands. So right now, I have mine class tightly together, shake and bake baby. Hopefully next, next week, we will hopefully have the booms taken out, but I appreciate everybody listening to us. It was our first go at this, so I hope it was somewhat entertaining, somewhat knowledgeable, and we will be back in two weeks to update. Meet you on what we've been doing and talk to you about some security and safety codes.

Speaker 3  20:05  
Thanks for listening to access. Granted a podcast by J and J, access and security in association with tag. For more information about J and J access and security, visit jjlocks.com