Standing Guard Telect Security System To Protect Historical Site

America’s most historic square mile is getting the James Bond treatment, and a Liberty Lake company will do the spying.

Telect Inc. recently landed a contract to sell a touch-screen security system to Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. The system will monitor five buildings there, and eventually will be wired throughout the park.

The buildings are being renovated by the Vitetta Group, a Pennsylvania-based engineering, security and interior design company. Telect is working as a subcontractor.

The total renovation includes new heating, cooling, wiring and fire sprinklers, as well as a security system 007 might have trouble with.

“We in fact have the best system and the fastest system in the industry,” said Carl Lange, an account manager with Telect.

It employs “surface acoustic wavetype technology,” Lange said, and receives and processes breach signals in 1/4 of a second. Most systems take two seconds, he said.

The buildings being battened down include Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed; the Old City Hall, the early home of the Supreme Court; and Congress Hall, where Congress once met.

“That basically replaces what I call the guts of Independence Square,” said Lee Dickinson, a park spokeswoman. “This is really the core of early American history.”

Marilyn Smith, director of Telect’s control products division, guesses the current phase of renovation will be complete this fall.

The park’s current security monitoring station is a large map dotted with lights to indicate security breaks. Telect’s new TouchStar system consists of a 3-D computer model of the grounds. If anything is tampered with, a computer program zooms in to display a virtual re-creation of the specific room and item being messed with. Normal security cameras will kick on, too.

Telect’s system also includes touch-screen control of the park’s lock and intercom systems.

Some priceless pieces there needing a cyber watchdog include the silver ink stand used when the Declaration was signed, and the chair George Washington sat in when presiding over the Constitutional Convention.

Installing gee-whiz gadgetry at a national historical site isn’t just a matter of knocking down walls and laying cable. Lange said if part of a brick wall has to be dismantled, the bricks must be numbered and replaced in order. If cameras are installed in wall molding, the molding will sometimes be replaced. The original is then archived away.

“It’s slow going,” Lange said.

And touchy. George Skarmeas, a Vitetta project manager overseeing the renovation, wouldn’t release any information without a letter of inquiry to submit for government approval first.

Lange wouldn’t disclose the cost of the security control project, but he said these installations typically cost from $20,000 to $1 million.

The entire first phase, including Vitetta’s other work, will total $17.3 million, Dickinson said. When the renovation extends to other parts of the park depends largely on funding. Dickinson guesses the entire park will be renovated and on-line with Telect’s system within 10 years.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo