Security Plan for Marijuana Dispencaries
Thomas Howard 0:03
You know, and that’s one of the reasons why I think that security is so highly concentrated in the applications. And there’s a lot of about security. So you know what, maybe we should bring the guest on? Yeah. Talk about how security is super important to your cannabis business.
Miggy 11:07
With security, Tom?
Thomas Carnevale 11:10
Yeah. Hey, Tom, can you tell us about umbrella technologies? Sure, can I think security is super important. Thank you so much for having me, everyone. So my name is Tom Carnevale, one of the founders of umbrella technologies. I’ve been doing security engineering, anything from software that resides on the surveillance cameras to physical layouts, risk analysis, I’ve been involved in penetration testing for global 100 organizations. So we design physical security infrastructure, from surveillance cameras to electronic door access control to putting sensors on your glass or your doors to monitor breakage or vandalism. We can tie some of these systems into a business intelligence platform, which I think maybe we’ll get to in a little bit is how security and business intelligence sales and marketing are going to intertwine together. But ultimately, designing, engineering, supplying and consulting business owners and startup companies, their security needs, including their security plan for this big application, which is a whopping 50 pages.
Thomas Howard 12:23
Yeah, so you’re talking about Exhibit H. Let me put it up on the screen..
Thomas Carnevale 12:24
Yes. And we recommend all 50 pages be filled out. Furthermore, there needs to be a security floor plan that needs to be designed. Now, a lot of these entrepreneurs and startup companies are going to have a facility already planned out , they’re either going to be retrofitting a building, or they’re going to be doing a remodeling of some sort. So your walls, your inventory room, you’re checking area, your mantrap your vault area, your server room, and your lounge and retail space all need to be designed and sectionalized and labeled with all the security technologies that you need for those environments.
Miggy 13:15
Let’s not forget once that build-out happens; they all have to meet like IEEE specs, which I’m pretty sure you’re in accordance with that.
Thomas Carnevale 13:21
There’s a lot more than just that- down to local low voltage laws, security monitoring laws. Were not recording audio in specific places, but doing it and other specific places. A key ingredient is how long you need to retain video surveillance storage for cannabis dispensaries. In Illinois, cannabis dispensaries must record video surveillance footage for 90 days.
Thomas Howard 13:54
I believe that’s what the adult us statute also provided. But we work together on putting that thing, because you have to make sure that your security plan complies with the law, and they actually don’t exhibit HH, when you’re looking at the application, they reference to section 15 dash 100 of the Act. And we’ve made a checklist at the office, that checklist for all these particular provisions of the app, it’s like 30 pages long, and that’s not you know, to just copy and paste it in there. But it’s to make sure that you just are checking off that you’ve addressed it, you know, complying with this and comply with that. And then that’s not all that the security plan contemplates. It also says a contract with a private security contractor a licensed under Section 10 dash five at the private detective, private alarm, private security fingerprint vendor and locksmith act of 2004, which raises the question is umbrella technologies. So recognized?
Thomas Carnevale 14:51
Yes. And so if you talk about private alarm private investigator and a locksmith, these are all different core competencies, right. So, it is very, very rare to have one company hold all of those licenses all meet all of those requirements because typically, you have your locksmith, do your doors and your locks. You have your security investigator kind of plan your security plan or your cash management system. And then you have your security, engineering firm design, the tech, like the security cameras, the surveillance storage systems, the redundancy, the glass breaks sensors the alarm, and then there’s another company that can do the alarms. And so what we’ve put together as a group of team members, that all have these licenses all have the experience, and all who have worked under our umbrella, I guess, pun intended, and that can deliver all of these solutions because the alternative is the way this is written. It frustrated me the second that I read it because there is no company that exists that has all these core competencies. It just doesn’t happen. Like there’s they’re all different types of businesses, but you need to have an overarching consultant guide monitor, risk analysis, all the different core, you know, skill setsd because it’s not just one.
Cybersecurity for Cannabis Businesses
Thomas Howard 16:23
Well, let’s say, you know, a we have a question from one of the watchers, engineering analysts as the security plans. Does that include cyber, cybersecurity? Oh, you were just explaining that. But can you explain on it a little bit more, fits together?
Thomas Carnevale 16:38
I’m a security guy. 10 years ago, when I told people that I was in security, they said, Oh, are you a security guard? And how many guns do you have? You know, seven years ago? They said, Oh, surveillance cameras. And Mike Yeah, I do that too. And then for the past three, four years, whenever I tell someone, I don’t, no, I’m in security, they automatically assume that I’m a cybersecurity engineer. Again, this is a different core competency. Cyber elements. All of the security devices, like a surveillance camera system, like a proximity card reader for door access control systems, biometric systems are all IoT devices that all need to be secured properly under an overarching cybersecurity plan. I host a podcast called Security In-Focus, where I interview, and we discuss the latest and greatest security technologies, best practices, and procedures. We talk about anything from security directors, of facilities, to cybersecurity experts to directors of service securities of health care facilities. And we had up we had one of the number one leading cybersecurity hackers on last week, which we just posted on our show, talking how she infiltrates IoT devices and can get into fortune 200 100 companies, through their surveillance cameras, in turn on their cameras, turn on their audio, and get all kinds of other information.
Miggy 18:18
And cybersecurity, you know, depending on the question and how he’s referring to it, like you’re not taking care of the guys, PCs that are in, you know, doing receipt of sale tracking and whatnot, you’re taking care of the actual surveillance equipment that you’ve installed, maintaining up all the firmware and all the other updates in case so that is, right. And what how long does your service continue on with that, like,
Security System Service Agreements
Thomas Carnevale 18:40
So you always want to have long term service and maintenance (for a security system) with any electronic security system on number one; it increases the life cycle of that investments. Number two it eliminates unpredictable costs when you own a business. And I know I think, you know, all three of us in some way, shape or form or entrepreneurs. The thing that I hate probably at the top of the list is surprise bills, I hate them. And so having a predictable service and maintenance, that it’s eight o’clock at night, before the busiest day of the season opens and security system is down which therefore could get fines. You know, due to not being in regulation and having to pay a late time weekend charge for a security company to come in. That’s something you wouldn’t have to worry about if you have a service agreement in place. Nice. And then you guys are just involved with the infrastructure security, are you going to be involved in like the CSL RFID tracking type stuff that we are doing a lot of API integrations with not only see the sale RFID, but point of sale, and then business intelligence solutions where you can create heat mapping from the surveillance cameras, and understand where people go into your store where they grow. In retail, where you can position new inventory,
Thomas Howard 20:08
data.
Thomas Carnevale 20:10
That’s what they have that data, say, again, you have that data, we aggregate that data for clients to deliver actionable insights for their business, so we don’t own and part of our agreement is we cannot sell that data. However, that is the service that clients sign up for. But that would be extremely advantageous because you can understand customer flows, the most popular times throughout the day days where we’re like times where it’s really light. So you might want to have like some type of special, you know, to keep people in I mean, that’s, that’s really advantageous information we can get. We can even do better than that. So we can also track demographics, we can track time dwelling in line, how long are people waiting in line? What are the ages? What are the customers so that you can better profile doing sales and marketing after that. And in addition, there’s either even experimental technology we’re working with that can identify mood. So what is the mood when Jane Smith comes into my store on a Wednesday afternoon? Well, she was a little bit down. But when she left, her face was a little bit in her experience in her posture was better. And so you can track that and tie it into customer engagement and also time between the time someone enters your door, and a customer service representative engages, what is the average statistics of that. So it’s allowing business owners to make real business decisions by using surveillance,
Miggy 21:45
that sounds like amazing tech, what, um, now, you’re on the creepy side of things where you are actually using facial recognition, right?
Security Camera Systems For Cannabis Dispensaries
Thomas Carnevale 21:53
Yeah, there’s so there’s facial recognition, I’m actually more talking about more of anonymous facial recognition. So so you will have that data from your point of sale transaction. In a dispensary like environment, I don’t necessarily right now see the need for facial recognition other than if it’s allowed, because honestly, there’s a lot of legal debates in Illinois going on and facial recognition, I’m writing a long article on it, there’s a lot of pushback from the federal government on the use of facial recognition for commercial organizations in the state of Illinois. So that is a very much gray area. But if you take an in Plus, you get the identification from the point of sale, so if you can tie that in, you could have it anyway. But the ultra, you have the marketing side of it is more anonymous, you know, analytics,
Miggy 22:48
why they people get too worried about it, when any camera has a potential to facial recognition, you’re just being productive into that one little environment.
Thomas Carnevale 22:57
now Yeah, this is designed to make money customer experience improve, right, so it’s a deuce time in line reduce time, before someone is engaged with position products and marketing initiatives and more, you know, predictable ways and more effective ways. And the best use of doing that is surveillance, which is seeing all things in your store. And a lot. I was gonna say like, you know, I just didn’t see the value add for, you know, data, data analytics marketing, coming, when you have your security agreement, security, I’m thinking like, I’m protecting myself, and my employees and my product to my business from theft, I’m not thinking, I’m also going to be getting actionable data so that I can create new offerings and maximize value to my customers. That’s that aspects of it, I didn’t anticipate
Thomas Howard 23:53
The security infrastructure that’s regulated, for any business owner in the state of Illinois use, you’re using that same technology and that same stream to aggregate data. So you’re using that investment and getting that to force multiply. Furthermore, more and more people are turning off location services. There are of course, companies that use mobile apps and Facebook and other technologies to identify traffic flow and clock in clock out of locations, right. But more and more people I mean, I am I’m turning off my Look, my location services specifically at specific times of the day, just because I don’t want to be tracked all the time, right. And so, um, some people leave it off permanently, some people forget that they even had it on and it’s just you’re getting tracked all the time. So
Miggy 24:44
once again, people forgetting things, it’s like with the updates where I was talking about where the most flaws for hacking are because people don’t update their things. You know, what’s that security hotel hack that 90% of hotels still haven’t updated their shit, where as simple as RFID car can break into most rooms?
Thomas Carnevale 25:03
let me expand on that. That’s where I kind of start to geek out a little bit. So
Thomas Howard 25:06
So, welcome to cannabis legalization news, the nerd edition,
Door Access Control for Dispensaries
Thomas Carnevale 25:22
So what you’re talking about maybe was proximity card readers. So So there. So that’s basically an RFID on the card and a chip. And so and that that is communicating a protocol to a door controller in a broom closet somewhere that allows that credential to be open door or denied access or denied. That protocol is 40 years old and hasn’t changed, and it’s called weaken. Okay. And so anybody with $1 95 cents, a doc can get a ble key from Amazon, and hack a and infiltrate a proximity card reader in seconds, because all you need to know is the weekend protocol, which is on everywhere on the internet. And so that’s a big problem in my world that I really try to fight against.
Miggy 26:16
Well, as Tom was saying about the analytics that you’re providing, I mean, you’re just thinking next step above security. I never thought about like shit; you’re already there might as well get this information.
Thomas Carnevale 26:26
Yep. We want more and more people to be using encrypted mobile devices for entry and exit so that they don’t have to distribute like key fobs and proxies, like thin little white cards right on, you know, more and more people are going to lose them. And what did they get into the wrong hands? using mobile credentials for access that you can keep a phone in your back pocket, it connects via Bluetooth and you just touch the reader it gives you access? Wow, this allows the business owner to eliminate access from their phones or
Thomas Howard 26:57
watch like my smartwatch. My whole thing now so okay. Now let’s turn the let’s turn this security marketing a tech bus to API’s. So you mentioned that your umbrella technologies integrating with other point of sale systems? And maybe Did you guys also have integrations with CRM, I’m not sure how much CRM are being used. But that wouldn’t do
Thomas Carnevale 27:24
that you wouldn’t need a ported API from the video surveillance system because you already have that’s coming from the POS database. Anyway, I don’t see that’s kind of a maybe if you want redundancy, you could do that. But I would see that CRM client going directly into the POS and the POS data being transcribed on the video surveillance footage, that would be the chain of custody that I would recommend users go in.
Miggy 27:51
So when you say displayed on video surveillance camera footage, like I’m not familiar with CRM,
Thomas Howard 27:54
Contact relationship management.
Miggy 27:57
okay. Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of like admin should that I just don’t get involved in. But so you’re saying that the analytics would propagate onto the display video as the guys watching his own security video?
Thomas Carnevale 28:07
That’s right.
Thomas Howard 28:08
Yeah. So where is that sent to its main lined to where?
Thomas Carnevale 28:11
So Good question. So that, that that script, that POS transaction is actually burned onto the video clip.
Miggy 28:21
And I imagine this is all embedded of some sort of crypto that you have in case someone gets a hold of the servers or whatnot.
Thomas Howardr 28:27
Yeah, everything’s watermark and encrypted. Absolutely. That’s pretty awesome.
Miggy 28:31
And then the servers are on the business establishment yourself or you guys protect the servers.
Thomas Carnevale 28:36
So you know, I we talked a little bit offline about cloud right now with the with the requirements and regulations and the state of the overall technology as it relates to professional-grade surveillance systems. Cloud surveillance is not a realistic cost and functionality for what I believe reaches dispensary’s need today. In fact, even the language and the law deters from it, it needs to be on-premise surveillance server And so and readily accessible as control is a whole nother conversation that can be hosted in the cloud, that can be, you know, created do, you can manage all of your employees and access control and doors, you can open a door at you know, 10pm on a Tuesday from your smartphone and let the cleaning crew come in. All of that can be done via cloud, but surveillance, a lot of resolutions still data even with compressions like h 265. available. And but with 90 days storage is not a realistic thing. I don’t I don’t think retail customers should be paying $20 per camera per month, I just don’t think that that’s a viable solution.
Miggy 29:48
And a server can hold months and months of data. Imagine someone doesn’t care most of the time and just let it fill up until they have to refresh it or whatever you want.
Thomas Carnevale 29:55
We want to have built-in redundancy. And part of that technology ecosystem is not just putting it on the box, but it’s making sure the specific drives are like datacenter tribes so that they have a high rewrite capability. It’s having mirrored array, potentially even things like raid 6, storage, because this is important footage that is regulated and so it’s not like it’s not a problem with surveillance evidence. You know, your hard drive crashes. This is a big deal.
Thomas Howard 30:25
Yeah. So the requirement here in Washington is the WWSLCB, who’s in charge of our program here. They actually have access to monitor from their headquarters. sure that the same thing here in Illinois, Is there gonna be a one monitoring entity?
Thomas Carnevale 30:42
Yes. So so the city of Chicago has what’s called the Office of Emergency Management. And they have a 911 headquarters. If you haven’t visited, I highly recommend it. It’s an incredible feat. And in most metropolitan cities have not been able to match what the Chicago a 911 Center has. And so these are a basically Imagine if you ever seen the movie boiler room only 10 hundred times larger, with people monitors being able to tap into retail establishments, cameras, and street corners. Even doing rapid forensic search, where you can say, hey, I want to know what the red pill I want. I want you to show me all red pickup trucks. They can do video analytic algorithms and within a geographic space, pull the red pickup truck footage from every single camera.
Miggyr 31:34
So like when I watch Person of Interest that’s shifts really real,
Thomas Howard 31:41
So just be careful about that everybody and just be lucky you’re not in China, it’s worse than China. You do anything? You’re just asking to get caught? I mean, there’s no recorded. Yeah, right.
Thomas Carnevale 31:53
Yeah, China is a whole other rabbit hole that can go down with you. That was actually the first podcast episode I did. It was entitled, China’s influence on American Security and how the two major security camera manufacturers this might be a good thing for awareness because not enough of the general population knows this. And it’s something we talk about on a weekly basis. So the two largest security camera manufacturers in the world, in volume in space and revenue, one of which have just recently been sanctioned by the federal government and banned for all government use and a lot of even commercial use in the United States. Some of the reason for that is the number one manufacturer called hc vision is 51% owned by the Chinese government’s literally a government employee sits on the board and runs the surveillance camera manufacturing company that has facial recognition, which is what causes all the issues. And so they have also been discovered actually, Forbes in the New York Times discovered this several months ago that this company was involved in slave labor camps that were if you know, because it is a communist government still in China people don’t understand how
Thomas Carnevale 33:18
right? And so when you dis the government in China, you can get sent to this concentration camp to be re educated,
Miggy 33:27
or your organs are harvested and you never come back.
Thomas Carnevale 33:30
Exactly. And so you these camps are have tons and tons of security, which was all supplied designed by HikVision.
Thomas Carnevale 33:41
okay. And so and so this up this company, these same two companies that vision and our have been, there have been not only cyber vulnerabilities from turning on the audio and recording the audio offline, essentially espionage rideshare two built-in peer-to-peer phone home algorithms and just vulnerabilities galore with, with with cyber issues with these camera manufacturers. But the other problem is, is that there’s dozens and dozens of companies that private label these Chinese manufacturers cameras and re label it as their own. It’s hard to know, which is the band camera, which is the vulnerable camera, which is the camera can turn on audio over the internet. And that’s something that a security Insider, I think can help guide you with and that’s
Thomas Howard 34:33
Espionage has never been easier. Or like you know, your chain of custody has never been clear. it’s ever been so simple to get caught doing literally everything you’re doing.
Miggy 34:45
Remember years ago, I think it was a handy cams, they one of them had a minute malware in it. That was a computer and you know, it was able to put us off into your computer because you had to connect your computer if I can get your video.
Thomas Carnevale 34:58
That’s right.
Miggy 35:00
Even when I used to work at Raytheon, little ice chips, because you know, sometimes you had a vet your your employers, and sometimes the the the bean counter was like, Oh, no, these ones are cheaper. Let’s go with these cheaper ones. without even asking. And it would have embedded that code on it already. Right? People are still surprised that China’s it’s a requirement for China to own a percentage of a company that does business with them when people are praising Alibaba for fucking doing so well. It’s because the government owns it. It has nothing to do with that guy who made it.
Thomas Howard 35:33
You know, what about Huawei?
Miggy 35:34
Yeah, what’s what’s his Huawei making any of these components that you have?
Thomas Carnevale 35:40
Yeah, Huawei – So the digital signal processors, they make socks, software and a chip that goes in some of these cameras that goes in also smartphones that goes in all kinds of electronic devices that we use every day, they were the number one topic get by the US government was the cup was who way. And, you know, there’s another, other people know them as high silicon. And they took over the market rapidly in a six year space by basically putting all the software all the intelligence all on a chip. So product manufacturers had their their costs to market reduced dramatically. And so they were putting all the GoPros in the world, they were put in all all surveillance cameras, ton of surveillance cameras, even and these chips were made by a Chinese company that’s owned by the Chinese government. 100%. Right.
Miggy 36:41
I can see why people would be a little bit nervous.
Miggy 36:45
Well, even now, you know, I always tell Thomas, my frustration with as American citizens and we’re kind of lazy about things that are messed up in our country as I mean, right now you have people flooding the streets in Hong Kong, right. Kiev, you know, over the democracy as a cannabis activists, you know, we’re just shouting Tom and I for 10 years that hey, free, all these people are in jail for who haven’t done anything. Right. It’s a medical now it’s legal in our nation’s capital once every else to get pissed off. But yeah, I mean, yeah, with security, it’s definitely a threat. I mean, it’s definitely something that is always in the back of our minds. Hell, I take off the little sticker on my cam here, you know, when we do this every Wednesday, so I’m sure you do, just like you said, you turn off your own. Okay.
Thomas Carnevale 37:32
I mean, we do, we do a lot of other cyber areas here. But I think a big thing that we run into in mass markets and with this big initiative, and so little applications available, but so many people want a big, or a slice of the pie is we’re basically talking to the consumer market, who thinks they know security via the marketing of companies like ring, and Google and Amazon. And, you know, when I started in security 18 and a half years ago, the home security camera system was very expensive. Yep. Okay, it was very expensive. And then, um, you know, when Google bought Nest Cam nest, Norton, sorry, dropcam for half a billion dollars. And that was like what was that eight years ago, the market exploded, then Amazon bought Ring, and all these other little startup companies, which are basically just little, some of them have high silicon chips in them as well. But or raspberry pi.
Miggy 38:40
steel, we’re just helping them steel.
Thomas Carnevale 38:43
Exactly. And so there’s just these little basically a step above your computer’s webcam, put on your front door with a little bit of you know, software integration with with API’s. But that is not a professional surveillance camera system, your those cameras was really great when you’re a foot away from them pushing the the doorbell. But having a camera up in the corner and wanting to identify people all the way on the other side of a room, there’s light, there’s all these kinds of different elements in the sensor sizes are also much larger with professional surveillance cameras. And you can manage video and include other things like access control, and alarms, and glass breaks sensors. There’s just such a big misunderstanding of between what a commercial security system is for retail, versus what’s good for my home, front door camera. And we all counters,
Thomas Howard 39:38
People always overestimate what they think they know. And they always try to discount all the costs, right? No. And so because of that, and they asked me like, well, I can read, I don’t need a lawyer. I’m like, that’s fine. You know, they’d probably be like, well, I can go buy a $600 thing from Costco and then just rig that up and I video surveillance. Why do I need all this other stuff? I’ll go
Thomas Carnevale 40:03
that can do it for them? are they who they have a buddy? And they have a cousin Eddie, you have a buddy? Yeah,
Thomas Howard 40:08
So like my buddies, a lawyer, Adam, look at this, Mike, what do you do? Oh, product liability, but not too much anymore? Like, okay, great. So, you
Thomas Howard 40:17
she’s not invested. I mean, the nine page application, you guys have already proves that, you know, speaking you to having a professional lawyer and a professional security person, you know, all these requirements that are in that application, you bang for your buck, you want to go that way if you’re going to get involved in this peroid
Thomas Carnevale 40:33
And that’s actually a really good point back to the application is because this this line that they put in with, with the regulations, it’s listing all these different security licenses and competencies. And it’s just like with with, you know, attorneys, there’s one that practice intellectual property law, others prep practice, real estate law, or others are criminal defense. And so with security, they’re listing eight different components. Now, I would be lying to anyone person, if I told them that I can do private investigations and fingerprints for them. I don’t know how to do that. But because I’m in the security industry, and I’m a veteran of nearly 20 years, I know the local people who are who I’m my work with, and that’s why building this team to attack, this vertical market was so key for us. Because we have the best in breed down to the dollar and cents optimized for these new entrepreneurs to come into the market.
Thomas Carnevale 41:29
So one of your clients then when they because they have to sign that contract, like I said, like you got you the security company, are the only ones whose literally in this exhibit calling for you to have that, like they don’t have the licenses that are underneath our contracts.
Yeah, but that there, it’s right there in the statute that you need that contract with a company like yourself, are you also going to help these people, these applicants in the drafting of their 50 pages of security plan? We are we from the design build layout to which is an important area to their cash management process? What is their culture of security plan with training employees? How to use customer service? How does that how do you find that intersects then, because a lot of the operational consultants will say that they can help with these types of security plans. And then you touched on various other areas where security is important. And it gets into that, like, for example, your employee training program. But how are you interacting with other cannabis consultants to put together those avenues? Talk to
Thomas Carnevale 42:35
And so usually the conversations go like this. Oh, you’re an expert in that? Well, we do the whole application for companies and so the conversations are typically short, some because they think they know it all. But unfortunately to the applicant that might not be best serve, we do have other partnerships where we are subcontractor to them, because pages is a lot of content that is solely dedicated to the security plan and accounts for 26% of your points towards being awarded, which is a lot. I mean, basically, if you get it wrong, you’re going to you’re not going to get approved, that’s for sure. Yep. Yeah, social equity.
Thomas Howard 43:19
And I was, you know, again, as I was telling you earlier, before the security camera was a welcome to cannabis, because I think it’s great that you’re an auxiliary company, you know, it has nothing to do with marijuana, but decided, you know, what, I’m willing to go put my name out there, my company’s name my face, and say, Hey, I’m willing to work with you and help with this security plan. I’m, it’s great to see you here either. As a non consumer of cannabis, you know, I think it’s great.
Thomas Carnevale 43:44
I’m really glad you said that maybe earlier this year, I wrote an article that maybe I’ll get you guys to share the security industry, there’s still a big majority that want nothing to do with this space. With all the industries with legal, they don’t want anything to do with it. So like, here’s the big issue that I have a lot of the cannabis discrimination cases, their plaintiffs, you know, and so they’re worried about discrimination on either their employer or their landlord side. And they’ll, they’ll Google it, and they’ll find me and I’m like, you know, I can make a referral, but a lot of the plane of employee discrimination attorneys that I know, they are touching it, because it’s still cannabis. Yeah, we are knocking on 2020. And it is a different world. And you know, it’s just like anything else. People can either get stuck in the past and worry about
Thomas Carnevale 44:58
doing it for a few years now we started with some medical dispensary facilities, we’ve done some hemp extraction laboratories, we’ve done some growing facilities as well, both indoor and outdoor, which is very completely different designs and threats that they have. And then we’ve done some medical dispensaries, as well as some legal outside the state of Illinois. So it’s something I it’s just like any other business and I think because of what’s going on with the media and everything else, it’s a high-risk business The way I see it, and it’s some people that really need to be secured and need help. And I need to understand how this works. So how does anything else other than that,
Thomas Howard 45:41
how, I don’t know if you’re involved in any farms, how would you do actual surveillance for a farm like acres and acres of land,
Thomas Carnevale 45:48
Lights and audio. So I’m so motion sensors that can, you know, with detects, you know, human or animal motion, versus, you know, something blowing, you know, you know, limb you know, leaves on a on a tree, you know, but physical motion activity, and then as soon as that is ignited with with lights, and then sometimes we even put pre programmed audio sirens or pre recorded us, you know, statements saying Intruder alert, or if they want to play some jazz music or something like that anything they want to do the catch, because typically, there’s only one thing that happens once that light and that audio goes on is the era. And so that tie in with potentially solar infrastructure with with 3g, 4g connections, for remote monitoring, is the way to go and potentially fencing. It depends on the landscape, but every system is different.
Miggy 47:02
yeah. I mean, you’re in a technological industry now. And because of that, like, it sounds like if you’re in this business that saw a new cash flow in the cannabis space, but then also saw another new cash flow in the data space that it was gathering for its cannabis clients. Right?
Thomas Carnevale47:21
Yeah, that’s what I hope in the next five years this turns into is this merger of security and business intelligence, because so many people want to do be more effective in physically coming outside of your home or off your phone buying and creating positive shopping experiences. Outside of the internet is not just the cannabis world’s problem. It is the retail industries. Yeah, with wars, like Toys R Us closing its stores nationwide last year before Christmas, right? Like, right? This is still a threat. This is still a retail threat, even though we’re having you know, ‘gold rush’ to the 75 golden tickets here in Illinois. They are retail businesses, and e-commerce is going to circumvent some way shape or form. And that should be still risk, honestly, risk. Number one, how can we create a better customer experience from fulfillment to engagement? And you can do that with security technologies.
Thomas Howard 48:29
Like we said, the analytics alone can provide help your customer just
yeah, find a day, the economy definitely there. I can buy on my dispensary’s website and then just go pick it up. Right
Miggy 48:41
now. That’s pretty cool. So you guys have been doing delivery to like, Do you guys ever do a transportation of them and the security or anything part of that’s part of our as part of our dream team? Yeah. Green Team is the folks that do the armed guard cash management systems.
Thomas Carnevale 49:00
No, we’re so cash management and armed guards is also part of the security plan. That’s very important. And what about the transportation of the cannabis? So very good question. I mean, there’s mobile camera systems, there’s body worn camera systems that you can use this dash cams, we have technologies actually, that are very cost effective for $500, you can get a mobile body worn camera, you could wear it on your on your person, you could dock it on a docking station on your dashboard and use it as a dash cam. It’s encrypted at the edge, as well. And so you have to have a username and password and a specific login with a with a serial key to plug it into its its docking, main docking device to even extract the data. But that’s something that would be a really cost effective solution for a someone who’s transportation transporting it and also recording audio as well.
Thomas Howard 49:54
We’ll see the transport license here after the first of the year. But it wouldn’t surprise me if that also requires. No it’ll require a security plan. But they also require a contract with a company like umbrella securities. There you go. Got it? Yeah. How many states are you in?
Thomas Carnevale 50:14
New Jersey, California? Seattle, Colorado. ITexas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Michigan and Florida.
Miggy 50:29
All cannabis related or
Thomas Carnevale 50:30
Projects we have either done cannabis growing facilities, medical or consulting designs. There were Yeah. So yeah, we have a nice customer base, and, you know, outside LA to, but we’re, we’re not like an att. net. We’re a business to business, you know, pretty specific security technology firm. And so, you know, we’re not the, you know, we’re not going to be like US Cellular that has the, the brands, we’re not going to market like that. Because Yeah, we’re very, very b2b.
Miggy 51:07
You know, att, you’re not that little sign say we’re protecting know, you’re just providing the tools and the, you know, the they are links for the customer to decide for themselves how they want to perform their business, which is pretty awesome, dude. Right?
Thomas Howard 51:20
And they’re, they’re helping with 26% of the points. I mean, the security plan. That’s, that’s 76%.security plan and record-keeping 65 points, you know, 65 out of 200 and 50. I mean, yeah, 26%, like you said,
Miggy 52:05
lawyer, Tom, the, the social equity program, that that, that includes a loan, right, if you fill out and
Thomas Howard 52:13
if you qualify for it, that you would be eligible to apply for those types of loans, you don’t have to have them the social equity aspects of the application were listed as optional, as opposed to required. So you know, it doesn’t change your, your proof of your financials and your financial evidence that you could give. That’s an unlimited page number as well. So if you have the social equity points, but absolutely zero money, and you haven’t, you know, you your you have the Costco surveillance system as your security plan. And you you spent 2010 $20,000 putting together your entire application. I just don’t know how I mean, you’ll get your social equity points, but I just don’t know how many of the other points you’ll pick up, you know? Yeah.
Miggy 53:01
Again, 20 k is not what you want to start a business with.
Thomas Howard 53:04
No, especially not the cannabis industry. Yeah.
Miggy 53:13
Half a million for a decent small craft.
Thomas Howard 53:16
Oh, no, for like craft grows. It really depends. I mean, the craft grows, you could make those, you could make a $10 million. Building a craft grow. I mean, think about it, you can make a $10 million bar if you want it. How capitalized? Are you? What is your business model? How does this look, you know, what are you employing? There’s all these questions that you can ask, but you know, how how adequately capitalized? Are you if you’re really trying to find out which one of the craft grows are going to be the cheapest ones that was approved? We’ll find out in 2020 you know, we’ll find out next fall.
Miggy 53:57
Yeah, I learned a lot though. The analytic stuff that it’s crazy. It’s creepy.
Thomas Howaard 54:02
Before we go, Tom, can you tell us where we can follow umbrella technologies?
Thomas Carnevale:
Sure. Our website is umbrella tech.co. Our Twitter is umbrellasys, you can find us on Instagram and umbrella underscore technologies. And if you Google or search on Facebook, were there too. But yeah, umbrella technologies best place to start is our wet our umbrella tech.
Thomas Howardr 54:36
and I hope to see all of you guys at the Illinois cannabis summit in two weeks in October for me. All right, and come say hi to Tom and yeah, I’m
Thomas Carnevale 54:44
I’m speaking I’m speaking I’m one of the speakers. So my topic is going to be security cannabis. From application to door opening what what we’re going to talk about what what it costs for the security systems. We’re talking about the application plan and everything in between. So I will be an exhibitor and I will be speaking at that event. I will see you there. Thanks for having me on the show!