The sad reality is mass notification is becoming a more important aspect of the security and AV industries by the day, with increasing numbers of large-scale casualties and natural disasters befalling people in every corner of the U.S. and around the world.
John Gutekunst, vice president of sales at Bogen Communications, highlighted some of the ways his company is setting itself apart from the competition when it comes to meeting the increasing needs of school officials, government leaders, first responders and more in mass notification-related situations
“I think it’s an important category for integrators, because it requires building systems that are sophisticated and that talk to each other systems like building security fire alarm and obviously communication systems for the people that are occupying the spaces,” he tells Dan Ferrisi, group editor, commercial and security, at Emerald.
Bogen has been around for more than 90 years and has gone from analog paging and intercom systems, which are just basically intercommunications for spaces such as education, and developed more sophisticated systems now that are based on voice-over-IP technology, which allows integration with other technologies, says Gutekunst.
In many cases, these technologies are for threat detection, things like weather events, unfortunately, human threats that may occur in these environments, even things like earthquake detection, early earthquake detection for areas of the globe that are affected by that, and we can intercommunicate with these systems to allow for sophisticated communication, so that we can give direction to the people who are threatened in in those cases,” he says.
[Download] 2025 Mass Notification Report
As an example, says Gutekunst, “if there’s a threat approaching from one area of a building, we can give specific communications to people to avoid that area and to flee or muster to another area of the building. This is very important for first responders, as well as the people who are affected by these threats.”
Integrators who are focused on the education market, healthcare, retail environments, manufacturing and distribution environments where there are large groups of people assembled can find opportunities in the mass communication sector, he says.
Bogen’s website, says Gutekunst, offers free design services.
“We deliver a complete set of drawings, interconnects, speaker placement diagrams as well as a bill of materials,” he says. The company will also have a presence at ISC West 2025 in Las Vegas.
Watch the full video Q&A below:
Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site Security Sales & Integration on March 7, 2025. It has since been updated for Commercial Integrator’s audience.
