Home to 30,000 residents, Bradford County is a rural community located 45 miles Southwest of Jacksonville, Fla. Committed to keeping the county a safe place to live, work and play, the Bradford County Sheriff's Office is mandated to protect its citizens and at the same time, to safeguard sensitive information such as fingerprints and backgrounds from unauthorized exposure.
Home to 30,000 residents, Bradford County is a rural community located 45 miles Southwest of Jacksonville, Fla. Committed to keeping the county a safe place to live, work and play, the Bradford County Sheriff's Office is mandated to protect its citizens and at the same time, to safeguard sensitive criminal information such as fingerprints and backgrounds from unauthorized exposure.
Twenty years ago, the County replaced keys with the Vanderbilt SMS (Security Management System), known at the time as the Geoffrey Access Control system. "With the key holder system, we had no real way of tracking who was accessing what and when," explained Christopher Hamer, Network Administrator at the Bradford Country Sheriff's Office. "The access control system provided a better way to control traffic on a need-to-know basis." But when their existing access control system's SQL server crashed after many years, the Sheriff's Office decided it was time to explore other options. Ultimately, they decided to stick with the SMS system and contacted Vanderbilt, who connected them with an SMS Certified Dealer, Cam Connections, a division of Protection 1. A nationwide provider of custom-tailored security and loss prevention solutions, Cam Connections' mission is to provide unmatched service while delivering electronic security solutions that are expertly tailored to the specific needs of each individual client. "Cam Connections fixed the problem in less than 24 hours," he said.
To manage more than 250 active cardholders, 200 sporadic users and 900 daily transactions, the Bradford County Sheriff's Office has five Vanderbilt SMS clients running on a Windows 2008 virtual machine and installed 80 card readers to control access on both internal and external doors at the Sherriff’s Office and Jail, Narcotics Task Force Office and courthouse. Cam Connections installed Allegion AD400 Series wireless lock sets to work in conjunction with the Vanderbilt reader controllers. The County also added a reader to the vehicle gate at the Narcotics Task Force Building for tighter access control. As the system administrator, Hamer can add new users and update data in real-time and troubleshoot when necessary. “I can also access the system remotely from home if there's a failure, a last-minute change request or to initiate a selective lockdown,” stated Hamer. Dispatch personnel at the Sheriff's Office and courthouse administration use the alarm-monitoring feature from the SMS platform.
While Hamer has the knowledge and expertise to develop many of these new features in-house, Vanderbilt and Cam Connections have provided excellent support along the way. “Vanderbilt and Cam Connections have been true life savers, especially when we were at risk of going in too many directions,” claimed Hamer. “Together, they keep us on track.”