Bethel United Church of Christ in Elmhurst, Illinois, houses administrative offices, a pre-school, and several meeting rooms for special events and functions used by groups at varying times of day and night. Prior to installing Brivo OnAir, Bethel UCC used a standard “keys to the kingdom” system—simple lock and key protection that gave the key holder total access.
Bethel United Church of Christ in Elmhurst, Illinois, houses administrative offices, a pre-school, and several meeting rooms for special events and functions used by groups at varying times of day and night. Prior to installing Brivo OnAir, Bethel UCC used a standard “keys to the kingdom” system—simple lock and key protection that gave the key holder total access.
“It was becoming increasingly difficult to track who had keys to the facilities,” said Brian Barrett, Church Operations Manager. “Also, our doors are locked from the outside. If someone needed to have the doors opened for a meeting, our system required that there be another person on the other end to open the doors.”
Barrett began researching access control solutions to help track usage, monitor door events, and manage the system from a centralized location. “One of our church members highly recommended the Brivo OnAir to help facilitate the ease of
access,” he stated.
Dan Cosgrove at Red Hawk was chosen to install a Brivo Ethernet-based ACS5000 system with readers on the main door, rear entrance, and a supply room closet. Staff and meeting group leaders were assigned ProxCards and PIN numbers to access the building doors. Additionally, the sanctuary doors were placed on door timers to eliminate the need for someone to open them physically. “Web-hosted access control was key for their application because it allows them to control their doors from any Web browser without having to come to the church,” stated Cosgrove.
The Bethel UCC administrators have also benefited from Brivo’s Web-based administration capabilities by being able to log onto their account from any computer to monitor activity and to manage access without anyone needing to be on-site. This has been especially helpful on days when the church is closed.
With Brivo, there were lower upfront costs, which meant that the total cost of ownership was reduced nearly 50% over traditional non-networked systems.