Nebraska Community College Uses Brivo Access Control
Brivo Systems LLC recently announced that Central Community College, in central Nebraska, has standardized on Brivo ACS WebService for access control management of all their buildings located on their three main campuses. Protex Central, Inc., located in Hastings, Nebraska is the integrator for this on-going project.
Central Community College is a multi-campus community college serving a 25-county area in central Nebraska. CCC’s three main campuses are located in Columbus, Grand Island, and Hastings. Educational centers are located in Holdrege, Kearney, and Lexington. Additionally, CCC uses a variety of distance learning techniques to provide educational services in some 90 communities in its service area.
Prior to upgrading to Brivo, Central Community College used a combination of lock and key and another access control provider for their access management needs.
“From experience, we knew that customer service with a good turnaround time is quite important to us,” said Ed Long, Physical Plant Director for CCC. “We believe the combination of Brivo and Protex gives us the reliability and local service that we need.”
Bill Mooney of Protex Central provided Long and his team with a demonstration of Brivo’s cloud-based access control solution. “Our first impression was that the Brivo system offers features and functionality that were very impressive and leading edge in the industry,” commented Long. After starting the process of looking to upgrade access management in the spring of 2010, Long and his team had 20 doors under Brivo management just a little over one year later.
To date, Central Community College has installed Brivo ACS WebService in six dorms, an administration building, and in maintenance buildings. All doors under management are exterior doors. CCC has allocated budget to expand Brivo to two additional buildings -- one academic and one a student services building. Upon completion of this phase, 12 of CCC’s 26 buildings will be managed with Brivo ACS WebService.
The dorms each have a main entrance door covered, there are three doors in the administration building, and then the majority of doors are in the maintenance buildings.
“We have a lot people in and out of maintenance,” Hall said, “and we have a lot of assets to protect. We’re real happy with the Brivo system. The learning curve was short and sweet, and Bill and Protex have provided great technical support.”
At present, CCC manages access for more than 500 people -- 400 students in
the dorms, and staff in the administration and maintenance buildings have also been issued access cards. The dorms are locked 24/7 to provide an extra measure of security and confidence for students. “We really like the Brivo system’s feature for scheduling access on holidays in the dorms. We can limit access and we have a high level of control,” Long remarked.
Long and his administrators manage about 15 separate groups to provide targeted access for students, vendors, and staff.
“And if a vendor takes a card home, we can simply shut that card down,” Long explained, listing one of the many advantages of his new system.
CCC security and facilities staff use the Brivo system to run reports when an incident is reported. They are able to match up access records with surveillance video to easily identify persons of interest.
“We’re completely satisfied with the system, its ease of use, and the fact that we can scale to whatever and wherever we need to have access control management,” Long said.
“Another big selling point for us is the one button lockdown feature. Our emergency plan and our ability to lock down the campus is something that comes up quite often. We are able to say with confidence that we have an effective plan, and that makes everybody feel a whole lot better.”