Gone Gone is the "Lilly Tomlin," 557B Chord Board; seenhere is the modern, hi-tech dispatch office, with owner and operators Nancy and Ron Spinney and office manager Michele Doele. (Photo Diane Randlett)

Newlyweds just out of college, Ron and Nancy Spinney followed their fathers' vocations in the electrical field, taking them far beyond where anyone could have imagined in the 1970s. Following a path taken by Ron's dad, electrician Ralph Spinney, and Nancy's dad, Rod Bell, a Wiscasset electrical contractor who wired Boothbay Region High School in 1956, together they have formed a corporation that now employs 30 personnel and currently serves 5,000-6,000 people, primarily in the mid-coast area, although with systems spread from Kittery from Caribou.

Ron first attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1966. He decided that being a Maine native, the city really wasn't where he wanted to be. Ultimately he transferred to the University of Maine and while there got his master electrician`s license. On weekends he worked for his father and friend Dave Reed, who were both working for Central Maine Power.

"They would work weekends moonlighting and Ronnie would work with them," said Nancy.

After college and marriage, Nancy got a job teaching and Ronnie took his weekend job and turned it into a full-time business called Harbor Electric. Ralph later left CMP and joined Ron full time.

"Harbor Electric progressed as an electrical business until 1977, until we decided we needed to do alarms," said Nancy. "We dabbled in it as part of the electrical work, people started asking if we could install burglar alarms," said Ron. "Our first burglar alarm was put in for a fellow on Southport while we were still in college," said Nancy.

Gaining experience as he went along, Ron took home study courses for alarms. "As the demand grew for alarm systems, we decided that we wanted to do that over electrical work," said Ron.

On October 1, 1977, the Spinneys opened their first Central Station at the Harbor Electric building on Southport and named it Northeast Monitoring Service.

"At that time it was basically monitoring alarms and a small answering service. We had one of the old 557B chord boards, similar to the one where Lilly Tomlin from the `Laugh-In' series sat at during her skits, and said in her familiar nasal tone, `One ringy, dingy,'" said Nancy. The answering service and their alarm service began on Southport servicing only the Boothbay region. "Prior to this date, our calls were going to the police department. That's how people would do it. All of the alarm dealers, who were mostly electricians then, were sending their alarms to the police department or the fire department with leased lines from the telephone company or they had tape dialers," said Nancy.

"One night back in those days, the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department called us with an alarm from a tape dialer that another electrician was responsible for, `This is a cold alert, a cold alert, this is a cold alert,' the message said. There was no identification. They didn't know where it was coming from, they didn't know who did it, and at that time, everyone seemed to be on edge about Maine Yankee so this caused quite a stir!" said Nancy. "At this point, the police department dispatchers were tying up too much of their time with alarm calls and they had little to no documentation, they had no equipment, they had no way of verifying. When we created Central Station, we had dispatchers who had the time to verify, we had the equipment and the technology and you could cut the false alarm rate by 50 to 70 percent just by taking care of your system.

"When we first started the Central Station at Harbor Electric, Ronnie would personally respond to every alarm in order to know what had gone wrong. He didn't want our systems causing problems. One night he answered a call on an island in the 1970s and got there ahead of the police, to find a truck loading up one of our customer's property. It was not a false alarm. They were loading up the water heater and sink and whatever else that they could get; they were stripping the house," said Nancy.

Ron recalls, "We had already dispatched, but I got there ahead of them."

Nancy said, "People back then thought that alarms were just a nuisance, and we were out to prove that properly installed and properly maintained, they are not a nuisance, they are a good thing. After the island incident, however, we'd tell our caretakers don't go ahead of the police, wait for the police, because you can encounter a dangerous situation."

The first Central Stations in Maine were Sea Coast (located in Rockport) in 1975, Northeast Security (then known as Northeast Monitoring service) in 1977 and Eastern of Portland, all started near the same time.

"A Central Station is just like a police dispatcher station; there is somebody always there logging in the calls," said Ron.

"That is where we put the 557B, Lilly Tomlin chord board, and we started out then with two or three simple lines, a couple of lines for the receivers and maybe four lines for the business," said Nancy.

"Radio systems report by both phone and interactive radio transmitters. If your phone line goes out, if it's cut or the line blows down, it can still report," said Nancy. "We now monitor all kinds of temperatures and pressures. It's not just alarms now, it's burglary, fire, temperature, intrusion as well as others. There are literally a hundred different items that we can monitor.

"We have installed a closed circuit TV camera on the osprey nest in front the Woolwich restaurant, Taste of Maine. Customers can actually watch the ospreys hatch in the spring or eat their catch. We provide closed circuit cameras for convenience stores, for home owners and for animal surveillance with remote access. If you are in the Cayman Islands and you wish to check on your horses back at home, you can get on your laptop and log into your site and you can watch your house, your animals or your boat. We also provide access control cards, such as the plastic key cards that are used for hotels and college rooms. We provide medical emergency systems, where the customer wears a device that when activated alerts our dispatchers that a person has fallen or is in pain."

It has been a gradual progression for Ron and Nancy, from electrician, to their first home alarm in 1971, to full 24-hour operation in 1977 on Southport, and ultimately, moving to the present location on the Bradford Road in Wiscasset in 1986. Incorporating Lewiston's Eagle Alarm Company, Thornton's Alarm of Bath and the Brunswick- based Bel-Tone answering service in 1992, with the Boothbay base, these mergers have led to what is now known as Northeast Security Systems, Inc. NES provides state of the art, dependable technology.

Michele Doele, General Manager, says, "You now can have your home protected by a security system, have fire protection, carbon monoxide detection, have protection against freeze up, have cameras outside watching for intrusion or theft, and run the phone lines with audio and video. Basically we can provide and take care of all the electronics in your home."

On October 1, Northeast Security celebrated its 30th anniversary. The Spinneys have truly connected their business to their customers and their staff, and are wired for the future. Two employees, Jim Bell and Joey Fitch, have been with them since Southport. Son Jeffry who was three when he first "worked" the Central Station with his Mom, now truly contributes with his Worcester Polytechnic Institute computer science degree by designing and maintaining the complex servers and networks that are the heart of the business; he does this in addition to his full-time career for a national computer network company. Daughter Jennifer, now a sophomore at Boston University, is studying advertising and graphic design. Mom and Dad are in hopes of soon improving their advertising and Web site with her skills!

Beginning with one relationship at a time, Ron and Nancy Spinney have created a thriving Maine business that still has its first customers, which is really something to celebrate.