Business Protection Specialists has won the 2021 Elliot A. Boxerbaum Award, a national industry honor for security consulting work. The award recognized our access control retrofit at Froedtert Hospital, a level-one academic medical center in Milwaukee.

It is a recognition we are proud of, mainly because of what it is judged on. The Boxerbaum Award goes to the best consultant-submitted project of the year. It is not given for marketing, or for the size of a budget. It is given for the quality of the work and the collaboration behind it. For anyone weighing whether to trust a security consultant, that is the kind of signal worth more than a sales pitch.

About the Boxerbaum Award

The Elliot A. Boxerbaum Security Project of the Year is presented to a security consulting firm each year at the CONSULT Technical Security Symposium, as part of the Security Vanguard Awards honored by Security Technology Executive and Security Business. It is named for the late Elliot A. Boxerbaum, CPP, CSC, a respected figure in the consulting profession. Frank Pisciotta, our president and CEO, accepted the award on behalf of the project team.

What makes the award meaningful is its focus. It recognizes consulting work specifically, and it rewards genuine collaboration between the consultant, the integrator and the client. You cannot win it on your own, and you cannot win it on a slogan.

Read the full story in the Security Technology Executive

The Project Behind the Win

The recognition came from the Froedtert Access Management Project, which set out to solve a problem familiar to most hospitals: how to make a building more secure without making it less welcoming.

Hospitals have spent two decades becoming more open, for good reasons tied to patient care and visitation rights. But that openness placed a heavy burden on security and clinical staff, who still had to know who was in the building. Chosen through a national selection process, we began with assessments in June 2018, built an access control master plan, and helped make the business case for visitor management and access control across the campus.

A Design Built on Collaboration

The deployment team brought together BPS, Minnesota-based integrator VTI and Milwaukee architectural firm Kahler Slater, working alongside the hospital’s security, facilities, nursing and IT teams. At the center of the design was a technology many hospitals avoid: optical turnstiles, which screen and direct people at the perimeter before crowds gather inside. Making them work meant accommodating wheelchairs, gurneys and rolling beds, engaging the authorities having jurisdiction for a code variance on a newer turnstile design, and letting staff walk through demonstration units to see how they felt. The system integrated Alvarado turnstiles, HID Global’s SAFE visitor management platform and the Genetec Security Center.

The Results

The project strengthened security and safety while improving the experience for patients and staff. Moving visitor management to the perimeter freed nurses to spend more time on care rather than managing visitors. In a staff survey after the pilot, nearly 70% said the project increased their sense of safety, and nearly 60% said it reduced their stress when caring for patients. Those outcomes, as much as the technology, are what earned the recognition.

What an Award Like This Means for You

Choosing a security consultant is difficult, especially if you have not bought the service before. An independent award, judged by peers on the quality of real project work, is one honest signal you can weigh. It tells you the work has held up to outside scrutiny.

We brought the same approach to Froedtert that we bring to every engagement: independent advice with no product to sell, grounded in your risk and delivered through genuine collaboration. The award is a welcome confirmation of it, but the standard does not change whether or not there is an award at the end.