Lanvac is Canada’s last domestically-owned third-party alarm monitoring wholesaler

Lanvac Surveillance, Canada’s leading third-party wholesaler of alarm monitoring services, recently marked a milestone – a partnership to provide support for Ukraine-based Ajax Systems’ intrusion alarm products in Canada.

Since the promotional symbol of Ajax’s slogan (“We stand against evil”) is a short but rather intimidating baseball bat, Lanvac’s Stephanos Georgoudes was poised bat in hands last week, as if to slam out a home-run, at the Lanvac booth during the Security Canada East trade show at the Laval Sheraton.

Security pros gathered

It was the second Security Canada East show to be held live and in-person since the onset of the Covid pandemic more than three years ago.

With Security Canada conventions also taking place this year in western and central Canada, it was time again to focus on building and renewing relationships with thousands of professionals deeply involved in Canada’s security services sector.

“Ajax is exploding all over Europe and they have just entered the Canadian market,” Georgoudes, who is one of several members of a family deeply involved with Lanvac, said in an interview with Newsfirst Multimedia.

Standing up to bullies

Just as feisty Ukraine has been struggling for more than a year in an armed conflict to protect the integrity of its territory as well as its national identity, Georgoudes suggested Ajax has similarly garnered a reputation for combativeness – and “they don’t let bullies push them around, if you know what I mean,” he said.

Ajax’s product line includes hardware for intrusion detection, fire detection, water leak prevention, as well as hardware and software for comfort and productivity. Lanvac is now the first central monitoring network in Canada to integrate and support them.

In spite of some diversification in recent years, Lanvac’s main business remains the wholesaling of alarm monitoring. As such, it provides service to more than 2,500 alarm companies across Canada. The company has multiple central stations across the country, and increasingly an an international scale.

Ajax is exploding all over Europe and they have just entered the Canadian market

Lanvac and Ukraine

Lanvac is betting big on Ajax, while showing support for Ukraine at the same time. “Our biggest partnership with a Ukraine-based company is Ajax,” Georgoudes said. He noted that Lanvac went the distance by making a generous donation to relief efforts for the purchase of medical supplies for those impacted in the war-torn nation.

In another significant development over the past year for Lanvac, the Montreal-headquartered company became this country’s last remaining family- and Canadian-owned central station wholesaler, following the acquisition by U.S.-based AvantGuard of Canada’s Armstrong Monitoring.

Proudly Canadian

“All other central stations in Canada are owned by a U.S. company,” said Georgoudes. “We remain a hundred per cent Canadian and family-owned, which is very important to our customers.” In view of changes like these sweeping the industry, he continued, Lanvac has seen a number of consumer-level alarm services dealers switch to Lanvac, “because the service has changed,” he said, while adding that “we’re benefiting from it.”

Georgoudes maintains, however, that ever since AvantGuard took over Armstrong, they’ve made changes which are more in line with U.S. alarm service practices than what Canadians are used to. “Canada and Canadians are a niche market and they are used to a certain level of service,” he said.

“Now with the changes being made by the U.S.-based company, that service is no longer there. Canadians want to be served a certain way and with a certain quality. And we maintain that level because we are one hundred per cent Canadian and family-owned.”

Lanvac the contender

Lanvac’s roots go back more than 40 years, during which the company developed a reputation for being dedicated to providing quality monitoring services for alarm dealers across the country and their customers.

Lanvac was founded by brothers John and Bill Georgoudes. Raised in Montreal’s Park Extension district – which was at one time home for most of the city’s Greeks – they turned their initially small burglar alarm company into the big-time contender which is now Lanvac.

Rooted in Montreal

Lanvac’s first monitoring station was in Montreal’s Park Extension neighbourhood, in the basement of a building at the corner of Durocher and Jean Talon. Bill got his elementary education at Barclay School on Wiseman Ave., while John attended Strathcona Academy in Outremont.

Bill received his secondary education at the former William Hingston High School, which has since become the area’s most important community centre. John attended another legendary secondary school, Baron Byng High, which was made famous by novelist Mordecai Richler.