HAMPTON, NJ (April 12, 2017) - In celebration of its 30th anniversary in business, Sawyers Control Systems, Inc. has established a $1,000 scholarship for a Delaware Valley High School graduating senior who is pursuing a four-year college degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science. The Del Val Guidance Department will be informing students and parents about the new scholarship, which also requires the recipient to demonstrate participation in extracurricular/community based activities.
Sawyers Controls President Tom Callahan of Frenchtown established his company in April of 1987 and operated the business from his Alexandria Township home until a few years ago. He received his degree in Electrical Engineering from Penn State before beginning a career designing, installing, and maintaining control systems to enhance the security and comfort of both commercial and residential settings. The 15-person company has become one of the most successful in its industry with Callahan serving as a past Chairman and Board Director for the Consumer Technology Association, previously known as the Consumer Electronics Association.
"We have always been very involved in the community and we usually have two or three high school and/or college students intern for us every summer," said Callahan. "We like having summer interns on our staff, in addition to the students learning about our business, we benefit from their energy and passion for the hottest technology trends. The scholarship is just a logical extension of our commitment to the youth in our community."
Callahan has been very involved with kids in the community for many years, serving as an adult leader in Boy Scouts Troop 112 of Alexandria Township and a former coach of the Del Val Chargers Junior Lacrosse program. He also was a member of the Alexandria Township Parks & Recreation Commission and an organizer of Alexandria Community Day and their fireworks for many years. He and his wife, Barbara, have three children: Sean, 24, Fionnuala, 22, and Rory, 17.
Callahan said that he decided when he was a student at Penn State that if he ever started a business it would be named after his favorite literary character, Tom Sawyer. The company's website features many of Callahan's favorite Mark Twain quotes, including: "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
Sawyers Controls' commercial and residential clients mainly come from northern New Jersey and Manhattan, but the company does serve customers as far away as the Hamptons, Cape May and Philadelphia. They design and install facility control systems to serve a wide range of needs, including security, fire protection, camera surveillance, building access control, environmental management and on-line streaming of music and video. The business is about evenly split between residential and commercial customers with the some of their largest clients having data centers and financial institutions that may require as many as 600 cameras or access card readers.
"Frequently customers come to us not knowing exactly what they want," said Callahan. "We try to guide them in determining their needs and develop a control system that delivers today and is also prepared for future. We are in an industry where the technology changes rapidly, yet we still service many clients that have some of our first systems we built 30 years ago that are running well today."
Sawyers Controls is very much a family business with Callahan's brother, Pat, serving as vice president, and son, Sean, a technician based in New York City. Callahan's youngest son, Rory, a Del Val junior, will be a summer intern. Callahan's daughter Fionnuala is a student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
"Our industry has become very competitive with the advent of smartphone apps that allow home owners to control security, lights and temperature instantly and companies like Google and Amazon looking to tap into the market," Callahan said. "The increased competition is good because it forces everyone to stay on top of their game. Sawyers Controls has been successful for 30 years because we are not a one size fits all alternative. We design and install systems that are unique for every client that we trust will continue to deliver outstanding performance for decades into the future."
For more information on Sawyers Controls, please visit www.sawyerscontrols.com or call (908) 730-7787.