S ta f f pho to by Ang ie Baan
Tight Circle
Three generations keep Guardian Alarm
at the top and the bad guys out.
Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News
W
ith their 92-year-old mentor,
the Pierce family is doing
quite well after 77 years in
the increasingly sophisticated protection
business. They've turned Guardian Alarm
Co. of Southfield into an $80 million a year
enterprise as they strive to make the corn-
munity safer.
Patriarch Milton Pierce got things going
during the 1920s after someone burglar-
ized his father's Detroit tailor shop. Just
a teenager, he tinkered with some scrap
metal and designed and installed a bur-
glar alarm in the store. In 1930, he bought
a fledgling alarm firm known as Guardian,
with 60 customers, and has seen it grow to
the 13th largest alarm company in North
America, with 2,000 employees, 80,000
customers and offices in six cities.
Pierce, of Bloomfield Hills, is chairman
and still comes to the office every day.
One of his sons, Douglas, 65, of Orchard
Lake, is CEO; another son, Richard,
61, of West Bloomfield, is president; a
grandson, Matt Fraiberg, 36, of West
Working And
Playing
There really are no generation gaps in
the Pierce family though the three gen-
erations at Guardian Alarm range in age
from 26 to 92.
They all work a few feet from each
other in finely decorated offices at
Guardian's Southfield headquarters. Their
titles and duties are specifically delin-
eated to produce the most efficiency and
profitability for the 77-year-old security
business, and they have generational fun
after hours, too.
Milton Pierce, 92, sons Douglas Pierce,
28
October 11 • 2007
Bloomfield, is vice president; another
grandson, David Pierce, 26, of Royal Oak,
is general manager.
The third generation is moving quickly
up the family corporate ladder. Fraiberg
runs the company on a day-to-day basis.
David Pierce oversees the all-important
control center on the building's lower lever.
The center is "a 911-type atmosphere,
where operators work on computers with
color-coded screens on three eight-hour
shifts responding to emergency calls from
customers:' said David Pierce. "With two
phones each, they can almost simultane-
ously phone authorities for assistance. The
center is the pulse of our business:'
Said Fraiberg, "All of us in the three
generations have a great relationship;
we're a close-knit family and we get along
fine. There are absolutely no jealousies
among us.
"Going from father to son to grandson
seemed like a natural progression for a
family business like ours. We're all doing
out best to help protect homeowners and
businesses in the community."
At one time, Guardian was focused
almost completely on commercial busi-
65, and Richard Pierce, 61, and grand-
sons Matt Fraiberg, 36, and David Pierce,
26, ride motorcycles and scoot around
town in a group wearing traditional black
bikers' garb.
They also often travel with Milton, who
got his pilot's license at age 77 and still
flies his own plane, a Grumman Tiger,
sometimes to Florida and northern
Michigan.
They all belong to Temple Israel, West
Bloomfield, and the favorite family char-
ity is Farmington Hills-based JARC in
honor of Milton's wife and family matri-
arch, Sylvia Pierce, who died two years
ago at 88.
Milton lives alone, still comes to the
office every day and has no intention of
retiring. "And I don't see doctors or take
any pills," he bristled, "although I do take
L.
11 4P
Matt Fraiberg; Milton Pierce, seated; Richard Pierce, center; and David Pierce
ness, but residential accounts now
make up about half of the firm's sales.
Homeowners pay about $200 for equip-
ment installation, plus a monthly fee.
More than 20 percent of U.S households
have electronic protection of some kind
as the number climbs with increases in
burglaries — 70,000 in Michigan in 2005
— and in violent crimes in suburban
communities. That number grew in 2006
for the third year in a row, going up by 3.2
percent, according to FBI statistics.
"Homeowners must be pro-active to
achieve peace of mind, and peace of mind
in the form of alarm systems is what we
sell here,' said Fraiberg. "No one likes to be
part of a horror story, like the one recently
my own kind of medicine every day — a
snort of scotch at 4 p.m:
As a boy, Milton would spend his time
outside of school in junkyards, where he
would buy surplus scrap and wire, and in
the library, where the young inventor and
aspiring business entrepreneur taught
himself how to build burglar alarms,
using old door bells and Chevy brake
drums. It was good enough to protect his
father's tailor shop.
Then he landed a job for $2 a day as
a service technician at the old Detroit
Burglar Alarm Co. He got laid off, but
word of his skills spread. He worked
out of his parents' basement, bought a
motorcycle and traveled around the city
installing 50 alarms a month.
Milton purchased Guardian, also
acquiring Michigan Alarm Co. in the
about a home invasion in Connecticut.
Customers tell us their needs; we listen,
then give them advice. We're entrenched
in the community and want to protect the
people."
Fraiberg's education is perfectly suited
to the alarm business. A graduate of
Bloomfield Hills Andover High School,
he has a degree in criminal justice from
Michigan State University and gradu-
ated from Toledo University's law school.
Married with three children, he practiced
law for three years before joining Guardian
in 1999 because he "wanted a change" and
desired "to add another generation to the
family business."
The other member of that generation,
process, and opened his first office on
East Warren near Woodward, Detroit. He
moved to several other locations before
settling in Southfield with the rest of the
family.
"For some reason, I was always fas-
cinated by alarm equipment," he said.
"Where other alarm companies were run
by businessmen interested only in the
monetary aspects, I enjoyed technology
and innovation. That set me apart and
helped shape my career path."
Milton remembers installing alarms
in small Detroit commercial buildings in
"bad neighborhoods" apparently run by
bookies and numbers gambling racke-
teers. "Right after I left one place, a man
was shot on the street and robbed of a
suitcase full of cash. I've seen a lot in the
past 77 years:
(