Published: February 02, 2009 04:09 pm      

Not just video services

Although the Jetsons’ flying cars and family robots are still in the realm of fantasy — it was just a cartoon, after all — automated homes and video conferencing at work certainly have made real life easier. One local company that specializes in the design and installation of such technology is Mankato’s VSI.

Formerly Video Services Inc., which began in the 1980s as a television appliance store in Mapleton, the company officially outgrew its name in 2006, as the direction the company was taking didn’t fit only the video services category any longer. A major part of its growth in the last few years has been through diversification of its services, from installation of home theater or security systems in homes to audio/video systems for churches, schools and restaurants.

“We are not your father’s RCA store anymore, to use a take on an old auto slogan,” said marketing and sales director Tom Barna.



From one home at a time to 200+

In 2007 and 2008 the company had its best sales ever as many years of solid local business and plans coalesced. Previous to 2006, the company primarily worked one-on-one with a homeowner, but in the last couple of years, VSI has expanded to work with builders and developers on amenities that they can offer in homes and have them integrated right into a building’s design before it’s constructed.

In this buyer’s real estate market, it’s the little extras that can help sell a home, and builders and developers are trying to differentiate themselves from their competition any way they can.

“What we’ve put together is amenity packages for builders to set them apart from the traditional ‘get a free stove or refrigerator,’ ” Barna said. “There might be a home theater, there might be a security system, there might be specialty flat screens installed throughout the home.”

In the last few years the company has also expanded outside of Mankato and now has offices in Rochester and Fargo/Moorhead. Good local business even led to the creation of an office in Miami in 2007 and work in a development of more than 285 homes in a gated community. The company is installing not only audio and video systems into every home, but also the security, surveillance and access system for the entire community.

“We ended up in Florida on a two-layered referral that started here in Mankato,” company president and founder Terry Dahl said. “We are proud of the fact that we have a loyal client base, and that means referrals. And a referral can mean more than just local referrals. If you’re open to the opportunities it can mean national and international business. What happened was: we had a local builder, who we had a relationship with, who referred us to a national client, who then referred us to a developer in Florida.”

Now that VSI is in Florida, it is also on the verge of international business because of the worldwide tourism there. “There’s lot of people in South America who come to Miami as their summer home; like in Minnesota we have our cottages on the lakes up north,” Barna said, “so we’re trying to tap into that.”

In 2009 projects could send the company into Colombia, Belize, Panama, Costa Rica and even Spain.



Going green and saving energy

Also important to VSI and its clients is energy efficiency, and this is where its green certification and home automation comes in.

“The secret to energy efficiency is control,” Barna said. “If something’s not in use ... we can have systems turn themselves off. We can also design systems where less energy is going to the lights. A 10 percent reduction of the energy going to a light will double the life of the bulb, and you wouldn’t even notice it.”

VSI can automate shades to lower when the afternoon summer sun heats up, saving cooling costs. Lawn sprinklers can be set to shut off when it’s raining and be set to not over-saturate the ground. A home’s dirty water can be cleaned and recycled for use in lawn or shrub irrigation. Certain rooms in the house not in use during part of a day can be kept cooler than others, saving heating costs.

At night all the lights and audio equipment in a home can be shut off from a central location with the touch of a button. The temperature of a second home can be monitored to make sure the pipes don’t freeze or be increased from a laptop or cell phone while people are on their way there, so it’s not so cold when they arrive.

“Those are things that are convenience lifestyle things,” Dahl said, “but in essence they actually are energy saving and would add to green initiatives too.”

Many of the features also have business applications as well, and especially useful is the ability to monitor a building from an offsite laptop.



Continued good times for 2009

One area of commercial business that may be on the rise for VSI is the installation of video conferencing systems. They are especially helpful for businesses with many locations across the state or country.

“The way business is operating, everybody is looking for efficiencies,” Dahl said. “With the cost of energy and travel costs and time investments in traveling, we think that there’s going to be a lot more demand for video conferencing or exchange of information in a more efficient manner.”

Not only can companies speak “face to face” during regular meetings, the video conferencing systems can record and save those meetings — or even training sessions — for later playback.

This year also looks good for the company as it expanded into digital advertising last fall, after years of looking into and waiting for just the right technology for the service. Visitors to River Hills Mall can’t miss the first project for that new division of the business, eight 52-inch screens, onto which VSI sells advertising.

“The malls have become the watering well of today’s society,” Barna said. “It’s where ... the largest amount of people go to any one location on a regular basis.”

Other businesses, regional and national malls may be next or even local colleges and universities.

Both Barna and Dahl expressed great enjoyment in what they do, from researching the next gadgets and bringing them to local markets, to educating their clients on all of the ways that today’s technology can make their lives easier.

“It’s a very exciting business to be in,” Barna said. “We’re very pumped. There seems to be no limit to what we might do.”

For more information on VSI, see www.videoser.com .