Trying to locate Boone, Nebraska—an unincorporated dot on the Boone County countryside—is an exercise reserved for only the most committed. Most people who know where it is have always been there, generations deep—area families that stayed even as time steadily turned Boone back over to farmland and pasture. Others who know it know it only in their minds, retracing steps long since receded in the rearview mirror as they sought lives elsewhere. Boone is one of those places that exists largely in name and memory, with fewer and fewer on the latter with each passing year.
What Sid Meridith knows of Boone, however, formed the bedrock of his life as the entrepreneur behind one of Omaha’s great business success stories, Security Equipment Inc. (SEi), founded in October 1969, for which he serves as chairman today. For it was there, at that tiny bend in the road, he learned the basics of hard work, customer service, and a square reputation—things he would later pour into his company.
“My grandfather was an entrepreneur, and my father was an entrepreneur. They were both in the general merchandise grocery business,” he said. “I was able to observe the responsibilities a sole owner assumes when he makes the commitment of going into a business, whatever that business may be.
“There is a certain responsibility that you have once you assume your very first customer, then number two, number three, and every customer thereafter. You have a responsibility to your employees as well. You can never forget that once you make the commitment to be an entrepreneur.”
Meridith kept these and other nuggets of wisdom with him over a long and colorful life like a handful of dirt scooped from the homeplace’s back 40, a totem to remind him what he’s made of and how very big things often come from the smallest of places.
“Boone, Nebraska, only had a population of roughly 40, and sometimes we had needed to count the dogs,” he said with a chuckle. “We were the only store in Boone. The post office was located in the store; my grandmother was the postmaster, and when she retired, my mother became the postmaster.”
Meridith’s father, Earl, had an eye for opportunity, expanding the family enterprise into appliances as well as operating cream and egg trucks that eventually grew to serve a six-county radius. Growing up, Sid split his time between attending the local one-room schoolhouse and, like most children of small business owners, working in his elders’ shadows.
“I saw, somewhat from my grandfather but more so from my father, how to build a business one customer at a time. I saw how important each and every customer was,” Meridith said. “Whether it be a small customer, a large customer, they are all important. Not only finding and obtaining new customers, but how important it was to service and respect the customers you have.”
Meridith graduated from St. Edward High School and headed to Lincoln, where he earned a business administration degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1962.
“They awarded me my diploma in the right hand and in the left hand, they awarded me my draft notice,” he said. “At that time, Vietnam was building up, and I was classified 1A with a very low number, so I knew that I would be drafted shortly. I called the Navy recruiter and I visited with him a little bit. He said to me, ‘You know, I understand that you have a business degree.’ And I said, ‘Yes, sir, I do.’ He said, ‘Well, you know, the Navy has an officer’s program, and we’d like to talk to you about that.’”
Meridith soon landed at Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, from which the small-town kid would see how big the world really is. He served with duty assignments on two ships as qualified officer of the deck underway, then in the Bureau of Naval Personnel assigned to the Navy Enlisted Advancement section in Washington, D.C. His last assignment brought him home, to Navy Reserve headquarters in Omaha, where after seven years of military life, he stepped into the civilian world eager for his next chapter, though he had little clue what that would be.
“I did take several job interviews and none of them were interesting to me,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’m going to try the security business.’”
The decision wasn’t entirely random; during his college years, Meridith had experience selling fire alarm systems at the request of his father, who’d been enlisted to save a struggling alarm manufacturing company in nearby Albion.
“During the summer before my senior year, he asked if I would meet with school boards to discuss and contract for the installation of fire alarms,” Meridith said. “I told him, ‘Dad, I don’t know anything about fire alarms.’ His response was, ‘If you know anything, you know more than they do.’”
Meridith’s business plan was also bolstered by the fact that he’d launched SEi on the threshold of a boom period in the industry.
“The Bank Protection Act of 1968 required banks to upgrade their security with alarms, and in some cases cameras,” he said. “The Wall Street Journal predicted the security industry would be one of the 10 most rapidly growing industries in the United States. I had chosen the right industry and products; now I had to make it all happen.”
To call SEi an upstart would be a gross understatement; Meridith was a one-man show and as such, was bound to make a few rookie mistakes. The company’s first product, for example, might have had a potentially wide audience, but its technical limitations made it a major liability waiting to happen.
“The very first thing I got involved in was security cameras. Unfortunately, it was not a good product,” he said. “It looked like a good product, but it had nothing more than a Super 8 camera and a container with a bunch of flashing lights, which was really appealing as a deterrent because people would see it and think they were being photographed. The problem was, it really didn’t take very good photos. We recognized that was not going to be anything that we could launch a business on.”
Meridith’s familial common sense led him to pivot to carrying fire and intrusion alarm systems, which had recently been made mandatory through federal regulations. This fact, along with Meridith’s upbringing in rural Nebraska and the natural salesmanship he inherited from his father, quickly made him a formidable competitor. He soon gained a foothold in areas larger companies often overlooked, generating the company considerable momentum.
“When we started, I didn’t realize how many banks didn’t have burglar alarms. They did in Omaha and Lincoln in the metro areas, but once you went out into the rural areas, such as where I was from, they didn’t have alarm systems in those banks,” he said.
“I’d found a market out there thinking if I could offer the product, the installation, and the service, which we did, we would be in there for the long haul. We built the company based on those recurring relationships; even if a building became occupied by someone else, they usually wanted to continue to do business with us.”
Meridith may have started the company as SEi’s only employee, but his plainspoken approach struck such a nerve with customers he would soon add to his client headcount. He was intentionally picky in hiring, looking to add the best talent he could get to help fulfill the company’s promise of installation and stellar service after the sale.
“In 1969, I had zero employees and zero customers,” he said. “In finding the first customer, I had to find somebody to install for me. I am not a technician, and I recognized my incompetence quite early. I surrounded myself with talent and that worked well.”
Today, SEi serves 18,000 customers in 44 states and employs more than 200 workers. Some of those employees are family; Sid and his wife Sara’s, son, Mike Meridith, serves as president and their daughter, Kristen Brumbaugh, previously served as vice president of marketing. Many more employees, including some with decades of service, are treated like professionals and feel like kin.
Matt Vellek, chief operating officer with a decade at SEi, said in addition to being a valued advisor and sounding board for ideas, Meridith is also known for empowering employees, part of his deft touch in leading people.
“As far as what has made him effective in business, first of all, he’s curious. He’s one that, after 55 years in business, is still trying to learn and understand new things,” Vellek said. “He’s not one to say ‘I have all the ideas,’ but instead says, ‘I have input, but what does everybody else think?’
“I’ve also learned from him the value of hiring the right people, getting the right people in the right spots, and then trusting them to make the right decisions. I think that’s been one of the great traits I’ve gained from him through the years.”
“We have a very talented staff with the company,” Meridith said. “We listen a lot. We ask questions when new concepts come out. We evaluate them before we jump in, in fact, we usually let somebody else jump in first and we kind of observe them and watch and listen. We also rely on our own staff to form opinions and in many cases, we’ll do a test of a product for a period of time to assure that it meets the specifications and the performance levels as advertised.”
In addition to customers and employees, Meridith is also resolute in supporting various charities. These include American Legion, Nebraska Community Foundation, Autism Action Partnership, Boys & Girls Clubs, Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, and hundreds of other initiatives and fund drives in communities where SEi has a presence. This commitment to the community, as well as more than half a century in business, has earned Meridith and the company multiple awards and industry recognition. The latest of these, his induction into the Omaha Business Hall of Fame, is a fitting capstone to a long and distinguished career.
“I was thrilled for Sid; I think he is very deserving of this recognition,” said longtime client and friend John Lund, founder and chairman of Lund Real Estate Co. “To start a business and still be leading that business after 50 years is quite incredible. I’m proud of the fact that he’s still there, still engaged in his company. He never forgot his roots, I think that says it all. He’s made a big mark in the city, and I think he’s as deserving as anyone for that recognition.”
Looking back, Meridith said what makes him proudest is having upheld the company’s values and ethics, even as the company has grown to a scope he could never have imagined. In good times and in bad, no matter how big or successful SEi got, it always kept its promise to customers large and small. Even today, the lessons of tiny Boone, Nebraska, still apply.
“I think what is most gratifying to me is to see the breadth of clients that we have in so many different industries that we have enabled to be more successful in their businesses,” he said. “Our job is to lower their risk of loss. We can’t eliminate risk, but we do everything we can do to reduce that risk so that their businesses will not be interrupted. It’s a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week business. We never close. A customer calls us 4th of July, Christmas, New Year’s, it makes no difference, you can talk to our people. That matters to our customers.
“As far as the Hall of Fame goes, I feel very honored. I wasn’t expecting anything like this to happen, but I look at it as truly the very pinnacle of my business career. To reach this status and to be honored in this way, it’s amazing.”
For more information, visit dseisecurity.com.
This article originally appeared in the October/November 2024 issue of B2B Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
