Click here to listen to full podcast
Tom Meehan, CFI, serves as the President of CONTROLTEK, where he guides the company’s strategic vision and oversees its core business sectors: Tamper-Evident Packaging, EAS, and RFID. In this role, Tom is responsible for driving sustainable business practices and fostering a strong company culture while managing day-to-day operations, sales, and customer growth and retention. His leadership ensures CONTROLTEK remains at the forefront of innovation and customer service within its industry.
Renowned in the retail loss prevention community, Tom is celebrated not only for his effectiveness as an LP professional but also for his willingness to share his extensive knowledge. As a thought leader, he contributes to the industry through various platforms: he is the retail technology editor at Loss Prevention Magazine, the host of The Cash News Podcast, and the co-host of the Loss Prevention Research Council’s podcast, CrimeScience, where he also serves as the senior technology advisor. His dedication to helping peers combat shrink effectively has earned him a respected reputation.
Before his presidency at CONTROLTEK, Tom held significant positions such as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Information Security Officer within the company. His career also includes roles as the Director of Technology and Investigations at Bloomingdale’s and various positions at Home Depot in loss prevention. Tom’s diverse background in technology, loss prevention, and operations across multiple companies has equipped him with a broad expertise, making him a pivotal figure in the industry.
CONTROLTEK is a global leader in tamper-evident packaging, retail asset protection, and RFID solutions, serving the nation’s top financial institutions, government agencies, retailers, and manufacturers. The company is dedicated to protecting cash, assets, and profits, providing solutions that deliver valuable insights and intelligence, empowering business leaders to make informed decisions and enhance operational efficiencies. Known for its technology-agnostic approach and strong customer focus, CONTROLTEK continues its mission to provide tailored, reliable solutions that secure, track, and transport assets, ensuring stability and growth for businesses worldwide.
Chris Santomassimo: So welcome back to the Think Factory podcast, powered by Logic Solutions. And I’m your host, Chris Santomassimo. I’m sitting here today with Tom Meehan, who’s the President of CONTROLTEK USA, based in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Welcome to the Think Factory podcast.
Tom Meehan: Thank you for having me, Chris.
Chris Santomassimo: Well, we got together, I think, a few months ago after you were in After CONTROLTEK was an honoree for the Association of Corporate Growth Awards. So congratulations.
Tom Meehan: Yeah, thank you very much. It was a great a great event and really enjoyed it. And my first ACG event, our CFO attends and really, really great for the middle market, but also great from a networking to kind of be together with a whole bunch of really smart folks in the New Jersey and New York area. So it was I really got a lot out of it.
Chris Santomassimo: Yeah, I think I think the group does a really good job and I think what’s particularly nice about it is the publicity I think the companies like yours really get from, you know, recognition by ACG. So congrats again.
Tom Meehan: Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much. I’m looking forward to the next event and hopefully I’ll see you there.
Chris Santomassimo: I hope so, too. So what I love to do, especially when it comes to New Jersey companies that are based in our you know, our neighborhood or our backyard is give you a chance to just talk a little bit about CONTROLTEK USA for the folks that may not be familiar with it. Just to just as a little bit of an intro, I mean, you’ve got some pretty impressive customers when it comes to big banks and others for your products. So please let us know what CONTROLTEK is all about.
Tom Meehan: Sure. So CONTROLTEK is a privately held company. We’ve been around for 48 years and we started out in 1976, primarily in the banking supply business. So I would argue anything a bank of any size needed. That’s how we started out. From rubber bands to canvas bags to cash wraps, and that that evolved in some time. In the nineties, we actually had the first patent on a plastic disposable coin bag, which probably doesn’t sound like a big, big deal. And certainly when I started here, I, you know, it took a little bit even for me to absorb it. And basically, you know, we we saw a need in the industry for a coin carrier that was disposable. And so we went out and we got a patent on a coin bag. And that’s probably still to this day, the largest volume SKU that we have. It is impossible, you know, to be in the United States and not have currency protected in one of our bags. We also had the patent on the first triple closure tamper of a bag. And for the listeners, because this was new to me, basically when you think of a deposit, if you’ve ever worked in retail, if you’ve ever been anywhere where you put money in one of those plastic deposit bags that seals, that’s what we’re talking about. That was the evolution in our packaging were also tamper evident packaging. And today fast forward, you know, in that segment of our business, that’s the predominant product we transitioned, we still do some banking supplies and much like all companies, we evolved to about 15 years ago, we had a tremendous amount of retail customers helping them protect their cash and we got into product protection. So if you go into a retail store today and you see those gates at the door, the security tags we manufacture, install and service those today, you know, we’re number five in the globe and number three in North America in one of those technologies. And we’re the fastest growing what’s called iOS electronic article surveillance provider in the world right now, which is a huge testament. That’s our, you know, our product protection. Or is the division or segment is our second division. And the way we have our business broken up is kind of our packaging and technology. And in our packaging division we have the banking and the tamper of the packaging. We also do some still do some thermal paper for banks and retailers and we still do, which is probably bigger today than ever. E-Comm packaging. So polymers for e-comm, that’s the packaging side in our technology business. That iOS division that’s about 50 years old is also accompanied by an RFID division, which is really all about inventory management and asset tracking. It’s probably where the biggest growth is today. And it’s not just retail, it’s aerospace, it’s industry 4.0 manufacturing. So very interesting, especially for me. I’m a technology guy. I joined the company about eight years ago and we essentially have two very different businesses that have overlap in a lot of places and we’re really fortunate in the sense of that. We have some phenomenal customers that we’ve had for a really long time. You know, we were in a lot of the largest financial institutions in the world. We also do have a good portion of the middle market for banking. And then in retail, you know, I would argue that we’re probably in the top 100 retailers in. Some fashion with some product, which is a really great thing. We are a New Jersey based, born and bred. We’re in Bridgewater today, but we’ve been in other places in New Jersey. We have an office in Northern California where DC is all over North America. So a lot of growth and a lot of excitement right now. And I think much like many companies, we’re evolving rapidly with the technology space.
Chris Santomassimo: Tell me more about the East Division.
Comments are closed