Les Gold is our industry’s No. 1 all-time counsel – in the truest sense.

As counsel to the California Alarm Association and the old Western Burglar & Fire Alarm Association, Les Gold is both industry attorney and industry advocate. His integrity and his influence have been so effective for more than 40 years that it is hard to imagine this industry in California without him. In so many areas – licensing, false alarms, workers compensation, business development, acquisitions and more – the industry’s movers and shakers might be inclined to take him for granted as their counsel. That should never happen.

Inside and outside California, across the United States and internationally, Les Gold is recognized as the No. 1 counsel to the industry and for the industry. Through his work at the National Burglar & Fire Alarm Association when he served as its counsel, as a director of the Alarm Industry Educational and Research Foundation, and as a director of the Security Industry Association, Les Gold is a national resource. At industry events big and small, Les has been there, and continues to contribute. ISC Expo, Central Station Alarm Association, American Society for Industrial Security – you name it – Les Gold has been there. He’s also been instrumental to the early success of Securing New Ground, the New York conference that counsels financial wizards about security and security wizards about finance. More recently, Les Gold has been influential in the Security Growth Conference (www.securitygrowthconference.com), a financial seminar hosted in California – still educating, counseling inside the industry and about the industry.

That’s the macro view. In the micro-view, person to person, Les is a brilliant and knowledgeable person on law, on security, on business, and on strategy. Les also has been a counsel to many of us person-to-person, as individuals. And he always seems not to preach, but to counsel us not to take ourselves, our challenges, and our causes too seriously.

In 1979, when SDM Magazine was looking for the one person of stature to launch our new column, “Security and the Law,” we turned to Les Gold. Twenty-five years later – that’s 300 monthly issues later – all of us at SDM are so proud to see the byline from Lessing Gold in our magazine every month. It can accurately be said that Les Gold has written the book on security and the law.

Les is SDM’s longest-running columnist, No. 1 counsel for California, for the industry, for our time, and he’s our friend. Congratulations, Les, on this well-deserved recognition.