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Local company gets $1.3M contract to serve Dayton airport

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By John Nolan, Staff Writer Updated 1:05 PM Thursday, December 24, 2009

CENTERVILLE — Matrix Systems Inc. provides electronic security and access-control systems for customers ranging from the Cincinnati and Miami airports to Texas A&M University and the Cleveland Clinic. But it took 30 years in business for the company to finally win a contract to serve Dayton International Airport in its hometown market.

“It’s exciting,” James Young, the company’s owner and president, said Thursday, Dec. 24. “We’re very pumped up about it.”

His father, the late D. James Young, founded Matrix in 1979, and he and others with the company had tried for years to win business serving the Dayton airport. Success finally came this fall when city officials selected Wagner-Smith Co., a Dayton contractor, for a $6.1 million contract to install a new security system of video cameras, a data center and electronic door-access controls at the airport.

Matrix is a subcontractor for Wagner-Smith and is to provide the access-control and video surveillance system. The contract will be worth $1.3 million to Matrix, Young said.

The work is to be completed by the end of 2010. It will be part of an array of construction projects at the Dayton airport that will include renovation of the terminal building’s ticketing lobby, installation of a new baggage handling and screening system, a parking garage and completion of the new air traffic control tower.

The Matrix security system is to include more than 120 cameras and 200 card readers. It will provide 24-hour monitoring for the airport’s nearly 400,000-square-foot terminal building, concourses and baggage area, Matrix said.

The company has outgrown its corporate headquarters at 7550 Paragon Rd., Centerville, and is preparing to relocate into a new building being constructed on Byers Road in Miamisburg. Matrix, which develops software locally for its security systems, has had to rent space near its Centerville office to house its production and purchasing operations. It will be able to house all operations under one roof in Miamisburg.

Matrix sold the Centerville property in November but remains a tenant there while construction continues in Miamisburg, where workers are installing drywall.

Matrix’s clients include Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and Miami International Airport; airports serving Fort Lauderdale, Fla., San Antonio, Texas, and Albuquerque, N.M.; U.S. Steel Corp. plants; general aviation airports, Cleveland Clinic and Texas A&M University.