When Lone Star Communications president Ray Bailey heard in August that Marjorie Adams was looking to step away from day-to-day operations of Halco Life Safety Systems in Houston, he didn’t hesitate for a moment to tell her he’d be interested in buying the company if she planned to sell it.
About four months later, the sides had a deal, announcing that Lone Star had acquired Halco in December. The move preserves the legacy of Adams’ company and gives Lone Star a foot into the Houston market and an expansion into low-voltage life safety equipment in the health care market.
Lone Star works mostly in the education and health care markets.
“As installations and projects become more complex, you need that programming and networking expertise,” says Bailey. Life safety systems integrate with phone, paging, nurse call and middleware systems among others, he says.
Adams bought Halco from founder Harold DeVaney in 1999 and changed its focus from education, commercial and correctional facilities to primarily health care. Today, Halco supports 130 hospitals with life safety equipment and. Adams, who has more than 35 years worth of life safety industry experience, will remain with Lone Star to help with the integration for the first two years.
“Providers today are intensely focused on consistent quality outcomes and outstanding patient experiences. As their workloads have increased profoundly over the past few years, clinical workflow automation has become essential,” says Bailey. “The combined depth of experience makes Lone Star one of the most highly specialized and talent-rich clinical systems integrators in the state of Texas. This was a perfect match for employee and company culture.”
The acquisition of Halco and its 35 employees puts Lone Star over the 100-person threshold. The move also gives Lone Star programming and networking capabilities to make them better equipped to handle today’s installations.
“We’re both having such good years that we’re both adding employees,” says Bailey.
Halco will keep its name for now but eventually transition to be known by the Lone Star name.
“It’s as perfect as it gets,” says Bailey. “The seller is happy to stay involved and we’re excited to have them as part of our team.”
