After his university studies, Mr Jaquet began his Securiton career at the age of 22 at the company in Bern in 1949, which had only been in existence for a year at the time. As a fitter, he installed a number of our first systems. He left us temporarily in 1951 and moved to England to study further. After becoming fluent in English, he emigrated to Australia where he worked as a Securiton representative – first in Melbourne and later in Sydney. After several years of gaining experience, Mr Jaquet decided in 1958 to venture into self-employment and to open his own Securiton branch in Johannesburg, South Africa. Together with chief fitter at Securiton Mr Boillat – with whom he had already worked in Australia – Mr Jaquet began building up his business in South Africa in 1959.

With a population of around 1,000,000, Johannesburg is the largest city in the Union of South Africa. It is exceptionally modern and is located at 1,730 metres above sea level, which makes its climate very pleasant. In a rented garage, the first shipment of Securiton equipment was assembled into a demonstration system with the aim of establishing contact with key figures and interested parties. The major expenses had to be covered in full from own savings during this time. However, once the initial difficulties had been overcome, success was soon around the corner. Mr Jaquet gained the trust of his customers in a relatively short time.

One of the first interesting orders was to safeguard various exhibits in a world-famous exhibition dedicated to gold production. As a special attraction, the development of gold production over the past 50 years was not depicted on a chart, but instead using a stack of gold bars (picture). It is obvious that a sophisticated alarm system was needed here, as the gold bars – each weighing around 5 kg – were easily accessible to all and had a total value of around CHF 12 million. Securiton’s alarm glass also protected other valuable gold items, including the famous gold collection of the Queen of England. The successful safeguarding of valuables totalling more than CHF 50 million at the exhibition raised Mr Jaquet’s profile at gold and diamond mines, allowing him to subsequently carry out further major projects here. With these companies amassing huge assets, they naturally have many different requirements for their security systems. The path from the explosive used to blast the rocks holding the gold and precious stones at depths of up to 2500 metres below the earth’s surface to the finished cast and stamped gold bars is a long and sometimes very dangerous one, where many things have to be protected from going down the wrong paths.

Particular security needs also exist in the Union of South Africa for the many directional radio transmitters used for civilian and military communications, which are often located far from civilisation. Here in particular, the pneumatic safety carpets are proving very successful: Laying contact mats underneath the earth’s surface allows an alarm to be triggered when entering the secured area. The Union of South Africa covers an area of about 30 times the size of Switzerland. Mounting is of course a very special problem over these exceptionally long distances. In remote places, it is very often only possible to transport the equipment by helicopter to the installation site. Given the expense involved, it goes without saying that all the materials required must be taken along at the very beginning. Due to the high freight and customs charges, it is clear that not all system components can be manufactured in Switzerland. Thanks to close cooperation with the elevator manufacturer Schindler AG, which is very well represented in South Africa, it is possible to manufacture many of the components for Securiton systems in the country itself. Increasingly, this means that only the alarm control panels and contacts have to be supplied from Switzerland.

A fruitful cooperation with Schindler AG has also developed for the maintenance of the systems in remote locations. The standing achieved by Securiton of South Africa over the course of just over three years gives us great hope for the future. The company already employs 15 fitters. Mr Jaquet’s success has not come on a plate, it is the result of years of dedicated work, sustained by the conviction of the quality of the products from our company.