Locksmithing with Attitude

May 15, 2003
A Positive, Proactive Attitude

Located in Charlottesville, Va., the University of Virginia is ranked the nation's #2 public university and 23rd among all national universities. This fact is even more impressive when you consider that only three other public universities are in the top 25. UVA has the highest graduation and retention rate of any public college or university and is tied for 9th overall.

About 65 percent of the 19,200 students at the university are Virginia residents; the remaining 35 percent are drawn from across the United States and more than 100 countries.

UVA gets high marks for safety over its sprawling campuses, which include numerous academic facilities and a lot of student housing. The university locksmith shop services the student housing with installations, maintenance and replacement of lost keys for students.

UVA faces all the same issues that the rest of the country faces in respect to crime, public safety and the various challenges security managers must address when adapting to new technologies, and providing timely and professional support to the students and faculty.

During our tour of the UVA campus and the Housing Division lockshop, the staff's pride for their facility and their operation, and the team spirit that enables this department to synergize its resources to provide service and security to the students, was impressive.

Faced with campus expansion, servicing sites which are spread over a large area of Charlottesville (itself a suburban town which is growing at an exponential rate), the UVA Housing lock department knows its mission, has a plan, and shares a vision for what they want their security posture to be and what it will become.

We subjected David Handy, the big guy in the shop, to a "surprise quiz" regarding the issues and specifics. He scored well. His answers indicate that his department definitely has been doing its homework. Our questions and Handy's answers follow.

Can you provide a brief history of yourself and you tenure at the university?
I have been employed by the University of Virginia for 15 years, 6 months.

What is your job title?
My title is "Lockshop Foreman." I was the first locksmith employed by the Housing Division. When I came to UVA, our security policy was changing from replacing a lost key by just cutting another key to re-coring the locks.

About how many keys do you cut a year?
We now change more than 1,000 locks a calendar year.

How big is your staff?
I have a staff of seven: one locksmith, one electrician/electronics technician and five part-time students. I am hoping to add another locksmith in the very near future as the Housing Division grows. In December 2001, we moved our lockshop into a newly renovated space what I call "The Most State-Of-The-Art Lockshop" on any campus in the country. Our old shop was approximately 350 square feet; our new shop is approximately 1,000 square feet, complete with break room, double-bowl stainless steel sink, kitchen cabinets and counter tops. This room also serves as our meeting room and key inventory room at the end of the school year.

What key-cutting and computer equipment do you use?
The shop features three pinning workstations, three computer workstations and a supervisor's office and storage room. The shop utilizes three desktop computers, two laptops and a PDA, four telephone lines, two digital and two analog data ports, copy machine and fax machine. We use a Borkey key machine for key duplications, a Framon for our flat steel keys, HPC Blitz for cutting by code and numerous Best key combinators. We also have a NumberAll key stamper for full production stamping. We use LUND key cabinets, two of the floor-standing cabinets and one wall-hung cabinet.

Entry to our shop is via HID key fob with pin number for access accountability with magnetic door contacts to register any Forced Door Alarms. Once inside the shop, a separate pin number is required to de-activate the burglar alarm. The shop was built with room for future expansion.

We are centrally located in the basement of a first-year dormitory, and we also operate the Key Room, which is staffed from 8 a.m. to midnight. Any student, faculty or staff member who is locked out may come to the Key Room, present a UVA ID card and borrow a key to his or her room. The Key Room will soon be undergoing a small renovation to replace the wall-hung key cabinets with three of the LUND floor-standing key cabinets.

What are the biggest challenges?
The biggest problem we face is lost keys by the students, but as we say, we have great job security.

How buildings are you responsible for?
We maintain 200 buildings for the Housing Division. That's about 10,000 doors and approximately 20,000 keys.

Does your shop get involved in specifying hardware?
My job at the university is also to stay on the cutting edge of technology with new locking devices as they are produced.

What do you regard as your biggest achievement at UVA?
My biggest achievement has been implementing and coordinating the installation of our third-generation card access system. The system is networked as opposed to the previous two stand-alone systems that we had used on all of our perimeter security doors. We currently have approximately 180 doors that are on-line and numerous alarm contacts.

What locks and hardware are you using?
Most of the hardware we use is Best mortise and cylindrical locksets, but we also use Corbin Russwin and Schlage, Von Duprin and Precision exit devices and Von Duprin, HES and Folger Adams electric strikes. We also use the Kaba Ilco (old Simplex) mechanical lockset. Our favorite cylindrical lockset is the Best 9K lever cylindrical lockset. This lockset is very hard to beat in our opinion and stands up to the abuse to which all campus locks are subjected. Our favorite mortise lock is the Best 35H series, which also does a great job holding up in the dormitories.

Do you use the same keyway and cylinders on all doors? What kind?
We use the Best seven-pin A2 Master Key System. Currently, we are only utilizing one keyway. It is the Best PKS System, which is of course a Best/Kaba venture that uses a patented key blank.

Can you describe your master key system?
Our master key system is a seven-tier key system. After the operating key level, there would be a housekeeping master; then above that is the building master, grand master, selective master, great grand master and control key.

Is your master key system vulnerable to security issues such as those recently in the news, including the ability to jiggle a key or students being able to decode the system and create their own keys?
With the Best PKS Key System, it is very difficult for clever students to create their own keys by such methods.

Do you foresee any changes to your security management plan due to Homeland security issues or crime in town or on campus?
The security level at the Housing Division has been at a maximum for many years, so therefore there has been no need to change our security management due to Homeland Security issues.

Got any CCTV in operation or planned?
No, we currently do not have any CCTV in operation or planned.

What card access system and card technologies do you use?
The Housing Division uses the BASIS Card Access System (manufactured by Lenel) by Best Access for access control on our perimeter security doors on the dormitories and in key locations. Each perimeter door has multiple alarm points that are monitored by our access control system. Each door is set to a 30-second delay. After the set time, an audible alarm will sound at the door and a report will be generated on our system if any of the alarm points are not satisfied. The system is capable of monitoring CCTV and fire alarm systems as well, but is currently not being used.

We also have badging capabilities with the same software. We use magnetic stripe access cards along with some proximity in some high-security locations. We often help the University Police conduct investigations with our reporting capabilities with our software.

For you proposed standalones for each dorm room, what card technology would you use? What mode would they operate in (such as card only, code only, card and code, biometric only, biometric with credential, biometric with code)?
As far as the proposed standalone card access locks on the dorm rooms, we will be using the magstripe access cards with dual validation with a pin number.

Who's the skinny guy?
Pictured with me is Mark Madison, locksmith. He has been with the University for approximately 19 years and is a valued asset to my staff.

Any long-term goals for the Housing Division?
My goal is to take the University of Virginia Housing Division into the 21st century by installing standalone card access locks on every student room. Our intention is to have a complete keyless society for the students that reside in the Housing Division. I would like to see this completed before I retire.

Related