Ira Riklis relates how his interest in Captain Horatio Hornblower influenced his business:

“COPS Monitoring is a dba, “doing business as.”  The actual corporate name of COPS Monitoring is Lydia Security Monitoring Inc. To the confusion of many who have tried to figure out who was Lydia, the company was named for a ship commanded by Captain Horatio Hornblower. I do not have any relatives, nor do I even know anyone, named Lydia. This model sits in the front hallway of the main office of COPS Monitoring in Williamstown, N.J.

“I originally ordered it as a quirky and playful reference to the source of the corporate name. However, over the years, the employees have truly embraced the ship as a symbol of our corporate culture. On a modern ship, a very small crew could make a large vessel function sufficiently to make headway. On a large sailing ship, such as the Lydia, it requires at least 100 people, each trained and skilled in their particular job, to cause the vessel to make headway. No one person can reach port safely without the cooperation and participation of many others.

“And if the ship should sink during hostile action (read “fail in the competitive environment”), then it goes down with all hands. Also, if such a ship should happen to capture a “prize ship”, every member of the crew, from the Captain to the lowliest cabin boy, would share in the money to be received from selling the prize to the Admiralty. In other words, a ship such as the Lydia is a symbol of shared travails/shared benefits.

Ira Riklis continues: “At Lydia Security, we try to live by such a credo; and our employees feel that if the company does well, then they in turn will do well.  We express this by saying that if you want the company to take care of you, you must take care of the company.”

More on Ira Riklis’ interest in this subject in future posts.