September President's Message

Dear IAF Members and Industry Friends,

September has always been to me one of the most important “transition” months of the year. Summer has officially ended, Florida’s humidity adopts a more temperate character and most importantly football is in full swing.

For the IAF, September also means that our Fall Roadshow takes us all around our great State. The Roadshow was kicked off with a Strategic Planning meeting, where the Board of Directors set the goals and budgets for the upcoming year. As you can imagine, 2026’s plans will help to continue our current growth trajectory, and bring more value to our members. Next, we hosted Regional meetings in Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Sarasota, Ft. Myers, West Palm Beach and my hometown, Miami. Not to sound too peppy, but I honestly feel that this was the best roadshow to date. We had record turnouts at all our regional meetings, saw many new faces, some of which joined the association.

Politically speaking, we had meaningful meetings in Tallahassee with both House and Senate staffers, and we had personal meeting with both House Members and Senators all throughout the trip, at almost every stop. Our Miami meeting was prefaced with a Town Hall meeting with Miami’s two largest Fire Departments, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and City of Miami Department of Fire Rescue, to cover everything BDA. The meeting was also live streamed on our website (another IAF first) so that members that could not make it in person could still view and even participate by asking questions!

Finally, I must mention that the last few weeks have shown a lot of high-profile crime incidents. Murders and assassinations that have rocked many American’s emotions. The senseless murder of Irena Zarutska in Charlotte, and of course the assassination of Charlie Kirk are at top of mind right now. While I will refrain from entering into any political comments, I do want to make a relevant point about our Industry. In both cases, it has been Video Surveillance systems that have helped investigators quickly close the dragnet. Despite how tragic both events have been, there is a small sliver of gratitude that our Industry deserves in both cases. We must be proud of the fact that our industry has grown so much, and as a collective, the Security and Life Safety Industry has managed to insert itself into so many areas of everyday life

Raising the Bar - One Achievement at a Time,
Diego R. del Pino
IAF President