Nov. 6–As a teenager Eric Nieman started in the alarm business doing what he describes as grunt work. “Mostly I was following my boss around, crawling in attics, pulling wire, putting lights up, none of the programming stuff,” he said.

Nieman stuck with it, eventually finding employment for a prominent alarm company and doing sub-contracting work. In the 1990s he and his wife, Heidi, decided to move to Los Banos, start a family and go into business for themselves.

In 1998 Eric Nieman opened Security By Design, located at 1011 I St. It was “scary” for the man who had become used to the reliability of working for someone else.

“When you work for someone you kind of know, ‘In eight hours I’m going to get this on my check.’ Your salary, you know exactly what it is,” Nieman said. “When I started this my salary was high, low, medium, you never knew.”

Heidi Nieman said she and her husband were fortunate enough to get to know some of the developers in town. It provided a steady client base.

Los Banos’ housing boom following Security By Design’s arrival is categorized as “eight good years” by Mrs. Nieman. Although the company relies more heavily on business from commercial development nowadays, Heidi Nieman is clear about the company’s success.

“We are by no means hurting,” she said. “It’s the foreclosures, but if one out of every four houses is foreclosed there are three that are fine.”