Carl Wapner, security alarm pioneer, dies at 80

He applied the latest technology and expanded the use of his father-in-law’s invention to build a family business that continues operation today under the guidance of his three sons.

Five Towns native and Florida resident Carl Wapner, who died at 80 on Jan. 3, had an idea of taking the automobile alarm system invented by Jack Seide that was used nationwide for cargo security and develop it for residential and commercial security as Long Island grew in the 1960s.

Wapner’s early adoption of the digital alarm receiver for his central alarm system was one of the first in the U.S. and gave him a leg up as it seemed too alien at the time to be adapted quickly by his competitors.

His early commercial accounts like department store E.J. Korvette’s were some of the only residential security customers at the time. However, that soon changed, as 40 years later he gloated that the digital alarm receiver remains the prevalent technology in the alarm industry, while everything else from that era is considered a museum piece.

It is a business first known as BABACO that morphed into Allied Central Station Alarms, Inc., in Oceanside that Wapner handed down to his sons Jonathan, Michael and Jack.

The Hewlett resident graduated from the University of Bridgeport, where he majored in accounting. He also took some graduate courses at New York University. He and the late Myra Seide Wapner were married for 54 years.

Wapner served in the navy on the U.S.S. Greenwich Bay AVP-41, which tendered seaplanes and was used for global peacekeeping missions immediately after World War II.

He is survived by his daughter Joyce and her husband Mark Schustek of Long Beach, and sons Jonathan of Oceanside, Michael and his wife Michele of North Bellmore and Jack and his wife Rita of North Merrick, a sister Shirley Rubin of Florida and grandchildren Andrew, Samantha, Alexandra, Jennifer and Michael.