The altar of the church at Mission San Juan Bautista is a work of art. Standing three stories tall, the ornately carved wooden structure holds six golden statues, each of a Biblical figure. The altar’s centerpiece is a statue, larger than the others, of St. Gabriel. The gold used to make the statue is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; the statue itself, carved hundreds of years ago, is worth quite a bit more than that. To an uninformed observer, these works of art would seem to be protected by a small wood barrier and the felt rope that keeps tourists from wandering from the church floor. But each piece is secretly quite protected. Cleverly hidden cameras and infrared cameras keep a constant watch, and each statue stands on top of a pressure sensor sensitive enough to detect even the smallest shift in weight.
This intricate, state of the art security system consists of over 100 sensors and 30 cameras, which have been donated and installed at Mission San Juan Bautista by Larry Tracy, the CEO of Aleph America Corporation, a manufacturer of security components. Tracy, 62, has been in the security business for over 40 years. He has over 20 patents of security related technologies, and has installed security systems in 78 counties, including such exotic places as China’s Forbidden City, a 13th century bank vault in Siena, Italy, and an Egyptian prison.
The system that Tracy donated and installed at Mission San Juan is worth well over one hundred thousand dollars, according to Ruben Mendoza, the Mission curator. “We actually had two big alarm companies come out and look at installing a system before Larry came along,” says Mendoza. “They wouldn’t even give us a quote. They said it would be too hard.” Besides the daunting size of the Mission compound, the most prevalent challenge to installing any kind of comprehensive security system were the four foot thick adobe walls that make up most of the construction.