By Jason J. Marchi, Courier
Correspondent:
Lee Wezenski, owner
of NexGen Solutions in East Haven, began
working on a software program in his basement in his spare time to help police
track and record criminal activity in 1992. Today that program, called the Law
Enforcement Administrative System (LEAS), helps state and municipal police
officers in 30 towns throughout Connecticut
perform their patrol jobs more effectively and safely.
A native of the Short Beach
area of Branford, Lee was working as a supernumerary (part-time police officer)
for the Branford Police Department when he met then Sgt. John DeCarlo (who
would later become Branford’s chief of police). While working together, the two
men would have long conversations about how to effectively use technology as a
tool in public safety.
When Lee and DeCarlo
decided to join forces they founded a company in 1997 called NexGen Solutions
(for Next Generation), and began in earnest to develop the LEAS program.
A former programmer
for Dunn & Bradstreet, armed with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, and an
ex-military man who flew aboard Looking Glass–the “Doomsday plane” designed to
keep the government running in case of a nuclear attack–Lee’s educational and
work experience made a perfect fit with DeCarlo’s intense studies of the nature
and causes of criminal behavior as a tool to prevent crime, not just react to
it.
When Lee first
formed NexGen, he was up against “big guns” in the industry like AT&T.
“We concentrated on
what we knew best and we developed a suite of products that were based on years
of expertise, and tons of passion,” John explains.
Serendipity also
aided the formation of NexGen. An established competitor was in the process of
folding because of the untimely passing of its owner. The customers of that
company suddenly had no place to turn for support, and NexGen stepped up to the
plate.
We were lucky [in
another way] too,” Lee explains. “It was right at the time when we were coming
from a DOS-based system to a Windows-based system, and a lot of the older
companies were DOS based, so we had a break into the market.”
“The East Haven Police
Department was our first customer [in 1997] and gave us our start,” Lee notes,
“I worked with then Chief James Criscuolo and Lt. Thomas DeCosta to work out
the bugs.”
DeCarlo stayed with
the company until early 2002 when he accepted the promotion to the position of
deputy chief in Branford, and Lee carried on the mission of NexGen with a
handful of dedicated employees.
Today, the LEAS
system is an integrated suite of programs that tie the laptop computers
installed in hundreds of police cruisers to the central crime computers linked
to other police departments. When an officer makes a motor vehicle stop, he or
she can run not only license plate check from the laptop but also be alerted to
potential criminal background information of the driver and passengers without
having to wait to hear back from dispatchers.
Additionally, while
it once took officers 45 minutes to complete an accident report with old paper
forms and typewriters, it now takes about 10 minutes on the cruiser’s laptop.
“Instead of coming in
the station and doing reports,” Lee explains, “towns can keep the officer in
the cruiser so he can be out on the street and be visible.”
The LEAS software
needs periodic changes and upgrades, because, “police procedures change, old
forms are updated or new forms added, and I want to make it easy for police to
do their work,” Lee notes. “I sit with the officers in their cruiser and see
what they need to do their work better.”
To nominate a Person
of the Week, email j.marchi@shorepublishing.com or call 203-245-1877 x6166.
Pictured: Police cruisers throughout the state carry the handiwork of Lee Wezenski,
a programmer and ex-cop whose computer savvy allow officers to increase their
efficiency and effectiveness.
Photo by Jason
Marchi