A full dinner is served at our evening meetings including non-alcoholic beverages, coffee and dessert. Beer and wine are available for sale.

Location: Colorado Auto Dealers Association, 290 E. Speer Blvd., Denver, 80203
Cocktail hour: 6:30, dinner 7 p.m. Program follows.

Russell Pilcher, Sierra Detection Systems

Over the past five decades, Russ has been actively engaged in all aspects of the detention industry, beginning modestly as laborer in 1966 during high school summers.  Finding the work interesting, after his schooling, he joined the manufacturer jail equipment in San Antonio, Texas, where he ran the operations and engineering and manufacturing departments.  In 1977, he founded his own firm, invented and patented his own sliding door locking systems, which he marketed, manufactured and installed to several state penitentiaries.  He also invented and manufactured high security fire rated swinging door assemblies for jails and prisons.  Thirteen years later, he sold his firm to join Southern Steel Company.  There, he led the research and development department to invent an entire line of updated sliding jail doors.

In 1995, he founded Sierra Detention Systems.  During his tenure at Sierra, Russ has installed his inventions in many high-profile detention facilities, such as Super Max, Folsom Prison, FBOP Death Row in Terre Haute, Angola Death Row in Louisiana and many others.  During this same time, he has had contact with several high profile “clients” of these facilities, such as Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Ted Kasinsky, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and others. On several occasions, he has served as a consultant and expert witness in areas of detention equipment assessment, facility programming and development.  In 2018, he founded Sinclair Cybernetics, LLC, a firm that operates in parallel fashion to Sierra and specializes in technical support to of electronic locking systems and elements of cyber protection.