A valuable mobile tool is now being used regularly by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis Community Security team. A trailer was added to the security fleet in April and has already enhanced safety and helped keep costs in check, according to Scott Biondo, director of security.

“We keep costs in line by using our own equipment at events, including everything from radio communication equipment to magnetometers to signage,” Biondo said. “This allows us to take all of this equipment to off-site locations so that we’re not having to obtain new signage every time and rent equipment.

“We’re able to actually transport all of our equipment in a covered unit that we can lock and park at different sites,” he said. “This allows us to provide safe secure transport and it’s environmentally sound. It’s operationally efficient and it’s cost effective. It just checks all the boxes in terms of us being able to transport equipment.”

Helping control rising security costs

Security costs for Jewish communities in the U.S. continue to increase, and have reached $765 million per year, according to a 2025 Jewish Federation of America estimate. Federation provided protection at 165 community events in 2025 and fielded 623 organizational security request. The mobile transport unit is one way of keeping security costs down, Biondo said.

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“We’ve been entrusted to be stewards of the funding that the community has given us, and part of that is the transportation of sensitive and in some cases fairly expensive equipment,” he said. “Being able to transport it in a trailer that has lockdown capabilities and bracing capabilities built into it, keeps us from having to worry about putting that equipment it in the back of a truck. It’s also easier to maintain an inventory of our equipment. We can basically put an inventory sheet into the unit when we deploy, and then we know exactly what went to that site, and we can return with those items.”

Built for today’s operations and tomorrow’s needs

In addition to sensitive equipment like magnetometers, the trailer is used to transport barricades (known as Jersey barriers) and traffic cones. Biondo said it can easily be hitched to one of the community security trucks and quickly deployed to any location. It also provides the team with potential future enhancements, he said.

“We’re in the process of trying to engineer a solar and battery powered video surveillance system that will be a part of the trailer,” he said. “It would have a cell signal, and we could dial into it and monitor the video from anywhere.”