RALEIGH -- As he strode through the North Raleigh headquarters of Law Enforcement Associates Inc. on Thursday, Tony Rand didn't act much like the chairman of a publicly traded company.
Rather than trying to impress visitors with how hands-on and knowledgeable he is about the security device manufacturer's operations, Rand, who as majority leader of the N.C. Senate is among the state's most powerful politicians, repeatedly asked several of the company's 30employees how many times they had ever seen him.
Most said they had not laid eyes on him more than once or twice, and only in the past year or two.
Ask Rand who LEA's biggest customers are, and he says he doesn't know. Ask him who the company's investors are, including whether some of his close friends and political associates own stock, and the Fayetteville Democrat says he doesn't know that, either.
How long has he been chairman of LEA's board? "I'm really not sure," Rand replied.
Standing next to a man assembling a circuit board for one of the company's impossibly small digital audio transmitters, Rand was asked how often he had visited the factory floor.
"I think I might have come back here once, looking for the bathroom," Rand replied.
Lest anyone think he is trying to distance himself from LEA, however, the 70-year-old senator repeatedly said he is excited about the company's prospects and plans to become more involved in the firm after he retires at the end of the month from the legislative seat he has held for more than two decades.
LEA is one of a handful of firms competing in the niche industry of providing covert surveillance gadgets to law enforcement agencies. Many of its products are so secret that viewing its online catalog requires a password.
'A practicing Luddite'
As a photographer toured the company's building, tucked in a nondescript office park in a largely residential area, many employees were clearly nervous about the potential for some of the high-tech gear ending up in the newspaper. Under a large American flag draped on the wall, technicians sat in individual cages of metal screen designed to keep the radio signals from their projects from interfering with those being assembled nearby.
Rand is quick to say he doesn't know how any of the gizmos, which he termed "groovy cop equipment," work. "I'm a practicing Luddite," Rand said. "I don't know anything about this stuff."
LEA has struggled in recent years, its stock plummeting from more than $10 late in 2005 to close at 10 cents a share Thursday -- a 99 percent decrease.
In a filing to federal authorities last month, former LEA Chief Executive Officer Paul Feldman claimed Rand schemed to manipulate the stock price to enrich himself and other elected officials.
Rand has called the accusation "hogwash." In his defense, he says he has hardly been involved with the company, despite his lofty corporate title. The resulting media scrutiny has not been welcome for a company that has long operated behind the scenes.
"We're supposed to be under the radar," Rand said. "We're in the snooping and lurking business."
On Sunday, The News & Observer reported that the company sold nearly $200,000 in equipment to state government agencies in recent years, some of it in no-bid deals overseen by a close friend of Rand's who also owns LEA stock.
The senator said he didn't know anything about the state purchases until he was contacted by the newspaper last week. But if he'd had his way, he said, LEA would have sold a lot more.
$4,000 salary
Rand owns 140,334 shares of LEA stock and as board chairman he earned only $4,000 in salary last year, according to reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Recent federal filings by LEA say Rand has served as chairman since 2003. But Thursday, Rand said he didn't think that is correct, though he was unsure what year he took over the top spot.
Later, after he asked the company's chief financial officer to check the board's meeting minutes, Rand said he wasn't elected chairman until November 2007. The board had no chairman for the couple of years before that, Rand said, not since former owner John Carrington was convicted of selling restricted security equipment to the Chinese.
A former Republican senator and friend, Carrington asked Rand to join the company. Rand joked Thursday that he always knew a Republican would get him in trouble.
A wealthy man through other investments, Rand said he has no intention of leaving LEA in the lurch. He said he is trying to steer the company in a new direction, and LEA has recently revamped and modernized its product line with an eye toward selling more products to corporate clients and in the home security market.
