Gary L. Cole has purchased Hi-Tech Security Inc. from founder Adam Strauss. Cole, who had been operations manager for Hi-Tech Security since its inception in 1989, now serves as president of the renamed GCI Security.

GCI Security employs 45 full-time security officers as well as 168 police officers part-time as secondary approved officers. The company, which is located at 1210 S. Vandeventer Ave. in St. Louis, operates 24 vehicles as well as bicycle patrols. George Venegoni, who retired from the St. Louis Police Department in 2009 as a lieutenant in the Third District, works with Cole as coordinator of secondary police operations.

During his 37-year career with the St. Louis Police Department, Venegoni served as a detective and detective sergeant in the Intelligence Unit, a detective sergeant in the Homicide Division and as a watch commander in Districts Two, Three, Four and Five.