It was, indeed, a “Starry Night.”
More than 600 industry professionals, innovators, and community members came out in support of the Maryland Tech Council’s 2026 ICON Awards, celebrating the achievements of companies, organizations, and assorted movers and shakers throughout Maryland who made an indelible impact on the state’s technological and life sciences community.
When Secom Security Technologies — buoyed by its agentic AI problem-solver, Secom AWARE — was announced as Emerging Government Contracting Company of the Year (amidst an impressive cadre of GovCon heavy-hitters), its leaders, humbled yet beaming, took to the stage.
Minus one.
“I actually didn’t go up,” says Toni Toomey. “I stayed back. I wanted to get a picture of my whole team up there.”
And that’s why she’s CEO.
An Unconventional Arrangement
Toni Toomey will be the first to tell you her résumé doesn’t read like a typical CEO’s.
“I came from outside of the industry,” she says. “I spent the majority of the beginning of my career in litigation — in corporate law in D.C., doing litigation support.”
She first crossed paths with Secom around 2012 as a business development rep, staying about 18 months before leaving corporate life altogether. She traded sales calls for floral foam and centerpieces, launching a high-end floral design company she would run for more than a decade.
“I started my floral company and ran it for 11 years. We won Best of Baltimore and had a lot of success,” she says. “It was a large-scale luxury wedding and event industry niche.”
It was, by any measure, a thriving business. But after 11 years, she was ready for a change.
“I’d had enough and didn’t want to be doing that anymore,” she says. “So, I was able to transition back into more of a serious role. I always say it’s like a real job now.”
That return brought her back to Secom — a company in the middle of reinventing itself, shifting from designing and installing systems toward building its own technology. Toni jumped in on the business development side. Before long, she was asked to take over as CEO, serving as the company’s forward-facing leader while its COO runs day-to-day internal operations.
“My background does not lead up to this C-suite finale,” she says.
Maybe not on paper. But the floral years handed her something an industry-bred executive might never have picked up.
“One of the things I took away from the event industry was relations — public relations and working with some of these higher-end clients,” she says.
That relationship-first instinct — the same throughline that has defined Secom under her husband, founder and president Mike Toomey, for two decades — is now woven into how Toni leads.
Building the Plane
Secom has spent more than 20 years earning its reputation as one of the Mid-Atlantic’s most trusted integrators. Under Toni, the company is pushing to be known as something more: a technology leader.
At the center of that shift is Secom AWARE, the company’s AI-driven platform that uses video analytics and predictive learning to stop incidents before they happen rather than simply record them after the fact. It’s the kind of innovation that turns heads at an awards gala.
For Toni, steering a company through that kind of evolution means getting comfortable with a fair amount of in-flight construction.
“Sometimes with technology, you’re building the plane as you’re flying it,” she says.
And the runway is busy.
Secom recently announced that it has earned its Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), Level 2, and the company is eyeing aggressive growth on several fronts at once.
“We are tapping into Maryland’s life sciences and biotech environment. We are tapping into religious institutions. We are always, obviously, going to be federal,” she says. “And we are expecting a lot of growth in the next 24 months.”
Rooted at Home
If there’s one place Toni wants Secom to plant deeper roots, it’s the ground the company has stood on all along.
Howard County, after all, has long served as home turf for both Toni and Mike.
“We’ve been here for 22 years, but kind of in the shadows,” she says. “We’re looking to really become more of a household name in our own county.”
Mike grew up in Columbia in the ’80s; Toni in Ellicott City in the ’90s.
“Mike and I grew up here. We went to school here. I went to Howard High School. I raised my kids here,” she says. “We live here, we work here, and yet we haven’t really made a lot of time or effort in the actual county.”
She speaks about the area — and the enduring vision of Columbia founder James Rouse — with obvious affection, lighting up over the new life around Merriweather and the lakefront downtown.
“Columbia, especially, has always been known as that planned community. And the vision is still there,” she says. “It’s really neat to see the foundation and the fundamentals that the whole thing was built on staying in place. I love that.”
That local pride has translated into action. Toni joined the board of the Maryland Tech Council, then the board of the Howard County Chamber. Secom is now a member of the Fort Meade Alliance, and the company is participating in an apprenticeship program through the Maryland Department of Labor, with hopes of partnering with Howard Community College.
Her aim is to keep homegrown talent home.
“We’ve got incredible companies that are staying local. We want to be one of those companies that people say, ‘Hey, I’m going to do an internship there. I want to join that team and stay in my home county,’” she says. For students weighing whether to leave the state to find opportunity, she wants Secom to be the proof that they don’t have to.
Know What You Know
Ask Toni about advice that has stuck with her, and she returns to a line from a managing partner during her legal days in D.C.
“Know what you know, and know what you don’t know,” she says.
It sounds simple. In practice, she says, it’s a discipline — and an antidote to ego.
“Knowing what you don’t know is equally as valuable as knowing what you know. And finding out what you don’t know is way more important than trying to bluff your way through it.”
She’s candid about the temptation, especially when she’s sharing a panel with people who, in her words, can make her feel six years old again.
The default during a daunting conversation is to nod and smile, she says.
“But I’ve found that when you do that, people just think, ‘OK, great,’ and they skip over things — as opposed to you saying, ‘Actually, I didn’t know that,’ so someone can fully clue you in. The opportunity to continue to learn and find out new things is so important.”
The other piece of guidance came over dinner, just after she was named CEO.
“A colleague told me that my job — among a million other things — was to set the tone and the camaraderie for everybody else on my team,” she says. “That it started at the top, and that I needed to set the example for everybody, whether for attitude or for company vision.”
That tone-setting is exemplified in how Secom builds its bench. Nearly the entire executive team — outside of Mike — is new to their roles, but not to the company.
“Everybody — our president, our COO, our vice presidents, all of our executive sales directors — started with the company in a somewhat entry-level position and has worked their way up,” she says. “Our vice president was a sales rep 12 years ago. Our COO was brought in as an administrative assistant.”
Toni fits her own pattern. She, too, started as a sales rep 14 years ago.
“We definitely look to promote from within,” she says. “It’s truly because Secom has really walked the walk. We’ve promoted and raised our whole executive board up from within, and I don’t think a lot of companies do that.”
The result, she says, is a team that actually feels like one. Integrated. Working seamlessly. Not entirely unlike the safeguards that Secom AWARE comprises.
“Our retention is awesome, because we try to make everyone a part of the team,” she says. “And I know everyone says that, but it really is a team.”
An Open Invitation
For all her focus on technology and growth, Toni measures the job in energy — hers and her crew’s.
“I’m excited about everything, so I try to bring back that same level of excitement when I hear about opportunities for Secom — not necessarily for business, but for involvement,” she says, be it the tech council, the chamber, or volunteering with groups like Junior Achievement.
“I don’t know why I always expect to be met with resistance, but everyone is like, ‘That’s awesome. Let’s do it.’”
It’s the kind of culture that turns a company that spent 22 years securing the shadows into one ready to step into the spotlight — even if its CEO would rather be the one holding the camera.
“My big focus is on Maryland and on the county,” she says. “And if anyone reading is open to partnerships, reach out.”