The electronic security system at Mount Rushmore National Memorial was working when Greenpeace activists scaled the peak and hung a political banner, according to a representative of the company that installed and maintains the system.

Mike Evenson, district manager for SimplexGrinnell, said his company hasn't received any requests for service of the system from memorial officials.

"To my understanding, everything worked as they expected," he said. "We did not have any reports of anything that failed or did not work as they designed it."

The company installed one of its security systems at the memorial in 1999 and provides maintenance and service to it for the National Park Service, which oversees the memorial. The system serves as the hub for electronic door locks and pass-key and card systems at the memorial, according to an article in the October 1999 issue of Access Control & Security Systems Magazine. Intrusion sensors and video cameras feed into the central system, where rangers can call up a video image if a sensor is tripped in its viewing range.

Evenson said for security reasons he couldn't divulge any details of the security system's layout or design and couldn't comment on security procedures at the memorial, but he had no indication the system failed in any way.

"To my understanding, everything is completely working, and there are no problems that I'm aware of," he said.

Black and Veatch, a security consulting firm, conducted a security assessment of Rushmore in 1998, and the report's recommendations led to a $2.9 million upgrade of security at the memorial, including the Simplex system.

Black and Veatch spokesman George Minter said his company "has not been contracted for services related to the Mount Rushmore site since that work in 1998 and is not in a position to evaluate current site security."

Greenpeace activists had scouted the park for days before their climb last week, and hiked up the 500-foot mountain to the monument in the middle of the night.

Matt Leonard, one of the climbers, said he didn't see any cameras or other security measures on the hike up in the dark. He believes the holding area where the climbers waited, just 100 yards from the faces, was not monitored by security cameras. Only when the Greenpeace team got very near the sculpture did Leonard notice the fences and cameras.

Evenson of SimplexGrinnell wouldn't comment on whether the security system was activated and monitored at the time of the protest, or whether there were blind spots in the camera's viewing areas that would allow climbers to scale the mountain undetected. But he took issue with the statements of retired Highway Patrol captain Terry Mayes, who told the Rapid City Journal that Rushmore's security failed. Mayes was on a task force that recommended security changes at the memorial in the wake of a failed 1987 attempt by Greenpeace to hang an anti-acid-rain banner on the mountain carving.

If Mayes was referring to the electronic security system, his accusation of failure was "inaccurate," Evenson said.

It would be hard to make any security system foolproof in such a rugged terrain, said Michael Crocker, a Greenpeace spokesman.

"In fairness to the park officials there, it is a massive place. And they have limited resources for that (security)," he said. "Obviously, we were able to get around it."

Contact Jeremy Fugleberg at 394-8421 or jeremy.fugleberg@rapidcityjournal.com

Staff writer Kevin Woster contributed to this article.