Kentucky school teaches locksmithing skills

Apr 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Joe Mele

People from all over the world come to a little Kentucky town to learn locksmithing skills.

Lockmasters, located in the midst of "Horse Country" in Nicholasville, Ky., has been teaching these skills for decades. The students are from all walks of life. Sitting in the same classroom might be an individual from the nuclear industry or a maintenance man from a college trying to learn how to re-key a lock whose key has been lost.

Lockmasters also teaches governments how to keep security material secret. With the advent of computer safe dialers and lock manipulation tools readily available over the Internet, security is constantly changing. Therefore, anyone in the locksmithing business is constantly having to go "back to school" to keep ahead of the bad guys.

Lockmasters holds patents on some of the most formidable locks in the world, from locks used to keep nuclear weapons out of the wrong hands to locks used to keep America's secrets.

Just inside the doors of the Lockmasters school is the Harry Miller Lock Museum, which contains a collection of locks dating from ancient Egypt to the present day. Harry Miller, who gave birth to Lockmasters, helped America lock up its secrets during World War II.

In addition to serving hometown locksmiths, there may be some hometown police officers in the class. Lockmasters is now teaching police officers how to prevent crime. The Lockmasters Security Management Institute has been formed to teach these skills to police officers and private security personnel.

For information on Lockmasters, call 606-887-9633 or visit www.lockmasters.com.

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