A certificate of registration is easy to picture as a document — something applied for, granted, and framed. The rules describe something closer to a state a firm has to stay in. 28 TAC § 34.610 opens not with paperwork but with premises: a specific business location must be maintained by each registered firm, that location must be indicated on the certificate, and it must be a physical address rather than a mailing address or a P.O. Box. Every condition in this section works the same way. None of them is satisfied once.

The people conditions are layered, and it is worth separating them because they are three different requirements that all sound like one. Insurance Code § 6002.154 requires every registered firm to employ at least one fire alarm technician, residential fire alarm superintendent, or fire alarm planning superintendent. 28 TAC § 34.610 requires the firm to specify one full-time employee holding a license under the subchapter as its DESIGNATED EMPLOYEE, on its application and on its renewal, and provides that an individual may not serve as designated employee for more than one registered firm. And 28 TAC § 34.613 requires a registered firm to employ at least one full-time licensed individual at EACH LOCATION of a main or branch office. A firm with three offices and one licensee satisfies the statute and fails the rule.

The last condition is the one the public sees. Under 28 TAC § 34.610, all vehicles regularly used in installation, service, maintenance, testing, or certification activities must prominently display the company name, telephone number, and certificate number — in numbers and letters at least one inch high, permanently affixed or magnetically attached to each side of the vehicle, in a color contrasting with the vehicle’s own. The rule even fixes the format of the certificate number: TX ACR-number. That is where the trade’s shorthand comes from. An Alarm Certificate of Registration is the firm’s certificate, and its number is what appears on the truck — not a certificate issued for a particular job, which is a different document and belongs to Chapter 8.