Ex-New York cop markets loudest thing you can wear.

• Position: Personal Security Associates Inc. - Company profile

Ex-New York cop markets loudest thing you can wear

You might think that after 20 years on the New York streets as an undercover narcotics detective, James G. Green Sr. would find a desk job pretty cushy. Don't count on it.

"Sometimes, I think I would rather kick a door down with an Uzi than deal with marketing," he says.

But Green's not complaining. North Carolina retail stores such as Crown Drug Stores, Ed Kelly's appliance chain and Omega Sports are stocking the new pocket-sized alarm he and his partner, E. Shepard Huntley, invented. Huntley says he expects their Greensboro-based Personal Security Associates Inc. to sell half a million of the devices in 1990, the company's fist full year in operation.

Help Alarm is about the size of a pack of cigarettes and can be worn like a beeper or clipped to a purse or book. Knocking the device loose sets off a 105-decibel alarm.

Its selling point, Green says, is that the device, unlike a gun, can't be turned against you. And you don't have to push a button or pull a trigger to sound the alarm.

"I wanted something that requires no specific action [to start]," Green, 49, says. "Having three daughters, I know they can't get to things in their purse."

Green, who was raised in New Jersey and Long Island, moved his family to Greensboro in 1974...