School Principal and Father Turns Entrepreneur to Safely Defend Students

Jeff Green was a teacher and elementary school principal for 16 years. In fact, he thought he would eventually retire as a school superintendent. But, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, Jeff, a father of three, wanted to find a better way to protect his own children and the children and staff under his watch. On this episode of Talking Business Now, Green joins host Kelly Scanlon to discuss his journey from school principal to entrepreneur and how his company SafeDefend, specializing in emergency alert and lockdown systems and training, helps people survive an active shooter event. Jeff said, "I was a principal during the time of the Sandy Hook shooting, and also a father of three. And after that, I realized that my building wasn't any better protected than Sandy Hook's and shared a lot of similarities. So, I just really never started out as a business. I was just a dad and a principal trying to figure out a better way to protect my students, my staff and my own children ... and just really sat down and said, 'Hey, what do we need to do? What is going to make a difference? How can we get proactive?' And that's how SafeDefend was born." Jeff worked with law enforcement and threat assessment experts at the local, state and national level to determine what elements needed to be addressed to survive an active shooter. He learned, according to the FBI, that most casualties occur within 3 minutes. The U.S. average police response is 11 minutes, with just over 5 minutes for metropolitan areas. He also found that the average 911 call takes 75 seconds from dialing to providing dispatch with enough information. During the last six years, Jeff has worked to develop SafeDefend into a national leader on active shooter response and training, expanding from schools to hospitals, city government offices, manufacturing facilities, financial institutions and other public places. Connect with Jeff Green Facebook: facebook.com/safedefend Twitter: @safedefend LinkedIn: Safedefend, LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices