Becklar Safety and Monitoring
Becklar Safety and Monitoring

About Becklar

Experienced Leaders. Passionate Teams. Continuous Innovation.

Our History​

Becklar’s history is steeped in innovation, caring, and helping others. Located in Ogden, Utah, we’re proud to call Utah’s silicone slopes home! Our connection to the West runs deep, even in our name. Our name, Becklar, is derived from the Bechler River in Yellowstone National Park, where our founder, Josh Garner, enjoyed peaceful days fishing with his father.

Becklar’s journey goes back 40 years to when monitoring company ‘AvantGuard’ began operations in Ogden, Utah. Our pioneering spirit has guided us ever since, from acquiring Freeus, the leading North American provider of mobile personal emergency response systems (PERS), to establishing Becklar, to uniting the complimentary Freeus and AvantGuard businesses – and future acquisitions – into one entity. In 2020, BV Investment Partners, a tech-focused private equity firm, became Becklar’s majority shareholder. Their guidance has fueled our rapid growth and enabled Becklar to provide enterprise-scale solutions based on industry-leading technology.

What We Do

Becklar is the SMART Critical Event Monitoring Company, offering the market’s one and only SMART Protection Platform. Becklar and its expanding network of over 5,500 dealers deliver the most advanced and comprehensive critical event monitoring and response solutions to over 2.5 million subscribers through the industry’s broadest suite of lifesaving and life-enhancing technologies. This groundbreaking platform uniquely provides fully customizable, all-encompassing safety solutions that deliver unmatched protection for People, Property, and Workers across every endpoint. Becklar’s advanced AI technologies, seamlessly integrated with the industry’s most skilled operators, enable the fastest North American emergency response times of under 10 seconds and best-in-class services across every sector—including fire and security monitoring, video monitoring, remote guarding, connected device monitoring, workforce safety, personal health and safety, and critical event response. Purpose-built for the most urgent moments, the Becklar Smart Critical Event Monitoring Platform delivers the fastest and most decisive intervention when it matters most.

Our Mission

Making the world a safer place by protecting people, property, and workers—everywhere. 

We bring together innovative technologies and caring people to enhance our customers’ freedom, confidence, and peace of mind.

Our Core Values
We Care FIRST

At Becklar, we strive daily to show our customers, partners, and employees that we care by living the following values.

Becklar Core Company Values We Care F.I.R.S.T.

Fun

We love what we do. We invest in developing a rewarding, fun culture. We laugh and joke, enjoying the company of our coworkers.

Innovation

We lead, not follow. We believe that innovative solutions that make the world a safer place happen at the intersection of humanity and technology. We are driven to be better every day.

Relationships

“We” is always greater than “I”. We build authentic relationships where everyone has a voice. We lean on each other, trusting that everyone is doing our part. 

Service

Caring is at our core value. We support and serve our customers, team members, and communities in moments that matter.

Teamwork

None of us is as smart as all of us. We combine exceptional partners, coworkers, and customers to collaboratively and passionately achieve a common goal.

Our Leadership Team

Steve Richards

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Steve Richards is a seasoned CEO with over three decades of leadership at numerous publicly traded and private companies. A skilled leader known for systemically driving growth via organic and acquisition-driven initiatives, his track record includes experience across technology, media, communications, business process outsourcing, and recurring services firms, all marked by a consistent history of driving transformational growth and exceptional client service.

Josh Garner

FOUNDER
Josh Garner founded Becklar and launched his career as the founder of AvantGuard. He built the company from a small mom-and-pop central station to a national leader in the wholesale monitoring space. This 3rd generation alarm guru led AvantGuard to become one of the fastest-growing wholesale monitoring companies in the United States. He saw the opportunity to expand the markets served by acquiring Freeus and forming Becklar.

Ray Langhaim

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Ray Langhaim is an experienced CFO with numerous publicly traded and private companies. Leadership and our We Care First core values are rooted within him. Ray has worked with companies from $40m to $3B. He started his career after graduating from Fresno State in 1990 with Ernst and Young in San Jose, California and received his CPA. During his assignment as an expat in the Philippines he learned to SCUBA dive. He also enjoys football and being a husband, father, and grandfather.

Tyler Tribe

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY & PRODUCT OFFICER
Tyler Tribe is a seasoned technology executive with almost three decades of experience in creating software solutions. He is passionate about helping organizations develop world-class customer and employee experiences, building strong teams, and collaborating on vision and strategy for global corporations and small and medium-sized businesses. Before joining Becklar, he spent twenty years at IBM.

Clint Halverson

CHIEF PEOPLE & ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER
Clint Halverson is a people and culture leader with an HR heart and a business mind—a strategic leader with broad and diversified business experience. Clint has extensive experience leading organizational design and effectiveness, human resources, culture and engagement, talent acquisition, total rewards, and talent development. Before joining the Becklar team, he spent 15 years with a publicly traded real estate company, ultimately spending his last six years as their head of people.

Kirsten Kelley

VP OF MARKETING & NEW
OFFERINGS
Kirsten Kelley brings over two decades of enterprise software offering management and marketing experience to the Becklar team. Kirsten spent most of her career at IBM in various roles, including sales, channel management, product and offering management, and marketing. A proven leader, she worked with cross-functional teams and partners to improve customer retention and analyst recognition for IBM products and services.

Brock Winzeler

President, Becklar Workforce Safety / Personal Health & Safety
Brock Winzeler is President of the Freeus, Becklar Workforce Safety, and Becklar Connected Wellness businesses. He joined Becklar in 2015 to lead the newly acquired Freeus business. Since then, Brock has assembled and led a world-class team responsible for Freeus' accelerated growth and award-winning platform and services. Brock is known for his ability to drive accelerated growth through caring relationships with internal stakeholders and industry partners.

Justin Bailey

PRESIDENT, BECKLAR MONITORING
Justin Bailey is President of Becklar Monitoring and has led the company through dramatic growth and evolution. Beyond expanding the customer base, he developed hybrid partnership models that leverage Becklar's technology. He joined Becklar in 2010 as VP of Strategic Development, leading their IT team in software development and developing and implementing various technological advancements, such as AI monitoring.

Terri Bendixsen

VP OF ACCOUNTING & CONTROLLER
Terri Bendixsen is a driven financial leader with 15 years of accounting experience for various companies in Nutrition, Manufacturing, Retail, Real Estate, and Healthcare. Her background working with public and private companies provides a diverse skillset in financial reporting, process improvement, and team leadership. She thrives at implementing processes to facilitate growth and drive financial success.

Richard Watts

VP INFORMATION SECURITY
As an information technology and cyber security leader Richard Watts brings over two decades of IT experience to Becklar as the Vice President of Information Security. He is a strategic leader with a clear track record of building and managing teams responsible for enterprise-scale projects, including data center design, redundant network connectivity, enterprise telephony, and cyber security initiatives for privately held and large, publicly traded companies.

Floribel Duran

VP PEOPLE & TALENT
Floribel brings over a decade of People and Talent experience to Becklar. Floribel thrives by leveraging her business knowledge to support business partners and leaders in organizational and staffing strategies. Her passion in HR is driving employee engagement through strengthening culture and having a nimble mindset in a rapidly changing work environment.

Spencer Moore

VP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Spencer Moore is a market-aware revenue and commercial strategy executive with a strong reputation for delivering results. In his quest to translate brand promise into true power for the company and real value for its customers, he always challenges the status quo thinking with a fresh analysis of market trends. Spencer brings diverse business and new service development experience to the Becklar team and is passionate about developing lasting business relationships.

Jeffrey Bradford

SENIOR DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Jeff Bradford brings 25 years of extensive marketing experience and insights to the Becklar team. Jeff worked with a national tech company in the healthcare arena where he created a new brand and go-to-market launch strategy for their new Products and Services Division. Today Jeff leads the Becklar Marketing Team, orchestrating all marketing activities for Becklar and its subsidiaries, AvantGuard Monitoring Centers and Freeus.

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Our Clients & Partners​

It’s an honor to serve our loyal customers and partners.