About Us

About Creating Private Safety Network

The inspiration for Private Safety Network was the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and shortly thereafter the privacy concerns that emerged in non-private social media. Together these events led to our interest in looking at push notifications as a vehicle to overcome obstacles we saw in the Parkland crisis. We also saw the benefits of communications through truly private networks. This approach allowed us to overcome a lot of the communication hurdles witnessed in Florida.

Our Vision

PSN gives organizations, schools, municipalities and the people in them the ability to communicate in real time. People can swiftly report what they see to onsite PSN user groups who can react immediately. Additionally they can communicate with responders, giving them complete, accurate, timely data directly from the site. Responders and administrators are able to send mass notifications, giving people fast, valuable information that can keep them safe.

PSN also uses data from devices, and includes it in the communications. Users’ locations, room status, access control and security system events are all made available almost instantly to the people who need them. This is the vision of PSN, connecting people who are at risk with people who can provide help, and giving those responders all of the available information about the situation. Instead of this information being routed through a central dispatch that may be quite distant and overwhelmed, it is sent directly to the people who need it. We are aware of no other system that provides responders with onsite data from people and devices at the speed of PSN.

Also part of the vision is preventing crises. People can safely and privately report suspicious activity, creating the opportunity to address it before a tragedy occurs. Devices report issues to multiple people instantly, rather than a single security person who may not receive it. Speed and notifying the right people can prevent a major problem.

About the Founders

Keith C. Welch graduated from Virginia Tech and then finished graduate work at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has been in engineering for 35 years, and mobile software for 15 years (before iPhones!). He has worked in military communications, big data, social networking, and customizable applications.

Cynthia Goodenough Welch graduated with both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at University of Maryland, College Park. Her background is diverse with experience in advertising and marketing management, technical writing for the Naval Electronic Systems Engineering Activity, and as a psychotherapist in private practice. Her product visions have driven Mooseworks Software developments, and now Private Safety Network. The combination of our backgrounds and personal experiences has made Private Safety Network possible. PSN is the culmination of our lives work, and is something very close to our hearts.

Make "see something, say something" meaningful and effective

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