BEGINNINGS

At first, it was personal...

1st Line Defender, LLC was conceived and created from a direct passion along with a concern to educate and train people in the possible event of an active shooter(s) or violent intruder(s). The company’s founders, Carl and Teresa Thompson, initially began discussing in early 2015 the increasing number of events involving active shooters and how these events were including more and more types of venues. These tragic events were sadly becoming more commonplace and were simply no longer confined to certain types of establishments or geographic areas. Teresa had questioned what would happen at their local church, which the couple attended with family, should such an event occur there. Carl’s grim prediction of the potential outcome was an extremely tragic scenario given his background knowledge as a former Detective in Law Enforcement. They began to realize that there was simply no plan or direction in place for such an event. As Carl began to assess their local church and create a plan to counter such an event, they began to speak with others in the community only to realize that no plans existed where they worked or attended their place of worship as well. When asked, people simply had no idea what they would actually do or how they would respond if confronted with a catastrophic occurrence such as this. Carl and Teresa felt an urgent need to educate, train, and prepare organizations to counter these potential events. This ultimately led to the creation of 1stLine Defender. In further discussions with individuals and organizations, there was also the realization that each had unique needs that could not simply be met with a “one size fits all” approach. 1st Line Defender strives to accommodate both the organization and the people’s needs to increase the chances of survival rather than accept a “no win” situation as the outcome.