You Should Know … Jared Krieger

0
Jared Krieger
Jared Krieger (Courtesy of Jared Krieger)

Jared Krieger, 23, has dedicated his life to protecting and serving the Jewish community.

After graduating from Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School in 2016, Krieger tried college before joining his father’s company, Defender One Security. Now, Krieger works as the operations manager and the training director for Defender One. Defender One Security works to protect the Jewish community at multiple institutions including Beth El Congregation of Baltimore, Beth Tfiloh Congregation and the JCC of Greater Baltimore. In addition to his work in security, Krieger acts as the EMS captain and second vice president of the board at Reese Volunteer Fire Company in Carrol County.

Krieger and his two dogs Fred and Barney currently live in Owings Mills. Krieger belongs to Beth El.

How did you know that you wanted to do this work?

I didn’t, actually. Initially, I wanted to be a doctor. I’ve always been involved in the fire department, and I started volunteering when I turned 16. I am currently EMS captain in Reese Volunteer Fire Company in Carrol County. I’ve always wanted to help people, and I thought that being a doctor was the way.

I really fell in love with the idea of protecting people, especially the Jewish community. With antisemitism on the rise, taking care of the Jewish community was something that was really important to me.

Why did you decide to work for Defender One instead of becoming a doctor?

College didn’t turn out to be for me, and I came home. I found my way to this, which has been the perfect fit. Now, I am the operations manager and the training director. I run all the day-to-day operations for our security component, and I am in charge of all of our training at our training center.

What do you do on a day-to-day basis?

On a day-to-day basis, I monitor all of the operations throughout the company. I check in with guard staff, check in with clients and do a lot of the back-end office work. I also talk with new clients because if I don’t get clients then people don’t have work. The most important thing is making sure the guards are doing what they are supposed to be doing for our clients.

How did you begin firefighting?

When I was younger, we were at one of our cousin’s bar mitzvah parties, and my sister was allergic to peanuts. She accidentally ate a chocolate mouse that had peanut butter in it, and she had to go to the hospital in an ambulance. In that situation, I felt pretty helpless. So, when I turned 16, I joined the fire department and got my EMT. I spend a significant amount of time there; it is like a second full-time job. It’s a lot of fun and what I kind of do to clear my head. I’ve always been drawn to helping people. I’ve always said that my major goal was that when people are calling 911 on their worst days, anything I can do to put a smile on their face is worth it.

Do you feel like you are making a difference?

Absolutely. Given the rise in antisemitism and the recent attack in Texas, we’ve had a lot of clients reach out. We want to make sure they feel safe. We’ve had a lot of clients show a lot of gratitude that we make them feel safe in their community. That’s something that we really strive for. We offer a robust training curriculum that is free for all of our clients. It includes civilian response to active shooter events and a very expansive active shooter response attack planning program. In this program, we do evaluations and run them through drills. We teach them exactly what to do in these situations so that when something like this happens, and I say when because it’s the truth, they are prepared to protect themselves.

Do you feel like Baltimore is an overall dangerous place?

Baltimore is a great place; there’s a lot of stuff to do and it’s very homey. Baltimore is a city. But, yes, there are some dangers in Baltimore City, especially along the Park Heights corridor. What we do by working with our federal, state and local partners is make sure there is no active threat to our local Jewish community. Being interconnected with all our partners and keeping open communication lines with all of our clients helps us to develop active plans and helps us to make sure that everyone is on top of all of the data that we have. We want people to feel safe.

Never miss a story.
Sign up for our newsletter.
Email Address

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here