Jan. 22, 2015 - HUDSON, Wis. – TurnKey Corrections (TKC) announced today that it has hired Rob Allen as Vice President of Business and Product Development. As of February 1st, Mr. Allen will join TKC after a decorated 25 year law enforcement career. “Rob was a dedicated and highly respected police officer and law enforcement executive and we believe his professional skills, experience and stature adds a completely new dimension to our company. We are as excited about this addition as we have any product we could roll out to our clients,” said TKC parent-company CEO Todd Westby.
Rob joins TKC with a lengthy list of accomplishments, experience and skills. “We believed it was time to bring in someone who had the experience and credibility that TKC was about much more than technology and revenue growth. We want to be known as the best partners to our clients and the leaders in the law enforcement community in service and technology advancements and Rob’s skills and accomplishments speak for themselves and will help us execute this,” added Vice-President Patrick McMullan. “And it is important to note, we stress ‘Product Development’ just as much as growing the company. Rob will lead refining our existing products to improve the service and execution we provide our law enforcement partners and introduce well thought out and designed new products.”
Rob graduated from Beloit (WI) College in 1984 with a B.S. in Sociology. After excelling in Loss Prevention and Risk Management positions with Carlson Companies, the Minnesota Twins and the Minnesota North Stars, Rob joined the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) in 1989. Rob’s was involved in patrol, community policing, investigations, bike patrol and many other critical tasks. Rob continued his education while being an officer for MPD attending both the Senior Management Institute for Police and the Southern Police Institute (SPI) at the University of Louisville. Rob also attended the Master’s Degree Program at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
His experiences and education earned Rob a career path through the MPD ranks. Rob eventually served several years as the Deputy Police Chief for the Minneapolis Police Department. In addition to his leadership within the department, Rob became a nationally recognized instructor teaching Critical Incident Management courses for SPI and is a considered a subject matter expert and does curriculum development for the National Center for Bio-medical Research and Training at Louisiana State University. His accomplishments and impact on crime are wide-ranging.
Rob lead the MPD initiative of utilizing the CODEFOR principles first employed at the New York City Police Department. CODEFOR was credited with a 35% reduction in Part 1 crime in the City of Minneapolis and to this day, remains in use as the MPD’s primary strategy in crime reduction. Rob led the SAFEZONE deployment for MPD. SAFEZONE, a British video technology and information communication product, earned the department a national award in 2006. Rob was the Incident Commander in 2007 of the I-35W bridge collapse over the Mississippi River and he also chaired the planning and operations team for the 2008 Republican National Convention hosted in the Twin Cities.
Rob retired from MPD in 2013 and joined the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office. Seeking a new challenge and diversity of experience, Rob was the Director of Planning and Policy Analysis. His primary focus was streamlining intelligence sharing within the agency and LEO partners throughout the Twin Cities and Minnesota. Rob was also very active in helping develop process and technology improvements.
TurnKey Corrections provides kiosks and software that runs the life of an inmate while incarcerated at a client jail facility. The TKC system provides proprietary commissary ordering and fulfillment using its patented kiosk system. Their system also provides on and off-site video visitation, inmate email, paperless messaging, law library, music, trust accounting and over 30 other major features on kiosks that installed at no cost to tax payers.
“Rob’s ability to take complex and difficult tasks and impact law enforcement agencies and the community combined with his technological expertise made this an automatic decision for our company,” added Mr. McMullan. “With the diversification of our business over the past two years after we added Three Square Market, we wanted to ensure our law enforcement partners understood our commitment to them. We believe that with Rob, our VP-Operations Melissa Timmins and Chief ITO Ben Halberg, we have the premier team in the industry to lead our company and be the best partner our LEO clients have.”
TurnKey Corrections was founded in 1998 and today services correctional facilities in over 30 states. TKC also owns American Institutional Supply, which provides all types of correctional products. TKC started Three Square Market (32M). 32M has grown in less than two years to be the #3 provider of break-room market technology (aka micro markets) with over 500 stores open in the U.S., Canada, Central America and Australia. “Our plan is for each of our companies to be nationally recognized as the World Class standard in our industry,” added Mr. Westby. “Rob Allen is big step in executing this vision for TurnKey Corrections.”