The Howie Carr Radio Network

Meet the Experts: Anna Reger of Flip Lok

On this episode of Meet the Experts, Howie sits down to chat with Anna Reger, the founder of Flip Lok. For Anna, family always comes first, so when a warning for an active threat occurred too close to home, she and her husband got to work to create a universal method to protect families in school, at work, or at home. Anna's device, the Flip Lok, is ten times stronger than a deadbolt. Anna and Howie discuss the simplicity and strength of the Flip Lok, its many applications, and its introduction into school systems throughout the nation—including in our nation's capital.

Head to fliplok.com and use code HOWIE20 for 20% off the Original Fliplok.

Duration:: 17m
Broadcast on:: 22 Mar 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to another episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car, a new podcast featuring long-form interviews with guests who have a specialized field of expertise. Few things may be more frightening than a home invasion. Actually, securing the place where you should feel most secure is part of what motivated today's guests to market and mass produce a home security product of her husband's own design. Anna Rieger, owner of Flip Lock, joins Howie to discuss the simplicity and strength of the Flip Lock, its many applications, and how it's being introduced into school systems throughout the nation, and even key buildings in our nation's capital. Here's your host of Meet the Experts, Howie Car. Welcome to this latest edition of Meet the Experts. And today, we're with Anna Rieger from Flip Lock. It's a safety device that started as a way to protect children in case of a shooting or threat of a shooting at school. Today, Flip Lock goes far beyond the classroom to protect people in their homes, dorm rooms, offices, and more. Anna Rieger, who is our guest today, is a mother, wife, and a business owner. She is one of the founders of Flip Lock, along with her husband, John Rieger, who invented the actual Flip Lock. Anna, thanks for being with us today. And I'm going to start off by saying, everybody has a lot more security than they used to, whether it's cameras or alarms outside their home or apartment. They have chain bolts, chain locks, et cetera, et cetera. Why does someone need to get a Flip Lock in addition to all the other security devices they may have? Well, I'm glad you asked me that. So the difference with Flip Lock is, you know, a chain doesn't hold very much pressure. You know, somebody were to kick your door. They're just going to kick it right open. Even with the deadbolt, you know, deadbolt's hold about 100 to 200 pounds of pressure. And for your home, we made Flip Lock where it holds over 1,600 pounds of pressure, which is a lot. When you're trapped, somebody's trying to come in. It really buys you a lot of time to be able to go behind and protect yourself. It's so easy to use, it's so easy to install. I made it because, you know, I had a mother-in-law who would never lock her door. I have all my kids that are traveling and they move it into their own apartments and their own homes. And I just wanted to make sure that somebody didn't come in that had a key to their homes because if you rent from anybody, of course, somebody has a key where you live and you could be in the shower and they just knock and come in and you're vulnerable. You know, or even our kid, he's, you know, in college and he's got roommates. Well, I wanted to make sure that his room when he went to bed was secure and we put a Flip Lock on his door. And I think just having that extra layer of security really can bring peace of mind. But at the same time, it really provides that extra layer of protection for your home, for your office. People say go run into an office if there's a lockdown situation and lock the door. You need to be able to lock that door and you need to know during a panic distress situation. It's locked and with Flip Lock, you know it's locked 'cause all you do is flip it and it automatically drops and locks into place. Your husband invented this. How wanted to take him to come up with the Flip Lock? Well, we had been talking about school safety for a while after we got that unfortunate alert that no parent wants and when I got that alert, I said, oh my gosh, I don't know what my kid's supposed to do. And she knew everything to do except if her teacher wasn't with there, you know? And I said, what happens? Oh, I run in the classroom. My teacher get against the wall. My teacher locks the door. My teacher turns out the light. How do you know if the door is locked? I don't. Can you lock the door? No. What do you do if your teacher's not with you? She had no answer. And that was when we just said, oh, we gotta go into action. You gotta do more for our kids because as it stands, the teacher's the only one that can lock the door. And to me as a mom, that's totally unacceptable. Now, would people buy the flip-lock? How many do they usually get? I mean, because you could put these in every room in your house theoretically, right? That's right. You can put one in your front door, your back door. And I even have one in my bedroom because my husband sometimes travels and I wanna know that my bedroom, when I'm asleep, nobody's coming into my room. Regardless, it's just that extra layer of, just helps me sleep better at night, especially when he's not home. And I guess when you talk about people coming in when you're taking a shower, you can put one in your bathroom, too, when you can't hear anything because you're taking a shower, you could have them anywhere. Right, right. And back to your point, when you asked how long it took, it took a long time for us to do it because when we were creating it, I wanted to make sure that it was gonna do what we said it was gonna do, which is secure the door. And so we did many, many, many tests, many, many prototypes and to get to where we are. And the school one holds over 2,000, 2,500 pounds of pressure. The home one, like I said, holds 1,600 pounds of pressure. And those things you have to take into account when you're creating something that you say is gonna protect people. And that's really why it took us a while. A couple of years, just to get patents also. Could you take down a flip-lock door with a battering ram? Is that what you need? It's not enough to just use your shoulder. No, if you, yeah, you could, I mean, with the battering ram, you're gonna have some time to come in. But you know, we think about, you know, people, they're not gonna wanna stand at your door that long and do that. It's really just a total deterrent. And it also depends, you know, hopefully your door is strong and you have a great door. And then flip-lock gives it that extra reinforcement because 1,600 pounds of pressure is a lot to hold from somebody coming into your home. So what is the typical profile of one of your customers? So a lot of women, like myself, some women are single. They live on their own. They're concerned about their safety. They wanna make sure they have the extra security. Moms, like me, I have nieces and nephews. They come to my house, I put one up high, going out to the pool just to make sure they can't get out. We can't be everywhere all the time, you know? And then some of the moms told me they put it at the front door for their younger kids to not just open the door if somebody knocks 'cause our kids don't know any better when they're five or six. And it's just everybody, you know, my mother-in-law, she used, you know, in her 80s and it's hard for her to turn the lock. So she said she loves it 'cause now she can lock it and she doesn't have to worry about unlocking it 'cause all you do is lift it and flip it right back over. It's really a huge range of people that really wanna put flip-locks into their homes or businesses even. - I just thought of something too, if you have a pool outside or you just don't want the younger kids going out into the backyard to run into whatever they might run into, you could put one on the back door for that as well, right? - Yes, absolutely. Like I said, you could put it up really high, that way they can't reach it. And you know that they're not gonna at least be able to be out there. If you're in the kitchen cooking or you're doing something else, you know that that door is secure because kids, you know, we can't be with them. They're fast. - Have you had businesses purchase them as well? - Yes, actually it's funny. I just got back from Washington and the (indistinct) is looking to put them into their embassy for our school version. So we're really excited about that. And app hospitals even that have purchased them. I just got an order for a hotel that's putting them in their hotel. And then apartment complexes, I'm meeting with some complexes that are also wanting to put our home version into their complexes because secondary locks are required in apartment buildings and things like that. So this is perfect for them. And because it's so much stronger than what they have out, they've been contacting us nonstop actually. It's been great. - Would you say secondary locks are required? That means for insurance purposes. This might even help you out on home insurance. It's a possibility, is it not? - Yeah, it could. It could. You'd have to talk to your insurance company, but that's something we've been talking to them about too because employers need to keep their employees safe. And you know, there could be situations where somebody comes in and you know they're not supposed to be there and you need to be able to let your employees be able to secure themselves in their offices rather than them trying to stack doors because some people are not able to move furniture like that. - Now, can you explain how the flip lock is installed? - So it's installed to the frame of the door so it doesn't touch your actual door. So when you open your door in the frame, you install it there, four to six inch screws we recommend go all the way into the frame of the door, into the post, that's it. You just flip it and it drops and locks into place and it's always on your door so you know where it's at. There's nothing to look for. And you know from anywhere in your room that that door is locked. - Now do most people install it themselves or do they need a handy man to do it? - Well, I installed my own in my bedroom because I wanted it, my husband wasn't moving fast enough so it's not hard to do. You just need to drill and just set it. And that's it. You just drill a couple of screws in and it's in. So you could do it yourself. If you don't have a drill and you don't wanna do it, you could get a handy person to come in and do it but it's super, super simple. We have videos online to teach you and people can also call us. You know, we have people in the office that can help them with the installation or send us an email. We're happy to help. - And obviously the higher the quality of the wood or the metal in the door, the more effective the flip lock is going to be, correct? - Well, the door itself but the thing is is you drill all the way into the studs. You know, usually you go into the main support of the door frame which is one of the strongest places in your house. - Now, tell us about school safety and many of the listeners have seen the piece that ran on Boston television about Revere, Massachusetts and tell us what happened in Revere with the installation of the larger flip locks and also what other school systems you've worked with. So in Revere, they wanted something that was easy for anybody to be able to use. They have a lot of different doors and they didn't want to have to buy all new hardware which is triple what flip locks cost. So they decided to put in flip locks so that it would actually help give the kids a way to secure this classroom, give teachers peace of mind and they know what they're gonna do and then also give our kids peace of mind. So they just said, you know what? This seems like a really amazing thing that we can put in for our kids and give them peace of mind and give them a way to go into action so they could go back to being students and the teachers could stop worrying about that because that has come up a lot with the teachers in the schools and that's why they decided to put us in. We're in several schools. We're actually in counties like Colberson County. We're in some schools in Texas. We're in schools in Illinois. We're everywhere and it's because people want something that's already on the door. There's nothing to go look for. There's nothing to go do. If there's an emergency, you know exactly what you're gonna do. You run, shut the door, flip it and you get away from the door as fast as possible and that's it. The goal is to get away. When you're in an emergency situation, having somebody put in a key to try to turn it when you got kids screaming and somebody trying to hurt you, that's a really hard situation for anybody, especially a teacher who's trying to protect, you know, 10 to 15, 20 kids, you know, at the same time. And it's pretty simple construction. It's hard to screw it up unlike an electric battery charging station on the turnpike. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing about flip lock is we have an unlocking mechanism for administrators, first responders to get in and we also have a one motion, which is what Massachusetts requires. We have a one motion to be able to get out for egress. And we have fire marshal letters for that. So that's a big deal to have so that anybody can use. And the main thing about flip lock that was important to me was being able to make sure that people that are special needs or whatever that is and wheelchairs were able to access the lock because you want everybody to feel like they can do something in a situation like that. And being in a wheelchair should not discourage you or discount you from being able to do that as well. If there is a problem in a school, for instance, a first responder will have a way to get through, to open the flip lock to get inside, to provide assistance to the students and the teacher or whoever's in the classroom. Absolutely. They have it all set up there, especially the city of Rabir was very structured about how everything went and they have it all planned. And that's part of their security plan. So that's, I can't say much about that. All I can say is that they're a fabulous city and they are working really hard and they really care about their students and their faculty and, you know, I believe putting flip locks in is actually a big deterrent. Somebody going to do something like this, they're going to go, they got flip locks in every classroom. I can't, I don't even want to go to that school because I'm not going to get what I want, which is mass casualties. What is the power that is needed to break through the flip lock? Like, you know, they say like a running back, running at full speed going to hit something is about 1,600 pounds of force. And so you imagine somebody would have to come really try to get into that. It's super, super strong. And, you know, the truth is, is we haven't had people that stood there for 10 minutes trying to beat down a door, right? So imagine how much time that's going to cause somebody. How many lives can we save with somebody in that situation by just having a flip lock and having somebody out there where they're not with our kids in a horrible situation? - Can you share any success stories about flip lock repelling home invasion or school invasion, saving lives? - I haven't had any real people like that. What I've had people call and tell me, you know, like, hey, my kid used to open the door all the time and now, you know, I don't have to worry all the time now. I put a lock up on top because my kids smart and they figured out everything else and we put this up high enough. You know, I've had people say, I just love everything about it because now my elderly parents will lock their house because they weren't doing that anymore. So I've had those types of things, but I truly believe it will save lives, especially in schools. So hopefully we don't ever have to get that call. But if we do, I'll just know that what we created. It is really what my mission is, which is to save lives and empower people, take action. - So even though we've just mentioned it briefly, it's not just for safety, but it's also for toddlers to keep them from getting into trouble, from either getting outside or getting into parts of the house where they shouldn't be. - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you hear it, summer's coming, horrible situations come up every summer, as you know, with little ones. And this is just a preventative measure that you can take, even for your front door, because you've heard kids going outside, parents are asleep. Our kids, they can figure things out, you know? And if we can put in that extra measure, I think we could really save a lot of situations there. I just really believe in what I created. I created it as a mom with my kids, with first my kids in school, then my kids that are moving into their own apartments, to their own places to make sure my kids that are living in communal places with college students. I wanted one in his bedroom. It's just important that we're parents. The only thing we want to do is protect our kids. You know, that's your heart running outside of your body. What can we do when they're not with us? Because the truth is we can't keep them with us forever, but we can give them tools to be able to protect themselves while we're not with them. - How does Flip Lock compare price-wise to other security systems? - We're very competitive on that front. Some locks are 700 to, I've even heard 2,500 for one door per door. And we're 250 a door, and I think that we're super competitive for everybody, because my goal really is to put these in every school. I think it's important, and I believe in what I created, and I give a lifetime warranty, and I think that we just have to work together to try to make sure that we can make our schools safer. - And so you have a larger size for the schools, and a smaller size for residential or office space. Is that correct? - That's correct, that's correct. And we have a special one that we made for the embassy as well. - Oh, this is the embassy? Is that even larger one? - It's a middle-sized one that they preferred. So we are actually got one coming just for them, so they love our product and love everything about it, and so we just told them about that one, and I was with them on Friday in Washington, D.C., and really excited to be able to work with them. They said they saw us on TV, and they saw something about me, and they looked us up and did a lot of research, and then we sent them one last month, and then I told them, "Hey, I'm in Washington." They said, "Come on out," and I got to go walk around their embassy and talk to them, and they said, "They love it and want to put it in." So that's what we're doing right now with them. I mean, long-term, you could have more than two or three different sizes. You could have all different kinds of sizes. You know, the way things are going. - We make it, so there's nothing we can't do. - So, Anna Riga, if people want to learn more about Flip Lock, where can they find out more about it? - FlipLock.com, that's FLIP, L-O-K dot com. We have Facebook, Instagram, social media, and you can contact me as well. I'm just Anna at Flip Lock. - How long has Flip Lock been around? - Right at two years. - Two years? You've really come a long way in two years. - Yes, I'm very passionate about what I'm doing and what I created, and I believe this is my mission. I'm supposed to be out making schools safer, because as it stands, only 6% of the population can lock the doors, and some people, there's a real thing, it's called fire flight, and a teacher may or may not go into action. That's not their fault, but give my kid a tool, and I know they will go into action. So I really believe in this mission, and that's why I've been working so hard. - One last question. If people think that their local public schools or private schools should have these devices, is there a way they can lobby them, or should they just go to fliplock.com to find out how to make the pitch to their school systems? - Absolutely, they can contact us directly. I can even give them forms that they can send out to their respective people in charge, superintendents, everybody like that, and I can talk to them directly. I don't mind, I'm always here, I'm available. I believe in this, and I think we come together as parents, we can make things happen for our kids. - Anna Rieger from Flip Lock, a thank you for joining us here on Meet the Experts. - Thank you so much for having me on, and I look forward to hearing from many of your people on the radio, and thank you all so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it. - And thanks for coming up with a great new product. It's amazing. - Thanks for joining us on this episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car. Before you go, Anna is offering 20% off the original Flip Lock when you use code howie20@fliplock.com. That's code howie20@fliplock.com. We'll be back soon, with even more interesting guests, you're sure to learn a great deal from. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]