Our Story
History
Founded as Ken Ben NYC, LLC in 2017 by Mike Gordon with the initial goal of winning the New York City Immobilization contract, RISETEK has broadened its focus to develop intelligent solutions for municipalities, universities, multi-family communities, healthcare facilities, and commercial/mixed-use buildings across the globe.
Mike Gordon, President, spent the last decade working with New York City Department of Finance on their scofflaw program. Mike’s company provided towing services for New York City prior to the implementation of a booting program by the City in 2012, and continued on as a towing subcontractor for the program until November 1, 2019, when Ken Ben NYC, LLC was awarded the immobilization contract under the name RISNYC, LLC. Mike had a vision for how to improve many aspects of the old booting program, starting with the boot itself. Mike designed the Intelliboot with multiple US patents to address many of the shortcomings of the existing self-releasing boot.
Our Vision
RISETEK is revolutionizing the vehicle immobilization industry with its patented state-of-the-art hardware and software platform solutions. We deliver powerful results with our innovative, intelligent, state-of-the-art technology solutions while optimizing our valued clients’ business performance and empowering them to achieve next-level success.
RISETEK provides decades of experience along with our “best practices” for parking enforcement. Our experience allows us to offer proven methods and practices to deliver better results. As we have proven in New York City, there is value in implementing better technology and best practices.
Our proven self-releasing vehicle booting solution dramatically improves the performance of your booting program, collecting more of your unpaid citation revenue while reducing your operating costs and investment in equipment.
Mike Gordon
Mike has over thirty years of experience in the towing and enforcement industry; many of those years were spent working with various New York City agencies. He headed up the effort to win the New York City immobilization contract in 2019, and prior to that, worked on the booting and towing program for two decades. Mike has made RISETEK the industry leader in self-releasing boot services. He is a hands-on leader who is passionate about delivering on RISETEK’s commitments, always securing the necessary support and resources to ensure our programs are a success.
Jack Skelton
Jack offers thirty years of experience in the parking and transportation industry. Jack has focused a majority of his career in the municipal space, working with hundreds of city parking and transportation programs of all sizes and scopes in North America. His expertise is in designing customized technology solutions that solve the unique problems of his clients. Jack’s leadership is a key element of RISETEK’s success in delivering intelligent solutions for our clients.
Richard Ballard
CPP, Chief Operating Officer
Richard is responsible for the daily operations across the RISETEK organization. He holds numerous certifications in law enforcement, private security, and parking operations. He brings his exceptional knowledge and experience to our senior leadership team in order to deliver unique solutions to complex customer needs. Richard is also responsible for RISETEK’s IT operations utilizing his vast experience in system design, development, and implementation to provide best-in-class tools for our customers.
Damon Harvey
Damon brings over two decades of municipal transportation systems management fluency to RISETEK’s public sector engagement efforts across North America. Damon is a public sector Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) subject matter expert and his accumulated knowledge as both a department of transportation manager and as a member of the executive management team for several leading parking technology companies provides our team with invaluable practical industry experience. His responsibilities include introducing RISETEK’s smart technology solutions to public sector executives and their management teams. Additionally, Damon plays an integral role in identifying public sector transportation projects, project management, and participating in RISETEK’s bidding process for these opportunities and our deployment process. As a former public agency manager, Damon leverages his management experience to lead RISETEK stakeholder outreach efforts, from formal presentations to coordination with local, state, and federal decision-makers.
Garrett Hofeld
Vice President
Garrett joins RISETEK with a history of success in real estate, construction, and manufacturing environments. He has a BA in Marketing Management from Concordia University, St. Paul graduating Summa Cum Laude. His more than thirty years of experience as a small business owner, a business development executive, a manufacturing operations leader and marketing specialist allows Garrett to deliver a versatile solution to RISETEK. Garrett’s key attributes are his personal accountability, team player approach, growth minded processes, delivering on his sales promises, integrative thinking and a desire to continually learn.
Daniel Massey
Director of Solutions
Daniel has over twenty years of systems consulting, design, and integration experience in electronic security and parking management. His in-depth knowledge of state-of-the-art solutions allows him to focus on finding the correct technologies for specific customer needs. He has designed and implemented both small and enterprise scale systems for numerous customers across the USA and Canada. His experience and drive to stay ahead of the industry in new technologies has led him to hold numerous certifications and state licenses throughout his career. His role in RISETEK is to ensure functional, tailored solutions are deployed and implemented that meet and exceed our customer’s expectations.
Gayle Cathey
Director of Call Center Services
Gayle supervises all center-related activities, coming to RISETEK with a wealth of knowledge on managing call centers and nearly a decade of experience in the customer service industry. She believes that Customer Service agents on the front line are the real measure of success for any company and manages with that perspective always in mind. She feels that a Call Center is never just a group of agents but rather a collection of unique individuals that support each other. Her favorite part of her work is helping people advance in their careers and helping others grow into positions where they can succeed.
David Venancio
Client Success Manager
David joins RISETEK as a Customer Success Manger with 19+ years’ experience in parking operations and parking technology support. Starting his parking career in Sacramento before relocating to the Twin Cities with his family. He has operated the full spectrum of parking operations – Traditional Office, Hospitals, Hotels and Valet as well as large municipal partners. David’s tenure in the industry includes employment with SP+, Interstate Parking, LAZ and FLASH. His role is to ensure our deployed technologies exceed our valued clients’ expectations through customer centric exceptional experiences, implementing success programs, onboarding/training, educating our clients on product usage, identify cross selling or referral sales opportunities.
Barry Wilt
Sr. Project Engineer
Barry is joining RISETEK as a Project Engineer on our Implementation Team. A Pennsylvania-based professional with a master’s degree from West Virginia University and a comprehensive background spanning 13 years in the parking industry.
During his tenure at West Virginia University, he served as a technical lead for the university’s parking department showcasing his expertise in managing complex technical aspects. He spent nine years in Sales/Project Consultant roles at parking technology companies, T2 Systems & Flash, where he honed skills in project management, requirements gathering, and delivering exceptional customer experiences.
His diverse experience reflects a solid commitment to excellence and a proven ability to navigate the dynamic landscape of parking solutions.