Our Team

Heather Surlas
Heather Surlas

President

Heather attended Farragut High School and graduated from the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Heather created SafeT Systems and began her business venture in 1999. Heather oversees the in-office functions and financial side of the company.

J.J. Surlas
J.J. Surlas

Vice President

JJ Surlas grew up in Mt. Pleasant, PA and came to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville on a football scholarship in 1988.  JJ was listed one of four team captain’s his senior season at UT in 1992.  After college, JJ went into sales management for several large furniture companies in Knoxville.  He also went to work for MaxAlert, a burglar and fire alarm company as a salesman.  Max Alert was struggling in 2001; therefore, JJ came to work for SafeT Systems in June 2001.  Since JJ was so loyal to his employer MaxAlert, he set up a meeting to introduce his boss to the owner of SafeT Systems.  One month after that meeting, SafeT Systems bought MaxAlert and hired the owner and all of it’s employees.  JJ is now the Vice President of SafeT Systems.  He works directly under the President and oversees the entire sales and installation departments.

Chip Wolf
Chip Wolf

Licensed Qualifying Agent

Chip is a Bearden High graduate and attended the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  He has been in the security and electronics field since 1971.  While working with several East Tennessee security companies, he has designed, installed and serviced almost 10,000 security systems.  Chip also worked for Sonitrol and IBM.  He has lived in the Rocky Hill area with his wife Mary for over twenty years.  They have two children, Fawna and Ayrton.  He enjoys cooking as well as Indy, Formula One and sports car racing.

Patti McMahan
Patti McMahan

Office Manager

Patti is originally from West Virginia and has lived in the Knoxville area for 30+ years.  Patti graduated from Carson Newman University with a B.S. in Business.  Her experience includes payroll, accounts payable & receivable, cash flow, account reconciliation and general ledger.  As Office Manager, Patti oversees the office staff and is responsible for day-to-day accounting.  She is married and currently resides in Maryville. Patti started working at SafeT Systems in September 2015.

Jeff Benning
Jeff Benning

Commercial Operations Manager

Jeff grew up in Bristol and moved to Knoxville in 1976 to pursue an Electrical Engineering degree at UT. It didn’t take many UT football games and hikes in the Smokies for Jeff to decide that Knoxville would be his new home. Here he met his wife Diane, raised a family, and now enjoys time with the grandkids.

Jeff has been involved in the electronics industry his whole life. At age 14 he took a job repairing TV’s and 8-track tape decks (history lesson, kids) at a shop in Bristol and he never looked back. In Knoxville he worked with electronic point-of-sale systems for several years before joining SafeT Systems in 2008. Jeff is experienced with computer systems from DOS to current, various programming languages, communications protocols and transmission media – he even speaks binary and hexadecimal. With over a decade’s experience in troubleshooting and servicing fire alarm systems you can be sure he’ll keep your life safety system in top operating condition. Whether its fire alarms, access control or gate access systems, or any other low voltage system, Jeff will make sure your system is optimally installed and maintained to provide maximum benefit to you and your facilities.

David Pope
David Pope

A/V Installation Manager

David grew up outside of Richmond, Virginia and graduated from Highland Springs High School where he studied radio communications in Vocational-Technical School.  David has worked in the low voltage field since 1992.  He moved to Tennessee in 1998 and his experience includes audio-video distribution, home theater systems, whole-house audio, video security and all facets of low-voltage technology.  He has been married to his wife, Alice for 7 years and has three children, two step-children, one grandson and one granddaughter. David started working at SafeT Systems in October 2009.

Rick Fielden
Rick Fielden

Commercial Manager

Rick has lived in the Knoxville/Sevierville area all his life. He has been in the low voltage field for over 23 years. Rick started working at SafeT Systems in June 2017. He is married with four children and his hobbies are going to the lake, working on cars, and spending time with his family.

Want to join our team?