Meet the Florida Team Behind Strongbox Lock & Safe Co. of Florida
We’re the crew that shows up when you’re standing outside your door at midnight or when your business needs its first master key system. Every one of us passed a background check before we ever touched a lock in this state, and we wear the uniform so you know who’s on your property. What ties us together isn’t a handbook. It’s the stubborn belief that a locksmith should be the most verifiable person you ever hire.
Our People
Randall Odom - Owner & Master Locksmith
I started picking locks in my uncle’s hardware store in Pensacola when I was fifteen, mostly because he couldn’t afford to pay me and figured I’d quit inside a week. That was 1982. I got my Florida locksmith license the year I turned eighteen and opened my first shop with a borrowed drill press and a box of Schlage deadbolts that fell off a truck. Not literally. Well, mostly not literally.
These days I run the operation, still take the occasional call nobody else wants, and hold a Certified Master Locksmith credential through ALOA. I named this company for the iron box my grandfather kept the family deed in, the one with the combination nobody could remember and the hinge that squeaked. That box outlasted three houses. That’s the standard I measure our work against.
When I’m not working, I’m usually rebuilding an outboard motor or arguing with my wife about whether oysters belong in dressing. They don’t.
Marcus T. - Lead Technician, Emergency Services
Marcus joined us in 2019 after eight years with a national chain that measured his performance by how many calls he could squeeze into a shift. He left because a ninety-year-old woman in Fort Lauderdale once handed him a glass of iced tea while he was rekeying her front door, and his dispatcher called three times to hurry him along. He finished the tea. Then he gave us a call.
He’s our go-to for high-security installations, Medeco and Mul-T-Lock specifically, and holds certifications in both brands’ proprietary pinning systems. Marcus has a habit of explaining exactly what he’s doing while he works, whether you asked or not. Most people end up grateful. He’s also the reason we keep a jar of peppermints in every service van, a holdover from his grandmother’s belief that a man should always have something to offer.
Elena V. - Senior Installer, Commercial & Access Control
Elena came up through the electrical trade in Hialeah, wiring storefronts and strip malls before she ever touched a lock cylinder. That background matters more than you’d think. Modern access control isn’t just keys anymore. It’s electrified strikes, card readers, and biometric panels that need someone who understands both sides of the door.
She’s certified in Schlage Control and Sargent Harmony systems, and she’s the one we send when a property manager in Tampa or Orlando needs a full building rekey overnight because a maintenance supervisor just quit with every master key in his pocket. Elena keeps a notebook of every building she’s worked on, hand-drawn floor plans with lock locations marked in pencil. She says the apps are fine for billing, but nothing beats paper when you’re crawling through a mechanical room at 2 a.m.
Off hours, she restores vintage motorcycles and has been trying to convince Randall to let her install a keyless ignition on the company Ford for three years now.
Darnell K. - Service Coordinator
Darnell is the voice you actually reach when you call (844) 956-4715 at midnight on Christmas Eve. He’s been with us since 2013, which means he’s heard every possible variation of “I’m locked out” and still answers the phone like it’s the first time. Before this, he dispatching for a towing company in Jacksonville, so he came pre-trained in the art of calming down someone who’s having a worse night than you are.
He coordinates our Florida-wide coverage, keeps track of who’s where and what parts are on which van, and maintains the spreadsheet that tells us whether we’re hitting our promised arrival windows. We do, ninety-four percent of the time last quarter. Darnell knows the other six percent by heart and can tell you exactly what happened on each one. He’s also the reason our technicians show up with the right hardware instead of making a second trip. The man has a memory for part numbers that borders on unsettling.
He plays competitive dominoes and will not discuss his tournament record unless you ask twice.
Javier R. - Apprentice Locksmith
Javier started with us in 2023, fresh out of a vocational program in Miami-Dade that Randall helped design the curriculum for. He’s the newest member of the crew and the one most likely to spend twenty minutes on a lock that Marcus could open in two, because he’s determined to understand why it worked, not just that it worked. That’s the point of an apprenticeship.
He’s completed his Registered Locksmith certification and is working toward his Certified Professional Locksmith credential. Right now he handles the bulk of our residential rekeys and lockout calls, with Marcus or Elena riding along on anything involving safe work or access control. Javier grew up in a house where his mother changed the locks herself every time his father left, which is either the best or worst preparation for this trade, depending on how you look at it. He’s good with old Kwikset and Weiser hardware, the kind you find in Florida tract homes built between 1985 and 2005, and he’s developing a specialty in vintage restoration that we didn’t know we needed until he started bringing skeleton keys back to life.
He fishes on weekends and refuses to keep his catch, which confuses the other guys at the dock.
One Standard, Every Job
We don’t have regional managers or franchise territories. Randall takes the call when a job goes sideways, no matter which county it happened in. Every technician carries the same background-check documentation, wears the same uniform, and quotes by the same flat-price system. The 90-Day Done Right Promise applies whether you’re in a beach condo or a warehouse district. No paperwork to file, no arguing, no exceptions. We stand behind it because our name is on the invoice, and our name is on the invoice because we did the work ourselves. That’s the only way this makes sense.
Written by Randall Odom, Owner at Strongbox Lock & Safe Co. of Florida, serving Florida since 2013.