'20 under 40' Class of 2018—Ashley Raisanen

Ashley Raisanen, 31

Business manager, WH International Response Center

Rockford, Minn.

Ashley Raisanen, now the business manager at WH International Response Center, started with the company as an overnight dispatcher in 2009, and has “pretty much ... worked every position on the way up,” she said.

In 2013, she was promoted to a data entry specialist. She was promoted again in 2014 to be the day shift supervisor. In December of 2015, she assumed her role as the business manager.

WH International Response Center is a TMA Five Diamond monitoring center. “We continuosly evaluate and integrate technology to stay on the leading edge, and provide customized solutions for our customers,” she said.

In her role, Raisanen works with forecasting for the future of the business as well as managing the everyday operations of the company. “I work with our sales team to really vet out new technology and make sure it's the right fit for us, but I also work with the dispatchers and team leaders on a day-to-day basis,” Raisanen said. “To really understand where your business should be in the future, you have to know where you are today.”

Raisanen said she likes to see how new technologies fit in with monitoring services. “I love the new technology, I like to understand how it works. I'm a very technical person when it comes to the nitty-gritty of the business,” she said. “I just like that it's changing every day, it keeps you on your toes.”

Specifically, she highlighted video as a prominent technology right now. “I think that it's really going to enhance the dispatching aspect. I believe that most new systems will have some type of video integration to verify alarms.”