This story is part of our March 2026 issue. To read the print version, click here.
Ashlee Cervantes Thomas
CEO, Guardian Protection Force
CEO and Founder, Guardian Secure Solutions
Ashlee Cervantes Thomas started her journey in the security industry as a teenage loss prevention officer. Today, as CEO of Guardian Protection Force and founder of a budding new agency, she has cemented her place as a leader in a male-dominated industry and is actively building the future of security.
That teenage job was at American Eagle Outfitters, where she received an award for excellence in “customer service and merchandise recovery.” She later worked at a small security company as an administrative assistant and payroll specialist. Still, she had no plans to pursue a career in security, instead earning a liberal arts degree from Azusa Pacific University in 2010 with the goal of working in educational politics.
While working on her degree, GPF founder and Cervantes Thomas’ lifelong friend, Garrett Thomas, called on Cervantes Thomas for administrative help as he started his company. Their partnership bloomed into romance, and they married in 2011, but Cervantes Thomas never let that get in the way of work. She continues to use her maiden name around the office, and some of their employees don’t even realize the two are married.
“A big factor for me personally is that this is a very much male-dominated industry, and I wanted to be able to stand out on my own merits and not just be Garrett’s wife,” she says. Cervantes Thomas prides herself on her real-life “boots on the ground” experience and enjoys working out in the field whenever she can get away from her desk.
“A big factor for me personally is that this is a very much male-dominated industry, and I wanted to be able to stand out on my own merits.”
In addition to serving as CEO of GPF, Cervantes Thomas is vice president and the only female currently on the California Association of Licensed Security Agencies, Guards & Associates board. That might sound like enough to keep her busy, but in 2024, she also founded her own company, Guardian Secure Solutions, to fill an industry gap for affordable and accessible dispatch services augmented by advanced technology.
“I decided to build the thing that I most needed,” Cervantes Thomas says of Guardian Secure Solutions, adding that technology like AI is the future of the industry, and building GSS was her “way of trying to get ahead of that curve as best as possible.”
Cervantes Thomas is also the mother of two boys: Chris, 7, and Matt, 5. Even with a family and two companies to run, she acts as a mentor to other women wherever she can. From coaching cheerleading and mentoring other young coaches to recruiting and supporting an all-female leadership team, Cervantes Thomas says she loves “mentoring and bringing up women.”
The complexities of being a Latina woman in a male-dominated field aren’t lost on her. “I operate in a man’s world day-to-day, and I’m such a woman’s woman,” Cervantes Thomas says. She credits the mentors who guided her, such as Kate Wallace, association manager for CALSAGA’s charitable foundation, who Cervantes Thomas says was influential in getting her involved in the association and assuming a leadership role.
If she has free time that isn’t devoted to her companies, family, CALSAGA, rooting for her cheer mentees or volunteering at her kids’ school, Cervantes Thomas enjoys taking her retired protection dog (a 10-year-old German shepherd named Arrow) on “a fun field trip down to the office because he misses it so much.”
Now that Arrow is living his best retired life, Cervantes Thomas hopes to build a new protection canine unit for GPF. Other goals include increasing billable hours by 25 percent and expanding into new markets with an office in Tracy.
As for GSS, Cervantes Thomas is focused on continuing to build her 2-year-old company, including obtaining licensing and figuring out how to best serve as a “fully functioning security operations center.”
“I’m navigating that founder life and then learning more about the tech, and the technology is still rapidly developing. So I feel like my big goal for GSS is just to stabilize,” Cervantes Thomas says.
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