Matt Leibelt and James Melad, principals of Direct Protect, met in the mortgage industry in the early 2000’s. After working in a different industry for a number of years, they reconnected to work in the home security space. Leibelt and Melad started a marketing company, JDM Marketing, with a focus on providing other security companies a turnkey, full-service marketing platform. With the success of that strategy, they later rebranded to Direct Protect Security and Surveillance, and became a full-service security company.