Meet the Team - Novak Lock & Security Manhattan

Meet the Manhattan Team Behind Novak Lock & Security Manhattan

We’re the crew that shows up when you’re staring at a door that won’t budge, a lock that turns freely without catching, or a new storefront that needs a master key system before Monday’s opening. Every technician on our Manhattan roster is background-checked, uniformed, and trained to The Haven Standard, the same documented quality framework we share with nine other brands across the network. What unites us isn’t a slogan. It’s the procedure we follow on every call: name the price in writing, do the work, leave a photo record, and stand behind it for 365 days.

Our People

Daniel Novak, Owner

I started this operation in 2002, and I’ve personally installed or serviced more locks than I can count. My specialty is high-security cylinders, the kind that can’t be picked or bumped by standard tools, brands like Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, and Abloy. I still take field calls when the job is complex or the customer has been burned by bait pricing before. You’ll know it’s me because I’ll tell you exactly what grade of hardware is on your door now, what grade you actually need, and why the difference matters in a five-story walk-up versus a doorman building. I keep a worn Medeco key blank on my desk from the first high-security job I ever did in the East Village. The cuts are wrong and the key never worked, but it reminds me that every lock has a right way and a wrong way, and the wrong way always costs more eventually.

Marcus T., Lead Technician

Marcus has been with us eight years and handles the calls where something doesn’t add up, a deadbolt that keeps failing, a commercial panic bar that trips without pressure, a residential rekey that reveals the previous owner installed the hardware upside down. He’s factory-authorized on Schlage, Baldwin, and Kwikset commercial lines, and he’s the one we send when a property manager in Midtown needs a master key system diagrammed and installed across forty units. Off the clock, he restores vintage motorcycles in a garage in Queens, which explains why he can rebuild a mortise lock from 1927 without flinching. Customers remember him because he explains what he’s doing while he’s doing it, not after he’s already charging.

Sofia R., Senior Installer

Sofia runs our access control and commercial hardware division, the jobs that start with a site survey and end with a building engineer who understands exactly how the new system works. She’s certified on electrified strikes, magnetic locks, and keypad entry systems, and she’s the one who tells a co-op board in the Upper West Side why their intercom integration won’t work with the cheap lockset they found online. Before she joined us in 2016, she spent four years as a commercial door hardware specialist at a supply house in the Bronx, so she knows which products actually ship with the parts shown in the catalog and which ones show up missing screws. She has a dog named after a cylinder manufacturer. We don’t ask which one anymore.

Derek L., Service Coordinator

Derek answers the phones. That sounds simple until you consider that he does it live, 24 hours a day, no automated queue, no callback window. He’s been with Novak since 2019, and he knows which technician is where, which jobs need parts ordered, and which customers are waiting on a second opinion for a competitor’s quote. He writes the initial scope and price that the technician is bound by, Haven Standard Clause 1, the price on the phone is the price on the invoice. Derek grew up in Washington Heights and still lives there, which means he knows which buildings have supers who hold master keys and which ones leave tenants stranded. He’s the reason our average dispatch time stays under thirty minutes for emergency calls below 110th Street.

Jin W., Apprentice Technician

Jin joined us in 2024 after completing a locksmith certification program in Brooklyn. He’s in his second year of field training, which means he works every job with a senior technician until he can rekey a cylinder blindfolded and install a deadbolt with the strike plate aligned on the first try. He’s already factory-authorized on standard Schlage and Kwikset residential lines, and he’s working toward his Medeco high-security certification. Jin has a habit of photographing every job stage twice, which slows him down slightly but means our documented photo records from his calls are the most thorough in the file. He lives in a fourth-floor walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen, so he understands why Manhattan customers care about how long a job takes and how little mess it leaves.

One Standard, Every Job

The Haven Standard isn’t a poster on the wall. It’s a numbered document that governs every brand in our network, and our Manhattan crew follows it without exception. Clause 1: the price quoted by the dispatcher is the price on the invoice, no additions at the door. Clause 3: every visit produces a documented photo record, left with the customer at completion. Clause 7: background checks and uniforms on every technician, every time. We’ve applied these rules across more than 60,000 locks, keys, and systems since 2002, and we apply them the same way whether the job is a single rekey in a studio apartment or a full access control build-out in a commercial high-rise. The standard doesn’t change because the borough does. Daniel Novak built this operation on that premise, and the current crew enforces it shift by shift, call by call.

Written by Daniel Novak, Owner at Novak Lock & Security Manhattan, serving Manhattan since 2002.