How the Minnesota Twins unified threat intelligence and emergency response with Envoy

The Minnesota Twins are one of 30 Major League Baseball franchises, and Target Field is one of the busiest venues in the Twin Cities. Each year the ballpark welcomes more than 2.1 million fans across the baseball season, plus 250 or more special events and concerts. Keeping that 12-acre stadium safe, and keeping a workforce that spans academies, affiliates, and scouts across the Americas connected, falls to Senior Director of Security Jeff Beahen and his team.

Beahen brings nearly four decades of law enforcement and emergency management experience to the role, including serving as police chief and emergency management director for the cities of Elk River and Rogers, Minnesota. Eight years into leading security for the Twins, he knows that protecting Target Field means preparing for far more than baseball. Located in the heart of downtown Minneapolis, the stadium sits above active rail lines, across from high-rise residential buildings, and at the center of a city that regularly hosts major events while navigating severe weather, civil unrest, and evolving public safety threats.

“There are 30 MLB teams in the world. I have the privilege of working for one of them. And with that comes some very unique security experiences. We seem to be the epicenter for strange and unusual things, aside from our team’s play. 

Challenge: Protecting an iconic venue and a workforce spread across the Americas 

A Major League ballpark is a small city on game day. Fans, vendors, contractors, event staff, and players all move through Target Field, and the security team is accountable for every one of them. On top of the crowds, the Twins organization reaches far beyond Minneapolis. Beahen’s responsibility does not stop at the stadium gates.

“You think of the Twins at Target Field, but we have an academy in the Dominican Republic. We have scouts all over the world. We have our spring training facility in Fort Myers, and multiple Double-A and Triple-A facilities throughout the U.S. So we have Twins employees all over the Americas, and we need to be able to notify them of something.”  

Prior to Envoy, the emergency notification platform they used lacked directory integration, resulting in inaccurate contact lists and notifications being sent to former employees. At the same time, threat intelligence existed separately from communication, forcing security teams to piece together information before deciding whether to act.

Solution: One platform for threat detection, communication, and response

The Twins replaced their previous emergency notification provider with Envoy Response, bringing threat intelligence, mass notification, real-time presence, and incident management into a single platform. Instead of monitoring multiple systems and manually determining who might be affected, Jeff's team can identify relevant threats, see which employees, contractors, and visitors are at risk, and communicate with them immediately. Okta integration ensures notifications reach the right people using current employee data, while multi-channel delivery over phone, text, email, and Slack provides built-in redundancy when every second counts.

"Envoy brought together the two things we needed: the ability to message employees with accurate information and a threat dashboard with real-time, relevant information that lets us inform staff when they need to shelter in place, avoid an area, or respond to a developing situation.”

For Beahen, reliable communication isn't just about speed. It's about ensuring messages still reach people when the systems they rely on every day don't. During a major incident, power can fail, cellular networks can become congested, and Wi-Fi can go offline. By delivering alerts across multiple channels simultaneously, Envoy Response gives the Twins confidence that critical instructions will still reach employees when traditional communication methods are unavailable.

"We can send our messages by phone, email, Slack, and text. We like the redundancy Envoy provides. If phones fail, Slack still gets through. And when people receive the same message four different ways, they know it's real."

Responding when every minute matters

For Beahen, the value of Envoy Response isn't theoretical. It's become a critical part of how the Twins respond to fast-moving public safety incidents, helping his team quickly understand what's happening, determine who could be affected, and communicate trusted information before rumors or misinformation spread.

"When a crisis arises, there is always a lot of misinformation on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and most of it is not accurate. Envoy gave us a tool that could give us relevant information so we could communicate accurate information to our staff.

Rather than relying on fragmented news reports or social media, the Twins use Envoy Response to quickly verify what matters and communicate with confidence. When an active shooter was reported roughly 30 blocks from Target Field, the team quickly alerted employees who regularly traveled through the area after work, helping them avoid potential danger.

"With Envoy, I'm getting the information in a timely manner, and I can immediately formulate a message and get it out to people. That's really, really important.

Because Envoy Response connects emergency communications with real-time workplace occupancy, the Twins can notify more than just employees. Contractors, vendors, and visitors on site receive the same timely alerts, ensuring everyone in the building has the information they need to stay safe.

"If you have visitors in your building and it's related to your facility, contractors, vendors, and people here for meetings also get that notification. It closes the loop."

Extending protection beyond the ballpark

The Twins' responsibility doesn't end at Target Field. With employees, scouts, and spring training operations spread across North America and the Caribbean, the security team also uses Envoy Response to protect people wherever work takes them.

Whether monitoring hurricanes impacting Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers or sharing localized safety information with traveling employees, Beahen's team can reach people in minutes and confirm they received the message. During the statewide manhunt following the attacks on Minnesota lawmakers, many employees hadn't yet heard the news when the security team issued a proactive alert through Envoy.

"A lot of our employees woke up that Saturday morning clueless about what had happened. We sent out a statewide message through Envoy: shelter in place, tune in to your local news, and here's how to protect yourself and your family."

The ability to communicate quickly is only part of the equation. Just as important is knowing whether people are safe.

"The quickest, most efficient way to notify our people is with Envoy. Then we have the ability to ask: Are you okay? Do you need help? Have you received this message?"‍

Staying ahead of every threat

‍Envoy Response also includes a threat intelligence capability which continuously scans signals across weather, crime, infrastructure, and public health, then surfaces only what is relevant to each location. Instead of piecing together a patchwork of feeds by hand, Beahen’s team sees the risks that matter to Target Field and Hammond Stadium in one place. 

“Thirty-nine years in law enforcement and emergency management taught me that in a crisis, minutes matter, and the team that learns about a threat first is the team that can protect people best. Envoy Response is built to shift security from reacting to an incident to seeing it form, and getting your team ahead of the risk."

Envoy Response lets his team set the threat categories, severity levels, and distance thresholds that matter for each site, then automatically notify the right people the moment a qualifying threat appears nearby. Coverage reaches up to 200 miles across nine threat categories, including severe weather, wildfires, floods, active-shooter events, transit closures, and infrastructure disruptions, so Target Field, Hammond Stadium, and the corporate office each get coverage built around them.

That proactive edge showed up in a real event. During a SWAT situation in Minneapolis, Envoy surfaced the threat about two hours before the Twins’ previous system flagged the same incident, giving Beahen’s team a meaningful head start. 

Compliant and secure visitor management: every visitor, every alert‍

The Twins also use Envoy visitor management to manage everyone entering Target Field who is not a ticketed fan: vendors, contractors, and event guests. For a Major League club, visitor management is not just convenience. It is a compliance requirement.

“Those who visit our stadium log in through Envoy. MLB requires a background check for any vendor or visitor, and Envoy has that background-check process built in. So it keeps us SAFETY Act compliant, and it keeps us in good standing on the MLB side. I have my MLB security audit tomorrow, and they’ll be looking closely at it.”  

Every visit is logged, so when the annual MLB security audit comes, Beahen and his team are ready with accurate records rather than a scramble.

Because those visits run through Envoy, the Twins always know who is inside the stadium, and that same visibility feeds emergency response. When an alert goes out, it can reach the vendors, contractors, and event staff on site, not just employees in a directory. The people who are usually invisible when a threat hits are counted, reachable, and accounted for.

That is the payoff of running visitor management and Envoy Response on one platform. Who is on site drives who gets the alert, so a shelter-in-place or all-clear reaches everyone in the building, and the team can confirm each person is safe.

Beyond day-to-day operations, Envoy Response also helps the Twins meet security requirements established by Major League Baseball and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's SAFETY Act program.

Maintaining certification requires both emergency notification capabilities and threat intelligence. Having those capabilities integrated into a single platform simplifies ongoing compliance while strengthening the organization's overall security posture.

"If we didn't have Envoy, we wouldn't continue to be certified." 

Access governed by the identity stack the Twins already trust

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‍Envoy fits inside the identity system the Twins already use. Employee records sync from Okta into Envoy, so the people who receive emergency alerts stay current with the organization’s directory, without a separate list to maintain by hand. Keeping Envoy in the same identity stack also means the platform sits behind the access controls that protect the Twins’ other systems.

“Any MLB or Twins product that goes on a personal cell phone, it’s all Okta integration. Everything has to go through Okta, so the Twins are controlling the access to that platform. It’s worked fairly successfully.”  

For a security team, that means the same access controls that protect everything else also protect the platform they count on in an emergency.

70 deliveries a day, every one accounted for

Security doesn't stop at the lobby. Deliveries are another way people and packages enter the building, and the Twins saw room to improve how they managed them

On a busy week, over 70 shipments arrive at the loading dock each day. Every one of those packages is a person, a vehicle, and an item entering the building. Without a record, an unattended package on the dock is just an unknown. The old process didn't help. Employees had to email the loading dock staff to flag what was coming, when, and who was expecting it. Each time a delivery arrived, staff called to confirm it was expected, then called the recipient to come get it. Packages sat while the calls happened.

"That whole process is done within Envoy now, and the notifications are automated to save us time."

Now with mailroom management with Envoy, when a delivery person drops off a package, they log the details in Envoy and the right person is notified instantly. Nothing sits unclaimed. Every drop-off carries a record of what arrived, when, and who picked it up, so if something needs to be traced, the answer is already there. As larger events resume and more deliveries land at the dock, Beahen is confident Envoy's processes will scale with the organization.

Results: One platform the Twins trust to keep people safe‍

By consolidating onto Envoy, the Twins moved to a single platform for who is on site, how the team reaches them, and how they account for everyone afterward. Notification is faster and more reliable, threat monitoring is proactive rather than manual, and compliance records are audit-ready by default. 

For Beahen, the payoff is confidence: one system, built on a security backbone he vetted, that reaches a workforce spread across the Americas and helps his team stay ahead of whatever situation life throws at them next.

"Protecting our stadium in the heart of Minneapolis means preparing for everything from severe weather and major events to civil unrest. I need every advantage I can get. Envoy helps us quickly understand what's happening, communicate with confidence, and make sure the right people receive the right information before a situation escalates."