I’ve been part of this community for over 40 years. This is the most important thing I’ve ever built.

John Betancourt, Co-Founder

I’m John Betancourt, father of five, and I’ve been part of the San Diego community for over 40 years through our family-owned business, Fan Diego. What started as a ceiling fan showroom in the early 1980s grew into something bigger — the more families we served, the more we understood what their homes actually needed. That led me to get my electrical contractor’s license and build Specialty Electric, so we could do the full job right. Selection, installation, done properly, by someone who stands behind it.

From San Diego we expanded to the Coachella Valley. From Tijuana to Palm Springs, in starter homes and estates alike — this region is our home, and these families are our community. Many of our customers come to us from across the border. Our team speaks Spanish. That’s never been a business decision. It’s just who we are.

Then I became a father. Five times.

And all of that experience didn’t prepare me for what it felt like to stand in that nursery feeling helpless.

Watching Tari go through those newborn months — the 2am wake-ups, the worry, the exhaustion that doesn’t fully leave you even when the baby finally sleeps — I wanted to do something. That’s what fathers do. We want to fix it. We want to protect them. And so much of it feels out of your hands.

She’d walk into the nursery and find the baby sweaty and hot. Or lie awake wondering if the room was too cold, too still, too quiet. I knew ceiling fans. I’d installed tens of thousands of them. And it took becoming a father to ask the question I should have asked years earlier — what can this actually do for a sleeping baby?

The answer was in the research. The American Academy of Pediatrics had weighed in. Peer-reviewed studies had been published. But nobody in the ceiling fan industry had done anything about it. Nobody had connected the product to the science, the installation to the safety standard.

That’s what Babies Love Fans is. A father who wanted to do more — with four decades of community trust behind it.

Tari Betancourt, Co-Founder

I’m Tari Betancourt, co-founder, co-owner, and John’s partner in all of it — the business, the family, and everything in between.

I came up as a competitor. Division I soccer at the University of Arizona — Go Wildcats — and I took that same mentality into the tech industry straight out of college. Built a career early that I was genuinely proud of. Then we decided to start a family, and I made a deliberate choice to step away from that trajectory and be present for our kids. Five of them.

What I didn’t fully anticipate was what those years would actually cost me. I’m not someone who quits. I’m not someone who complains. And those newborn months still wore me down in ways I hadn’t prepared for. The sleep deprivation is real. The worry doesn’t clock out. The particular exhaustion of being responsible for a tiny human who cannot tell you what they need — that is its own thing entirely.

I also ran Fan Diego during a period when John stepped away to get his electrical contractor’s license. I kept it going. I understood then what I understand now — that this business is built on trust, and trust is built one family at a time.

I’ve since returned to the tech world in a senior sales role in internet security. Today you’ll also find me on the sidelines of Southern California youth leagues cheering on our two youngest daughters. Soccer mom in the truest sense — it just looks a little different now than it did in Tucson.

I co-founded Babies Love Fans because I know exactly what a new mother is carrying. I’ve carried it. And I wanted to build something that gave mothers a real answer — not guesswork, not another product, but genuine safety and comfort backed by someone who has actually been there.

That’s what we built. Together.

The Fan Diego Connection

Fan Diego opened in San Diego in the early 1980s. We added our Rancho Mirage showroom to serve the Coachella Valley. Over four decades we’ve worked with families across Southern California and northern Baja — many of our customers come to us from across the border, and our team speaks Spanish. This community has always been our community. It’s part of who we are.

That history matters because Babies Love Fans isn’t a startup with an idea. It’s four decades of knowing which fans are quiet enough for a sleeping infant, which motors run cool enough to leave on all night, which blade pitches move air gently without creating a draft. That knowledge doesn’t come from a spec sheet. It comes from being in the homes.

Every fan in our lineup was personally selected using our four-criteria ACSS framework — Airflow Efficiency, Quiet Operation, Durability, and 44 years of field experience. If it didn’t pass all four, it isn’t on the site.

Why Now

Energy costs in California are at historic highs. Running central air conditioning all night is expensive, hard on the environment, and recirculates the same indoor air over and over. The EPA and CDC data is sobering — indoor air can carry pollutants at 5 to 100 times the concentration of outdoor air. A ceiling fan pulling fresh air through an open window is better for your baby and better for your household than a sealed, air-conditioned room.

The moment is right. The science is clear. No one else is doing this with the credentials, the inventory, and the installation capability that we have.

“Cinco hijos. Cuarenta y cuatro años. Construí esto para cada familia que quiere hacer algo real por su bebé.”

“Five kids. Forty-four years. I built this for every family that wants to do something real for their baby.”

— John Betancourt, Co-Founder

John & Tari Betancourt · Fan Diego · Est. 1983 · Licensed Electrical Contractor CSLB #1113915 · Serving Southern California and Northern Baja · Hablamos español