Who are we?
For more than 45 years Safariland™ has produced some of the finest and most innovative products for the law enforcement, competitive shooting and military industries. In 1964, following his father's request for a custom holster, Neale Perkins launched a holster business from his garage in Sierra Madre, California. He named his new company after the African safaris he and his father enjoyed together. From these humble beginnings, Safariland quickly went from making a few hundred holsters to more than 5,000 within a few months.
In 1996, American Body Armor and its shareholders joined forces to form Armor Holdings, a diversified holding company with three manufacturing locations and plans for significant additional growth. Over the course of 11 years, Armor Holdings acquired many of the most-recognized equipment brands in the law enforcement industry, including Safariland. Each company brought with it the spirit of innovation and a passion for its customers and products.
In July 2007, BAE Systems acquired Armor Holdings and BAE Systems Products Group was formed. That acquisition created a significant opportunity to grow the business further in the United States and foreign markets. In addition, the acquisition enabled Armor Holdings' customers to benefit from the talent, business resources and technology a leading defense contractor brings to the table.
Throughout these changes, we have maintained the same spirit of innovation and passion for protecting our customers that existed in Neale's small California garage back in 1964. The spirit of our new motto remains largely unchanged: Together, we save lives™.
Why are we doing this?
As a rapidly growing business, our goal is to maintain our status as a well-recognized industry leader. Going to market as a single brand, with one clear voice and message, allows us to better achieve that goal while still maintaining our individual and collective identities. Despite having the most well-known and respected brands in the industry, very few of our customers realized we were one company. Our goal has always been to be customer-centric and focused in everything we do, so what better way to improve the experience than by making our message easier to understand and our company easier to do business with.
Combining our resources has also allowed us to be more collaborative in our approach to the marketplace. Our product engineering teams now enjoy a level of cooperation that has been unheard of in our business until now.
Above all, we are most excited about how this change will affect you, our customer. Traditionally, each of our brands have done business individually, meaning that they had their own customer service, sales and support departments. Placing an order for two of our brands meant placing two phone calls, two faxes or requesting two quotes. From a customer standpoint, moving to a single brand just made sense.
How will this affect my favorite brands?
In the short term, you may see very few changes externally. Many of the changes we're making are behind the scenes, to better serve you. Expect to see groundbreaking new product innovations, as the product engineers from each of our brands work together on some exciting new ideas.
As we migrate to a single brand, you'll begin to see the Safariland name appear more prominently and more often in your favorite publications. At your local uniform and police equipment stores you'll see larger Safariland displays with our products merchandised together.
As our customer service teams come together, our goal is to provide you with the best customer experience in the industry. In order to make your experience with us as simple and enjoyable as possible, we'll also be migrating to a single contact phone number. Most of our Web sites will also be getting a facelift, adding additional information and making them more informative and user-friendly.
When do we plan to do this?
It's already underway. In fact, we've been moving in this direction for years. During the past three years, we've been integrating each of our brands, business practices and product lines. We still have a lot planned. Over the next year you'll see a number of exciting changes. Make sure you sign up for regular e-mail updates. We will also be posting regular updates to the Safariland blog. We have also set up blogs for each of our main product categories, where our product experts will be posting product and industry information, observations and tips, so stay tuned!