innovation. We’re looking more inward,” Groat explains. “We’re not really focusing on what other people are doing or what else is out there. We’re always looking on how we can improve and how we can create something that we think will be industry changing.” Every product launch aims to disrupt rather than duplicate.The company’s exclusive Level IIIA+ armor, for instance, remains the only soft body armor offering NIJ level 1 spike protection combined with defense against armor-piercing ammunition like Liberty Civil Defense 9mm and FN 5.7×28. However, market disruption requires more than product development. Safe Life Defense invested heavily in educating security and EMS personnel that they were legally permitted to purchase body armor and explaining why protection mattered. “It took a while to get adoption, but since there was such a large uptick in that adoption, we’ve saved many lives with our products, and we’ve started to see other companies following suit as well,” Groat says. The approach similarly encompasses vendor relationships. Drawing from early manufacturing experiences overseas where partners emphasized “friends first business later, no friends, no business,” 153 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 13, ISSUE 01 SAFE LIFE DEFENSE
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