Company name: Patriot3
Headquarters: Fredericksburg, Va.
Signature Product: Mobile Adjustable Ramp System (MARS) Elevated Tactics System (ETS)
Website: https://www.patriot3.com/
1. Where did your company name originate from?
The company was started by three patriots who care deeply for our police and military. Thus, Patriot3.
2. What was the inspiration behind starting your company?
Providing law enforcement, both patrol and SWAT, with new innovative products to conduct their operations more safely and efficiently.
3. What is your signature product and how does it work?
Patriot3 developed the MARS (Mobile Adjustable Ramp System) as the premier Elevated Tactics System in the world. Patriot3’s Elevated Tactics Systems (ETS) are vehicle-borne ramp systems that provide a rapid means to access elevated points of entry. With many of Patriot3’s ETS, multiple points of entry can be accessed at the same time. Patriot3’s ETS are also used to access commercial aircraft, busses, trains and ships at dock, to name a few of their expanded capabilities. Patriot3’s ETS are designed to fit a wide variety of vehicles such as the Ford F550, as well as armored vehicles like the Lenco BearCat. Fitting a Patriot3 ETS to an armored vehicle provides departments with a wide variety of tactical capability, all-in-one package. You never know what tactics the situation calls for until you have had the chance to assess it.
4. Why do you believe your products are essential to the law enforcement community?
The traditional ways of entry before ETS were slow, cumbersome and dangerous. This often meant utilizing store-purchased ladders and various other homemade equipment. ETS has not only made these tactics much safer and faster, but because of Patriot3’s simple, proprietary designs, we’ve been able to introduce these tactics to so many more teams who would otherwise not conduct such tactics.
5. What has been the biggest challenge your company has faced?
The vast majority of teams in the U.S. have not and still do not conduct elevated tactics. Introducing the benefits of this capability has been Patriot3’s unrelenting effort since 2000. Seeing and doing is believing. Every year, Patriot3 travels the U.S. with its MARS ETS, conducting live demos and training in an effort to introduce and educate teams to this great capability and equipment.
6. What makes your company unique?
Practically all of Patriot3’s products are our own and patented. This includes not only the ETS, but the many tactical features added to the systems. Patriot3 is the worldwide leader in Elevated Tactics Systems because it listens to the operators. Practically every capability/feature Patriot3’s ETS provide came from the request of an operator(s). This is also true for all of Patriot3’s other product lines, including our ballistic products like our Minuteman Folding Ballistic Shield and our Flex Shield, both originally designed for patrol and their ongoing challenge with storage space in their vehicles.
7. What do your customers like best about you and your products?
Patriot3 works hand-in-hand with our customers to ensure our products meet and exceed their operational requirements with the ultimate goal of making the duties of their job safer.
8. What is the most rewarding part of serving the first responder community?
Seeing the successes of our products in the everyday efforts of law enforcement and knowing that our equipment played a role in the successful outcome of their operation and helped make it possible for those officers to return home that day.
9. Do you support any charitable organizations within public safety?
Yes, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
10. Is there any fun fact or trivia that you’d like to share about you or your company?
Patriot3’s Elevated Tactics Systems are currently operated in over 40 countries and are the only ETS to have been deployed in the security of the Olympics as well as in military theater (war) by U.S. forces and other allies.
11. What’s next for your company? Any upcoming new projects or initiatives?
Patriot3’s ETS have drawn the attention of the firefighting community. They, even more than law enforcement, have the need for elevated access and entry and see Patriot3’s ETS as a potential answer to many of the issues they face on a daily basis. Patriot3 is working with several fire departments in its final design of a firefighting ETS. Additionally, Patriot3 is redesigning one of its workhorses, the Ladder Shield, to be more capable and expandable. Look for the Ladder Shield Systems introduction coming soon!