Every so often, CEO Brad Field of Pacific Safety Products Inc. (PSP) takes a phone call that makes him feel proud, humble and freshly motivated, all at once.

"It happens fairly frequently. We'll hear the life of a police officer has been saved because of our product," explains the Kelowna-based leader of an interesting public company (TSXV:PSP) that's forcing its way onto the radar screens of market analysts.

"That's when it really hits home," Field adds. "We have a serious job to do. Those calls remind us to make absolutely sure the quality of everything we produce is 100 per cent."

Police and fire departments, EMS personnel and the Canadian military are among primary sales targets for PCP's line of safety equipment, which includes body vests of "soft" protective armour. It combines great strength with light weight and is designed to counteract weapons assaults.

Photo courtesy of Allan Main
Pacific Safety Products CEO Brad Field checks out one of his company's fragmentation vests.

A cynic once noted that war is a self-perpetuating growth industry. And last year, the Financial Post identified military spending as a key to opening new doors of investment opportunity.

Field wouldn't disagree. At the moment, the Canadian government - specifically, the Department of National Defence (DND) - is his No. 1 customer.

"We have a very strong Canadian order book, in the neighbourhood of $45-million plus," confirms Field.

In a Financial Post interview last November, Calgary analyst Brian Pow cited PSP and three Calgary businesses selling military-friendly products - Ceramic Protection Corp. (CPC), Pure Technologies Ltd. and Imaging Dynamics Co. - as promising bets for investors.

Western Business Edge readers are already familiar with CPC (TSXV:CEP) and they're downright giddy if they had the foresight to buy in early. Share prices for the manufacturer of ceramic body and vehicle armour have flared as high as $30 in recent months, up from less than five dollars last March.

Field also knows the company well. Not a competitor, PSP buys ceramic shields from the Calgary outfit and Field and CPC boss Ron Wallace frequently compare notes.

At less than two dollars a share (last Wednesday), Field's team won't match Ceramic Protection's phenomenal stock- market run. But the B.C. exec remains convinced his team is poised to spread its wings.

When he pauses to take stock, as he did last week, Field can scarcely believe that the small enterprise he started 20-odd years ago now commands an 80-per-cent share of the Canadian law enforcement market, while continuing to lasso major contracts with the DND.

"If you had told me 20 years ago we'd have made it this far, I'd have said you were crazy," he laughs.

Looking back, it is just a wee bit mind-boggling. Field and his wife Lori were Kelowna-area ski patrollers and decided they needed better quality backpacks for the ski hill.

So they designed new packs for themselves and asked a seamstress friend to produce them.

Before long, fellow skiers were asking for similar packs. Soon Field was staying up long past midnight, sewing new packs on the living-room floor of his tiny house.

Things really took off when local paramedics asked for custom packs and vests.

"For our first 10 years, that's all we made - backpacks, trauma kits and utility vests," he remembers.

One day, Boston EMS contacted Field, saying it was in the market for armoured vests.

"Why do your paramedics need armoured vests?" Field wondered.

"Ever been to Boston?" retorted the caller. Field got the picture. Though he knew nothing about armour, he plunged head-first into research. Eventually he partnered with a tandem of U.S. manufacturers before starting to produce armour on his own.

By 1995, the company was generating $2 million in yearly sales. Small-cap stocks were in vogue at the time and Field yielded to the temptation to go public.

In retrospect, the move may have been premature. Certainly it meant enormous labour and new challenges for a comparative newcomer.

"But by trading shares, we were able to raise capital which allowed us to acquire two major competitors, using cash and shares," he says.

By doing so, PSP added production units in Ontario to complement its Kelowna manufacturing facility. But Field's not the complacent type. He pledges to continue an aggressive growth policy and to significantly expand his offshore markets.

"We've been identified as one of Canada's fastest-growing companies four or five times," he says. "We think many more opportunities will be coming our way."

For Brad and Lori Field, it's been an exhilarating ride. And it's far from over.

Web watch: www.pacsafety.com

(Tom Keyser can be reached at tomk@businessedge.ca)