In this episode, Nicole interviews Dave and Alex Trudeau of Clear Armor. Dave, the founder and CEO, shares his journey of creating the strongest protective glass laminate after a personal break-in experience. Alex, the COO, discusses the operational side, detailing installations in schools, police departments, businesses, and homes.

The Trudeaus explain Clear Armor's innovative product, designed to withstand smash-and-grab attempts, riots, and bullets, emphasizing their patented technology and dedication to safety. Discover the inspiring story behind Clear Armor and their commitment to protecting lives.

Whether you're an entrepreneur or interested in security technology, this episode offers valuable insights and advice surrounding the challenges of launching an innovative new product.

Nicole Alicea: Today I have two very special guests with me, Dave Trudeau and Alex Trudeau. Dave Trudeau is the founder, president, and CEO of Clear Armor. Dave is a businessman and entrepreneur with 38 years of experience in the construction industry. He recognized the lack of quality in the security glass laminate industry and was motivated by his desire to improve security and safety. He set out to create the strongest and most protective glass laminate in the market. We also have his son, Alex Trudeau, who’s the Chief Operating Officer of Clear Armor. Alex oversees the daily operations of the company and its affiliated entities. He has a background in the construction industry and leads the installation team for all Clear Armor projects. In his nearly decade of service with the company, he has installed hundreds of thousands of square feet of security laminates throughout the country. The Clear Armor product has been installed in banks, government agencies, police departments, schools, Fortune 500 companies, retail establishments, places of worship, private businesses, and homes, just to name a few examples. Dave, Alex, it is such a privilege to have you on today.

Dave Trudeau: Thank you.

Alex Trudeau: Thank you.

Nicole Alicea: I’ve always been curious and perplexed about the story of how Clear Armor came to be. I understand it started with a break-in.

Dave Trudeau: Yeah, it was a break-in. They came through the glass. I had cameras, lights, and locks, and they pulled the electric meter on the house, so I had nothing. From that point forward, I wanted to make sure that never happened to my family or anybody else ever again.

Nicole Alicea: They broke the glass, and you realize that there’s got to be something better than this. It’s barely a barrier. Did you work with a team in producing the product? How did you come up with the invention?

Dave Trudeau: I probably went to every company that makes laminate and looked at their stuff or bought it from somebody and tested it, and I wasn’t happy with it. And I started from there, talking to some petroleum engineers and testing other company stuff until we came up with our own.

Nicole Alicea: The product that you guys have developed is truly remarkable. In fact, the people that are in the police industry and security, when they first hear about the product's capabilities, they typically initially kind of call bullsh*t.

Dave Trudeau: Yeah. So there's one thing that you have to remember too, and not only did we invent it, we are patented and proven, which sets a whole different standard. We install it too. We don’t sell it to a third-party company. So yeah, we install it, we do everything. Start to finish, we handle it all. We're dealing with people's lives, so we don't take that very lightly. Everything that we do, we do it as if our own family members, children, parents, the person you love, is in that building. And that’s the whole team.

Nicole Alicea: And so Clear Armor is a laminate that you apply to flat glass and it makes it smash-and-grab resistant, riot resistant, and even, you've even developed a level that is bullet resistant.

Dave Trudeau: Yeah, smash burglar, bomb cycling winds, microburst, riot control, and being able to stop rounds that you can shoot out and they can't shoot back in at you.

Nicole Alicea: Right, it's one way, which is unbelievable because then you can mount a defensive attack. When you started developing this product and you're like, "Oh my god, I'm sitting on a gold mine here. This is phenomenal, this needs to be installed in every school." How did you start your journey to bring it to market?

Dave Trudeau: Well, actually it was other people that told me to bring it to market, not me. I didn't think I had something good enough yet. And just to correct that, it wasn't about the gold mine, it was about whose life we could protect, period.

Nicole Alicea: Sure. Yeah, I think I meant that as a figure of speech in terms of like, "Oh my god, this has legs, this is a solution that I can't find in the market," because there's other laminates that claim to delay an attacker or whatnot, but the amount of time of delay that it creates is laughable compared to this product. If somebody were to decide that they wanted to bulletproof their building or their school, what are some of the other options that they have available to them, traditionally?

Alex Trudeau: Traditionally, when it comes to looking into any sort of safety glass installment, security glass, bullet-resistant or bulletproof glass, you not only have to consider the construction costs that come with addition to the actual cost of the glass itself, the permitting to be able to come in, take the building apart, work on the building, implement the new glass, the glazers that have to be involved in the process. It becomes a multi-step process to get something completed, shutting your business down for several days, several weeks at a time. The nice thing about us is we can come in, second shift, after hours, not messing or impeding the daily flow of the business and be able to offer them the same protection without having to go through the permit process, the construction process, or any delay in their business. And we're able to do it discreetly enough that even the employees don't know we're installing that product as well. So we can keep it really on a need-to-know basis because when you're dealing with security, you get that double-edged sword of a lot of the incidences that occur are from within, like disgruntled employees or former students. So by keeping that level of discretion, we're able to have the upper hand if something were to happen by deterring them or giving them the ability to be slowed down when they get confronted with the product and help break the attack cycle.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, that element of surprise is important because, you know, if you're prepared for it, then you've already planned for it ahead and it's premeditated. And I've seen demonstration videos when an attacker smacks the glass and the glass is not budging. What's happening in their brain is they're kind of, their brain's going, "What the heck?" So that momentum that they had is starting to get interrupted, which kind of dazes and confuses them. So it even buys you even more time. I've seen your team apply the product and it's literally like two minutes for a door, and I think you said once it cures overnight, it's one-way bullet-resistant.

Alex Trudeau: So that's one of the nice things, because we use a quick solution to help get it into place where we want it. It is then a pressure-sensitive adhesive. By installing it, it goes on at 70% right away, so it's effective immediately. Then, depending on the window weather type in a controlled environment, meaning that it's the same temperature on both sides, it's not getting direct sunlight. Certain variables could play into how long it will cure out. But it goes on at 70% and they have the ability to use the product immediately if the situation will work.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, so I could call out your team, you come, and it looks almost like you're just installing film or UV film or anything very, you know, innocent. And really, you're almost instantly, in a matter of, I mean, obviously it depends on square footage, but in a matter of hours overnight, turning my building into a fort. We keep saying one-way, and maybe somebody might not know what that means. Alex, can you explain one-way bullet resistance?

Alex Trudeau: Absolutely. So I will start with the bullet-resistant, but it carries across the entire product line. With the bullet-resistant aspect, we're creating a defensive position where you can then stand behind the glass and shoot out and hit the target on average between 18 to 21 feet and still be able to maneuver and have the glass provide safety, as traditionally, it was not an option. When it goes to our 15 mil product, you get the same one-way as that window from the outside is going to be able to hold them, buy your time inside, and delay that attack, where from the inside out, you're still able to use that window as an egress, knocking the entire pane out with all the glass, preventing any sort of glass debris, potential for cuts, scrapes, and so on.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah. And the first time that I heard about the one-way resistance, and I'm not in the industry, so I guess maybe I think about things a little bit differently, but my first thought was, what's the point of putting bullet-resistant laminate on the exterior of the building? A lot of times these attacks happen from within, like you said, disgruntled employees, former students, or whatever. But then you guys mentioned safe rooms and that really clicked for me. Maybe 'cause I saw that movie, I don't know, there's a movie with Jodie Foster back in the '90s, I can't remember the name of it, but it had to do with like a safe room, and I was like, oh yeah, so if I'm at a school and there's an attack, we can go to a closet that has been reinforced with the laminate, we can hunker down in there, and that's a safe room for us inside of the building.

Alex Trudeau: Absolutely. And kind of our first step approach when we go to visit a facility is to look at the two weakest parts of their building, that is their glass and their people. And when assessing their glass, the two things we're looking for to start with are entrance, exits, and offices because the office is going to be who is on the phone coordinating with dispatch, getting law enforcement. They're closing down that school, making sure everything is locked and secure, giving them the ability to fall back to their level of training to provide as much time as possible. From there, we move forward with the interior because a lot of these incidents happen when there is a sporting event or somebody who's familiar with the facility who has access, who can get in. And now it's a totally different ball game of not trying to keep somebody from gaining access, but trying to keep somebody contained in that facility, and hunkering down inside those rooms with the children, the faculty, whoever it may be. And I know we're talking a lot about our security laminate side, but we also have the ballistic wall board and composite boards that we can bring in that we do a lot of our armored vehicles with as well to build a line classroom wall so that way children can sit against the walls and not necessarily have to hide back even into a classroom. We can create that entire classroom or that wall of classrooms down that hallway, a complete safe room.

Nicole Alicea: Again, you're right. We're focusing on the security laminate, but you also guys, you also have another division of your company called True Armor where you focus on custom manufacturing, OEM, DOT-approved glass for vehicles. And you also have a patented ballistic board that you use to line the interior of the vehicles. So the exact same way that you are making a regular pane of quarter-inch glass bullet-resistant by applying this laminate for less cost, less weight, less complication, you're able to also make a vehicle fully armored without having that thick glass that makes the drivers dizzy, without adding extra weight, which creates an unbelievable amount of wear and tear. And I think that the True Armor product is so phenomenal that I want to dedicate an entire separate episode in the future to it. So, but we can definitely talk about it lightly.

But before we move away from that, you were talking about the classrooms and the safe rooms and the teachers hunkering down and how you harden the glass, but you also harden the people. And nothing illustrates that better than what you guys have created with Mario Doc Martin in creating another branch of your company called TruTrauma, where you empower your clients, people, and teams to become the first responders if a tragic event were to happen.

Dave Trudeau: Absolutely, and that's kind of jumping back to where we stated about hardening the two weakest parts of the building is the glass and the people. All of our products have an overlay. You know, when it comes to security, there's never a one-size-fits-all. There's not one solution that can cover the whole aspect. We wanted to be able to come in and not only manufacture and install our own products, because when it comes to the installation side, you might be dealing with a manufacturer that might have defective issues or not the quality that the client is looking for in that product when it comes to that installation. So, by us being able to control every aspect from start to finish in the process, we can not only guarantee that the client is going to be happy, but we can also offer them all these additional needs that we see that don’t have to be subbed out to another company that could have a different approach of what we’re trying to move forward with that school, with that facility, for the faculty.

Nicole Alicea: And I'm not gonna mention any specific company names, but let's assume that you were to procure or hire one of your many competitors or alternatives. If it's being manufactured by a company and then there are multiple distributors to install it, if something goes wrong, the distributor could say, "Oh, that's a manufacturer problem," or the manufacturer can point the finger at the installer. And so there's not a lot of accountability. And you guys have really always stood by your mission that you're truly committed to the lives that you're called to protect. And with that, you're offering a comprehensive solution to your clients and customers where you're not only hardening their walls, but you're also training their people and just offering a very comprehensive solution.

Alex Trudeau: Absolutely. And because we do everything in-house ourselves, there's nowhere to point the blame. So we make sure that as we go through the process of working with our clients to implement our products and our trainings, every "i" is dotted, every "t" is crossed. We make sure that we take the approach that our children, our family members, are in that facility. And another effort put towards that is when it comes to the actual estimating side, there's no wastage fee. They're only charged for what's installed in their facility because at the end of the day, we want the dollar to go as far as possible. We don't recommend things that aren't line of sight, easy access. We goof around and say nobody's bringing a ladder to your building because we want people to understand that it's not a sales pitch, it's an information pitch of where you're lacking information to help move your building in the right direction to get the product and the training that you need.

Nicole Alicea: You've developed an unbelievable product and you have outstanding ethics, morals, core values that go along with it. Those are characteristics of a very mature company and I'm just boggled and impressed at how it started with something horrible happening to you guys, getting broken into, and then Dave seeking out some alternatives and coming up with a solution, patenting the product. When you guys were starting your entrepreneurial journey, are there any stories of any challenges that you can share that you remember kind of running into? And you know, if somebody else has also invented a product or is thinking of inventing a product, you might want to give them a heads-up like, "Hey, make sure you do this, make sure you do that."

Dave Trudeau: Absolutely. I would say it's one thing to invent a product, it's another thing to create a business around that product. Creating a business around that product brings its own hurdles and challenges. By building a team, at the end of the day, a CEO's job is to build a team that can not only withstand the test of time, stand up to the company's ethics and morals, but be able to continue and build upon that legacy and improve the company's products and offer clients guarantees that not only the product that you're getting is warrantied, world patented not only on the materials, but the process itself has been tried, true, and tested over time in everything from government testing facilities to your local testing facilities to live demonstrations in front of our clients, where we strip everything back and show them the raw materials on their glass. It's a challenge to bring it to market in the sense that even talking about it now, people listening might be like, "What do you mean one-way bullet-resistant glass, meaning I can shoot out but they can't shoot in?" It's just proving some of the myths out there. It's informing people on new products, new innovations, things that are generally not thought of that through the test of time and different materials and different things available, you're able to continue to innovate, and especially innovate in a market that hasn't really had much innovation. One thing that I would love to throw out there is Dave's received a couple of awards, and one of them is for one of the newest, the top 100 innovations in car glass, in a similar process and product that we're using in our armoring glass that we're using in our security laminate and our bullet-resistant laminate. So, the fact that working in a market that doesn't see change in innovation as often as you would think, to come out with something new and then try to educate and inform a mass group of people and educate and inform them in the right way to get to the right ears, the right audience is challenging. It's a lot of trial and error and really honing in on building the right team around you. I think I couldn't stress that, and Dave couldn't stress that enough, was having the right team. At the end of the day, there's only so many hours in the day, but to be able to build a team that can be delegated and work together on projects, to be able to push that information to get to people at the end of the day that really need this product.

Nicole Alicea: Every time I deal with a Clear-Armor product, I think that this needs to be in every single school in America. When it comes to your competitors, there's a lot of other companies that are making claims that look, smell, and feel very similar to yours. And that's really tough as, you know, as creating a brand new product that... it's not like people already know what it is. If you came up with like an alternate type of like lemon-lime soda, everybody knows there's Sprite and then there's, or well, it's not Sprite anymore. It's Starry now, Starry and 7UP. They're familiar with it. You're coming to the table with a brand new product that for a layperson, it's very difficult for them to discern who's telling the truth. And then even for people that are inside of the security industry, to their knowledge, a product like yours doesn't exist. So you guys have multiple layers of trust that you need to jump over. Can you share any insight on, you know, competing in a market where your product is new and innovative so people don't really know that it's even possible? And then you also have competitors that are saying that they pretty much do the same thing you do even though you know that they can't.

Dave Trudeau: Kind of really start is we start with gaining trust. When we start dealing with a client or another company we're working with, we are transparent from start to finish in that process. We want to make sure that they understand that we're able to meet their needs or maybe not. There are companies we've worked with where we're not the right product for them. We're not trying to fill every gap. We're in a niche market and we're trying to get our product to the right client. There's companies out there, you know, like anything good that comes out, there's competition, there's people that come out of the woodworks. We've been doing this for well over a decade. We have the patents, the certifications, the processes. We have installations dating back decades plus that it's still on their facility and working with our clients and taking that slow and steady approach and gaining that trust, we're able to build massively off of our reputation. A lot of referrals and kind of debunk the companies that pop up out of the woodwork saying, "Hey, we can offer the same products, the same installation," and then they flip up and don't do a thorough process with the client, misinformation, not really being able to communicate the product effectively. Usually when you're dealing with another company and things start to come out that may be misrepresented or misinformation, it is hard for a client to understand who to believe, who to trust, what product is the right product for me. At the end of the day, we always tell the clients to do their own due diligence, to look into not only the competitor but look into ourselves as well. We want to make sure that we're the right fit for you, that you've looked into this and done that process. And that you look for things like a sole source letter from our patent lawyers, you look at the patents, you look at where the patents are tested, the testing facilities, former clients, how long has this been on the facility? Has there been any case studies where an incident has happened? A lot of these companies that pop out of the woodwork can't bring that information to a client. They don't have the track record of success. There are actually quite a few companies that will pop up, they'll do a few jobs and something will go wrong and they'll shut the doors and they'll open up under another name, which is very common in this field. So having the time, the trust built with our clients to be able to build that solid foundation is what not only has kept us in the game for as long as we have and given us the ability to adapt and innovate and continue to harden the two weakest parts of people's building, but has given us the ability to grow the business without having to focus entirely on a sales aspect, but informing the client on what is the best decision for them.

Nicole Alicea: And then circling back to the schools, if there's anybody that is related to a school or has any interest in your product and it's a school, what do you wish that they would know when it comes to considering using Clear-Armor? Again, and I'm just meaning it from a competitive landscape, you did a good job at outlining what you need to ask for, what you need to look at. I think a lot of schools assume, "Well, we can't afford anything like that." What would you say to them?

Alex Trudeau: This is the nice thing. There are so many options out there. Not only do we offer third-party financing through a company that we work with that has worked with tens of thousands of schools throughout the country, but we look at it in two different ways. One is our products are cheaper than it would be to carpet your home. So it's affordable, it's ease of access, very simple to get the process started. And when we work with the school district, not only do they only pay for what's installed, they get a cutoff sheet so they can spread the dollar as far as possible, but we do a locked price guarantee. If they work with us every year, they can continue to budget knowing that the price will not change on them so they can implement it in phases if needed to get their schools done. We have facilities that we'll work with for four or five years to be able to budget and implement everything they need or go through our third-party company to pull a loan that they can negotiate to have an affordable rate monthly so they can implement things sooner than later after an incident. There are a lot of grants available out there. There are grant writers that they can get involved with. Most school districts go through the grant process currently, or most schools go through the grant process now when it comes to implementing a new HVAC system, gym floors, bleachers, so it's very familiar process. It's just now recognizing the new needs and how to go about facilitating them. We have people that are more than happy when they reach out if they need information or how to make these first couple of steps. We're more than happy to help walk them down that path so they can make informed, educated decisions for their school districts.

Nicole Alicea: Can you share some stories of some case studies where you have had the product applied and just the story of how the perpetrator was stopped in their tracks, just some success stories?

Dave Trudeau: Yeah, so one of the nice things, so I'll be able to give you a story, but one of the nice things, you know, to a school district or a police or sheriff's department listening is we don't disclose exact information about certain products on certain buildings, certain addresses, or locations, but we do have the ability to put you in touch with clients that are more than happy to give a referral or recommendation of the product. We've had quite a few incidences in the commercial space, in the school space as well. An incident that we use and we have videos for on our website and social media is an outdoor apparel store that had a series of break-ins. And over these series of break-ins, they ended up having anywhere between $30,000 to $40,000 in apparel stolen. We came in, did the installation, we did it second shift completely out of the way from employees and clientele, and more than a week after doing the installation, they had another attempted break-in and in that they were able to capture that on video and they were able to not only keep him from gaining access to the facility, but they were able to see and show in real-time the product actually working. They were also able to arrest that individual and they have no longer had any sort of incidences in that location.

Nicole Alicea: I've seen that video. It's on your website, clear-armor.com. And it's also on your social media, if you go to Instagram, @getcleararmor, you can see it. And you have to have an appreciation for physics to really appreciate the video because the glass is huge. It's floor to ceiling. I don't know how many feet high up in the air that was.

Dave Trudeau: So it was a storefront, a commercial storefront. It was quarter by half by quarter glass, which is your traditional standard glass in that space. Those windows were five foot by 10 foot tall, so those are large panes of glass. And you can see in the video the glass actually kind of swaying with the impact. Another factor of that is we were able to help contain that glass, not only from the laminate, but from the process we take in sealing that window. So we like to seal above the head and below the knees to be able to create fail points to help equalize the pressure on both sides, whether it is an attack, whether it's a riot, somebody throwing something at the glass, a microburst, a tornado, an explosion. We want to be able to contain and equalize the pressure on both sides, giving us a higher probability of keeping that glass intact. In the video, you're able to see he uses everything from a wrench to what looks like a piece of rock or granite and a halogen, which is a fireman's tool that they use to go and poke windows out, breach walls and doors. So it's definitely not a novice by any means who was trying to gain access to that facility.

Nicole Alicea: Right, right, very premeditated. And you can see the pane just like wobbling and the guy just, you see him? Like you can see, you can sense the defeat.

Dave Trudeau: So we did a school district in Wisconsin. We were working on the school district and not only were we working in tandem with the construction company that was implementing a new wing and division to the school, but the construction company was leaving all their equipment in the foyer of this school. So from the outside pulling into the parking lot, you could see everything from their tool pouches to all their construction equipment from jackhammers to power tools, scissor lifts, A ladders, all sitting there in that facility. We decided, working with the school, that that would be the first area we would start as it was completed with glass intact. Now, halfway through this process, somebody tried to gain access to that front entrance. They came to the front of that school, they used steel-toe boots to try to kick in two of the bottom windows at the front entrance, and when they weren't able to gain access, they then were able to find access to the roof and come inside and steal the tools. In that situation, we weren't able to keep them out because there were other things in play that were not part of the security plan in the moment, but we were able to keep them from gaining access and breaking that glass at the front entrance. Not only did they use steel-toe boots, they kicked that glass, but they kicked it so hard they ended up denting the aluminum frame underneath those windows.

Nicole Alicea: That reminds me of when people say, "Let's secure our facility." They always say, "Well, we'll just get cameras and we'll get things that are just not actually helpful." You guys are providing an actual physical barrier that prevents, you know, the break-ins from happening. I know the story, this person was able to, obviously they were familiar with, they must have been familiar with the building to know how to, you said they crawled in through the vents.

Dave Trudeau: They actually came in through a hatch on the roof.

Nicole Alicea: So, I mean, who knows who's familiar with it, whether or not there's a hatch on the roof. I mean, that's obviously somebody from the inside.

Dave Trudeau: And this is the nice thing. In all of these incidences, you know we don't claim to be the only solution. We're in tandem with options that are already out there, whether it's your weapon detection system, your cameras to be able to see where we failed so we can make improvements or get some sort of recognition to be able to identify that individual. We love to say that locks keep honest people honest because at the end of the day, if somebody's there to intend to do harm, gain access, they're going to find a way. And by implementing a security laminate, especially a patented, proven product where you can then deter them from gaining that access, stop them in their tracks because you're breaking that attack cycle that ‘I can hit this glass, I can walk right into this building.’ When they hit it and it doesn't react in the way that they thought, you're slowing them down, you're stopping them right in their tracks, going, who heard this? Do I need to try another window? What's my next approach? Do they leave? Do they sit there? Most scenarios, law enforcement is there within three to five minutes. If we can slow them down, we're able to then keep them outside of that facility for law enforcement to get there and break that attack site.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah. And one of my favorite videos is Dave Trudeau doing a demonstration in front of a bunch of police officers and guys that are dressed in, I don't know what kind of uniforms they were wearing, but it looked very official. And Dave's just like hitting the glass with the baseball bat, and it becomes very clear. He stops and goes like, how long do you think the guy's going to just stand there and just keep hitting the glass? And he just keeps going and going and hitting it as hard as he can. He even, it almost like, then he calls in somebody from the, like one of the police officers and tells them to come and like, try to, you know, you don't believe me. You think I'm hitting it soft. You try to hit it as hard as you can. And then he's like, what does it feel like? And the guy goes, I don't remember what he said, but it was something like hard as hard as shit or something like that. It was like hitting a steel wall, basically.

Dave Trudeau: Yeah. And when it comes to demonstration, there's a process we have to follow because we've had people hit the glass and break their hands and break their wrist. We've had bats come flying out of people's hands, sledgehammers, wrenches. People don't expect to get the reaction. Most people think everybody’s glass will break, whether it's in the movies or in real life. So they expect, I'm going to hit this, it's going to explode, I'm going to walk right through it. But when that membrane disperses that shockwave and energy throughout the glass into the pane, it's coming right back at you. So it's sending all that energy back. And that's where people don't quite understand of, one, how loud it is, how long it's exactly like you said, how long is somebody going to sit there and continue to hit at that glass?

Nicole Alicea: It hurts.

Alex Trudeau: And one of the really unique things about us is our product is run different ways to bring up the central strength. So if you think of plywood, how they run plywood different ways to bring that strength up, we do the same thing with the material. So in one of our 15 mil sheets, there's three, five mils run different ways with membranes in between them. So we're not only spreading that energy throughout the frame, but we're allowing the laminate, even after punctured, to not be able to tear because it's not able to get a clean line as it's running against different tensile strengths. So we're bringing that strength up immensely to 400 plus PSI per raw material before it's even added to the glass. And we can bring it all the way up past 29,000 PSI when it comes to our ballistic material going on your existing glass. That's something I love to stress because everybody thinks, "I can't afford this. I can't start implementing these things because of the construction costs, the time we're going to be down." All of our products go on your existing glass.

Nicole Alicea: What does your guys' day-to-day look like in terms of spreading awareness of this product, educating people on it? Because I mean, you're explaining it to me right now and I'm like, I'm sold, like, where do I call? Who do I call? I want this in my house. You know, that carpet analogy is just really beautiful because, you know, you think, you know, you know that it's an investment, but it's, you kind of look at it differently. Whereas this is, you know, a great peace of mind piece for a homeowner, a business owner, a school, all of these people, it's a huge peace of mind piece. How are you spreading the word that this exists?

Dave Trudeau: What we've noticed over the years that works the best is in-person live demonstrations, Zoom call demonstrations, so they can see the actual product working as the way it's intended. A lot of this information, if it's not pitched right, it comes off as it doesn’t work, it's not real, or you're full of shit. It’s hard, in my friends, but there are so many different things that if it's not taken the right approach to explain the process and inform the client the right way, it's very hard to believe. So we've spent a lot of time over the years investing to putting as much time as possible into live demonstrations. All of our clients, before we move forward, we ask that they do their due diligence. We invite them to our facility. We come to their facility for demonstrations. We walk them through the installation process. We get them in touch with clients we've done referrals for. We do a lot of trade shows and expos, a lot of business-to-business relationships. We work with a lot of companies in the security realm that may offer cameras and locks or architecture from the security standpoint. We work with them to be able to implement our products, to not only strengthen their glass but create the complete circle of the security spectrum by offering and covering every aspect and bringing a physical barrier to a line of products that currently wasn't available to this standard.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, definitely. And it sounds like, you're saying this and I'm like thinking, gosh, it sounds just like, you know, their business development strategy, right? It’s similar to the strategy of securing your building. It's similar to the strategy of like, you know, working out and coming, like everything has to, it's not just one thing that is the solution, the end-all-be-all. Everything has to be a comprehensive solution where every piece that you're putting into place for your security, in this case, you know, your camera, like you said, your camera is recording and documenting as much as possible of what happened, you know, the laminate is protecting, you know, is reinforcing the glass and giving you an added layer of protection if something were to happen. It's one way you can defend yourself. There's all these layers of protection and they all work in tandem to create a complete solution. So I think that's, it sounds like it's kind of like that with everything across the board. Same thing with like investments. You wouldn't want to put everything into one basket. You want to have a diversified portfolio.

Dave Trudeau: Yes, and when it comes to, I love the carpet analogy because when people decide to re-carpet or tile their home, the last thing they're thinking about is that long-term investment. They're thinking of what can I get, what's going to aesthetically be appealing, what's going to have longevity to it, so they'll come in and they'll put carpets throughout their home. If you have pet dogs or cats, little kids, you understand that wear and tear over time, that that carpet at some point in its life becomes completely worthless. It's thrown out, disregarded, it's worth nothing. We come in with a product that's a physical barrier, optically transparent, that goes on your existing glass, that's cheaper than installing carpet on your home that will be there for the next 20 plus years as long as it's installed properly. We have a 10-year warranty on anything we touch from the material to the installation of the product. It works 24/7 hours a day, 365 days a year, with or without power. If there's an incident where, say, the power goes down, there's a natural disaster, you get a lot of looting, rioting. All of that now can be withheld to the exterior of your home because you're creating that physical barrier, that defensible position from inside your outside your home or your facility, your school district, your sheriff's department.

Nicole Alicea: A few minutes ago, Alex, you mentioned air conditioning that when schools are like, you know, doing grants or budget, something about, you know, you mentioned air conditioning. We're in Florida. To me, air conditioning is an absolute necessity. Like, you can't go without it. No question. There is no school without AC, and I hope that people realize that thanks to this new innovative product, which again, is proven, is tested, like it's the real deal. This product should be just like AC, like it's not a luxury. It's now accessible and affordable. It's discreet. There are all these great things. And you can tell from listening, I mean, you guys are a great company, you're standing behind the product, it's a no-brainer. I really hope and wish that every school gets this installed.

Alex Trudeau: One thing I want to piggyback off of what you just said is that it's not only that we have a great product, but it's the ethics and the morals of the company itself. At the end of the day, we offer a great product, but we can run through all 10,000 of our clients and we'll get the same feedback as it was a joy to work with us. We were transparent through the process, that we showed and walked them through step by step of what was needed. Nothing more. We're at the end of the day, our goal is to save, protect, and harden the lives and the glass of the people inside that facility. And as a company, we stand on the principle that we treat your facility as if our loved ones were in there. From start to finish, whether it's the salesperson you're on the phone with, the secretary you're on the phone with, the estimator, or the crew that's out there doing the installation, you'll have nothing but guaranteed satisfaction throughout that process. From start to finish, our crews don't leave the project until the client is 100% satisfied. Period.

Nicole Alicea: You guys are going to change the world. It has been such a pleasure to have you guys on. Thank you.

Alex Trudeau: Thank you.

Dave Trudeau: Thank you.

Nicole Alicea: Is there anything else that you guys wanted to mention or bring up or anything I forgot to ask you about?

Dave Trudeau: I would say at the end of the day, talking to new entrepreneurs, people looking to bring a product or start a new company in the security realm or in general, I would say the biggest thing at the end of the day is having a product that you are 100% confident in and you can stand behind. So there's never looking back over your shoulder that you can continue to march forward and build the right team to get to the right people to save the lives and the people that truly need your help.

Nicole Alicea: And I think that goes for any business. You know, even as a salesperson, you can't sell a product that you don't truly believe in. And I think as a business owner, you cannot have the strength and the momentum and the power to keep going and keep pushing. 'Cause I think as an entrepreneur, you run into a million walls and a million problems. And the only thing that's gonna give you that strength to climb over them, crawl over them, figure out your way around them is knowing that you are doing good in the world, like that you really have a good product that really deserves to be given some consideration because it's doing good in the world. So, I wholeheartedly agree.

Dave Trudeau: Well, let me say this too. I think anybody that's reading this, they absolutely need to do their own due diligence on the company. And there are companies out there that are trying to mimic us, but they don’t have patents. They don’t have anything. So make sure that the people that you’re dealing with are optically clear with everything that you guys are, what they want, and that they give you all the information that you need. There are a lot of companies out there that are trying to mimic us, but I will tell you they’re only doing it for money. They’re not doing it to save people’s lives. If they were truly doing it to save people’s lives, they wouldn’t be lying about the stuff that they’re trying to do.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, I mean, and how can a person tell, like how can we tell that you’re telling the truth, that your product is truly superior?

Dave Trudeau: I have a sole source letter from my patent lawyers. We are patented and we're proven through Fort Bragg. There’s nobody in the industry that can say that.

Nicole Alicea: Proven through Fort Bragg?

Dave Trudeau: And our patents are called Fort Bragg, and a lot of our patents are on the website. So I’m not just patented, I’m patent proven. That’s a big difference. And plus with all of our testing too. And look at the dynamics of the company. What do they really have other than lip service? We have patents on car armor, we have patents on flat glass, we have patents on mounting glass, we have patents on how to lay it up. I mean, we have patents on all of our processes. Other companies, they can’t show you any of that stuff. And that should be a red flag for anybody.

Nicole Alicea: All right. Well, that’s a wrap. Thank you so much. Have a good rest of your day!