From humble beginnings crafting durable nylon web gear and packs in a garage back in 1993, BLACKHAWK! has grown into a large corporation offering thousands of products for military, law enforcement, firefighters and EMS, as well as for hunters and self defense. Every product produced by BLACKHAWK! is thoroughly tested under the harshest conditions to ensure that it will hold up and perform when needed the most. In short, for BLACKHAWK! products, failure is not an option.
We spoke with Ty Weaver, Senior Manager of BLACKHAWK!’s Special Operations Division to learn more about the history of the company and what goes into the development of their battle-proven equipment.
Ty Weaver BLACKHAWK! was started in 1993 by a gentleman named Mike Noell., He was actually an active duty SEAL at that time. He was in Northern Iraq on patrol hunting SCUD missiles and one of the straps on his backpack failed, which was bad enough on its own, but they had just found out that they were in the middle of minefield when that happened. So, he decided if he ever got out of that, he’d start making gear that the guys could depend on ’cause he wasn’t impressed with the quality of the issued gear at that time.
He went back, to his East Coast SEAL station in the Norfolk area at Dam Neck. He started designing and building gear out of a 2 car garage in Virginia. He started doing backpacks, load bearing harnesses and things like that.
Cheaper Than Dirt That’s still kind of BLACKHAWK!’s bread and butter isn’t it?
Ty Weaver Yeah, that’s the emphasis. We’re a very diverse company now. We were purchased by ATK in April of 2010—and continue to expand our product offerings. ATK has a number of well-known brands under the umbrella–Federal Premium, Speer, CCI, Weaver, Champion, Alliant Powder and RCBS to name a few. It’s a great fit.
Cheaper Than Dirt Anytime companies can work together under a single umbrella such as ATK, we see so much more product compatibility and so many more innovative products being developed.
Check out the full interview from Cheaper Than Dirt to learn more about BLACKHAWK!.
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