Pat Case
Co-Owner, BA Shields

CM: Provide a short overview of BA Shields, the company.

PC: BA Shields is a firefighter-owned-and-operated company based out of Sparks, Nevada. We make reusable self-contained-breathing apparatus (SCBA) lens protection, which doubles as a convenient blackout training tool. Both Cody [Cavin, co-owner] and I have 20 years of combined experience as firefighters and in emergency medical service. We currently serve as career firefighters for the Sparks (NV) Fire Department and saw a need for a product that wasn’t yet developed. Cody started prototyping, and little did we know, things started to snowball—quickly.

CM: Firefighter-owned-and-operated companies have unique challenges. What challenges did you have to overcome that other firefighters considering launching a company can learn from?

PC: Like any startup, we’ve had our fair share. I come from a finance background, and Cody has always been into fabricating anything he can get his hands on. When it all boils down, we are both firefighters at heart. This means we like to solve practical problems. We figured we would make a product and sell a few dozen here or there because we knew people could really use it. What we didn’t expect was how quickly we went from a “craft project” to a legitimate business and how fast we outpaced our business plan. A huge hurdle for us was the transition: making sure we had a tax ID number, insurance, bank accounts, LLC documentation, marketing tools, etc. Our biggest challenge right now is the fact that we run a two-person business and need bigger manufacturing ASAP.

We don’t have any other staff and we don’t outsource anything, which we pride ourselves on. Every piece is custom made by Cody and me. We touch every shield. Add this to a full-time career, on different shift lines, and this gives us two to three days a week to team up, get orders out, create new ideas, and build the business. Everything else has to happen on our own over the phone or via text. Our thumbs are getting a serious workout!

Both of us are family men, which means those two to three days aren’t always devoted to business. We’ve had to adapt to other ways of getting projects and tasks finished on time and accurately. Not going to lie—sometime

Pat Case
Co-Owner, BA Shields

CM: Provide a short overview of BA Shields, the company.

PC: BA Shields is a firefighter-owned-and-operated company based out of Sparks, Nevada. We make reusable self-contained-breathing apparatus (SCBA) lens protection, which doubles as a convenient blackout training tool. Both Cody [Cavin, co-owner] and I have 20 years of combined experience as firefighters and in emergency medical service. We currently serve as career firefighters for the Sparks (NV) Fire Department and saw a need for a product that wasn’t yet developed. Cody started prototyping, and little did we know, things started to snowball—quickly.

CM: Firefighter-owned-and-operated companies have unique challenges. What challenges did you have to overcome that other firefighters considering launching a company can learn from?

PC: Like any startup, we’ve had our fair share. I come from a finance background, and Cody has always been into fabricating anything he can get his hands on. When it all boils down, we are both firefighters at heart. This means we like to solve practical problems. We figured we would make a product and sell a few dozen here or there because we knew people could really use it. What we didn’t expect was how quickly we went from a “craft project” to a legitimate business and how fast we outpaced our business plan. A huge hurdle for us was the transition: making sure we had a tax ID number, insurance, bank accounts, LLC documentation, marketing tools, etc. Our biggest challenge right now is the fact that we run a two-person business and need bigger manufacturing ASAP.

We don’t have any other staff and we don’t outsource anything, which we pride ourselves on. Every piece is custom made by Cody and me. We touch every shield. Add this to a full-time career, on different shift lines, and this gives us two to three days a week to team up, get orders out, create new ideas, and build the business. Everything else has to happen on our own over the phone or via text. Our thumbs are getting a serious workout!

Both of us are family men, which means those two to three days aren’t always devoted to business. We’ve had to adapt to other ways of getting projects and tasks finished on time and accurately. Not going to lie—sometime