Ben Lane, CIPRNA event manager, met Dominic Dillon, President & CEO of 3B Protection. 3B Protection designs and manufactures innovative blast, ballistic, and forced entry-resistant walls, offering unmatched safety for government, military, homes, schools, and critical infrastructure. Combining strength, affordability, and peace of mind, 3B Protection is redefining modern security solutions.
This is a transcript of their conversation.
Ben Lane:
Hello Dominic, it is good to have you here today. You will be joining us in Houston, March 11-13 for CIPRNA 2025 as our Platinum sponsor. We look forward to seeing you there and hearing what you have to say during the Conference.
Dominic Dillon:
Good morning, Ben, and we are looking forward to the event.
Ben Lane:
Tell us about 3B Protection, and the journey you have had so far?
Dominic Dillon:
3B Protection was born in the UK where I owned a concrete company, delivering concrete to people’s houses for foundations and extensions. The basic kind of applications for traditional concrete. One day, a company asked us to research a new material that needed “give” in it, and that had a slightly lower PSI than traditional concrete. They wanted us to produce this material by using recycled materials.
We embarked on a research and development program whilst running the existing business. It took two years to produce a material that had the properties we were looking for. We conducted various structural and compression tests on the material and initially it was designed for areas that experienced earthquakes and seismic events.
Later, someone asked us about the blast and ballistic capability of the material and as we were working in the UK where there were very few test facilities, we contacted NATO and went through their test program for new materials. At that time, 3B was just a block. It was not in the panel format that we have today.
We passed the NATO testing program, and we had our product accredited up to UL level ten, which is enough to stop a 50-caliber round. After we became a NATO vendor we embarked on manufacturing in Dubai, Pakistan, and Turkey.
Ben Lane:
What a great story and what a great history. And getting NATO approval is not easy! What are your clients concerned about? What are their biggest challenges in terms of threats and attacks on infrastructure?
Dominic Dillon:
I came to the USA in 2017 and one of the main issues in terms of threats were ballistic attacks on critical infrastructure such as a water plant, a gas plant, or a utility plant. And these attacks could occur any time of day – it could be a malicious attack where someone is attempting to take out the substation or the utility. Or it could be an accident where someone is shooting out in the forest and a bullet goes astray and hits the substation. One of the main problems for our clients is the uncertainty of what level of protection to specify. So, we focus them on UL level eight, nine and ten, with ten being the highest level.
We find engineers can struggle to specify the right product for their plans because they do not know what level to go to – they do not have a clear idea of what will happen when they come under attack. This also creates a budget problem when designing a facility because there is a difference in cost between UL level eight and UL level ten. It is a significant cost difference and so the end user needs to be clear on what protection level they require.
Also, the companies we deal with can have a perimeter measuring anywhere from half a mile up to five miles long and when you specify substantial protection around a long perimeter, it becomes extremely expensive. So, one of the areas we focus on is offering single-asset protection inside the critical area and covering off, through line of site, particular parts of the substation.
We find it hard to comprehend there is no written standard in the USA telling the client, “Okay, you must do this to this protection level.” This is one of the biggest areas that we find our clients struggling with.
Ben Lane:
This brings us to the question of how you support your clients, and how do you respond to their needs?
Dominic Dillon:
We offer ballistic panels, and ballistic gates and doors. We can protect an entire perimeter, or an entire building, we can really do anything with our products. One of the things we focus on with our clients is asking the question, where are the issues? Is it because you are surrounded by hills? Are you worried about someone on a nearby hill shooting into the substation and attacking certain parts of the substation?
We conduct threat assessments on the substation to assess where the line of sight is and the type of walls we could use around the asset to protect it.
We focus on having a one wall solution that protects against ballistic blast fire and high-speed fragmentation in areas that could be subject to fire. We can construct a single wall that covers off four to five different threats, so the client can order a complete solution in one single wall. We also produce an anti-theft matting system that can be used over areas where criminals may attempt to steal copper.
Ben Lane:
How does your organization exceed present standards in this area?
Dominic Dillon:
When I first came to the USA, we evaluated our products against USA standards, ASTM standards, ballistic blast, and fire. The standards in the USA for ballistic protection were low. For example, with UL level eight, you only need to stop five bullets in your product to become a UL vendor. If you go up to UL level nine and UL level ten, then you only need to stop one bullet for your product to be UL certified.
One of the pushbacks we had when we first went to the market were questions about why a potential client would buy a product that is only going to stop one round. A good question! We went back to the drawing board, and we redesigned the integrity of our material, and we retested it to the point that now we have single panels that will stop anywhere from two to three thousand rounds of ammunition.
So now we have a product that is a real-life situation product and if someone is going to attempt to damage your assets, you can now specify a panel that will stand up to a significant attack. On the back of this we created a standard and secured a trademark. It is the RLS standard. Now many of our clients specify this standard.
And that is really what we focus on. We have our own standard, and we focus very strongly on saving an asset or the lives of those within the asset.
Ben Lane:
Thanks very much for that. A great story! We look forward to seeing you in Houston, March 11th-13th.
Dominic Dillon:
Thank you, see you there.