We are who we are because we know one thing fundamentally: An injury on the job doesn't end when the workday is done.
Injuries follow a worker home – into the time they can't spend with their kids, into the hobbies they must give up, into the independence they lose while healing – long after the workday is over.
That’s why we also know the last line of defense – personal protective equipment (PPE) – is oftentimes the most important when other safeguards are not enough.
For a long time, safety gear was a checkbox: stiff, generic, built to meet a standard and nothing more. Workers were handed equipment that slowed them down or felt so uncomfortable they'd rather risk going without it. And gear left in a locker wasn’t protecting anyone.
That was good enough for the industry – but not for our founders. HexArmor® exists because two guys refused to take no for an answer – caring more about the worker than the status quo.
A mission born in Grand Rapids
In the early 2000s, Steve Van Ermen and Brent Lohrmann were business consultants and investors working with a materials science company that had developed a fabric technology originally intended for surgical gloves, designed to protect doctors and nurses from needlestick injuries and exposure to bloodborne pathogens.
It never quite worked for surgery; doctors needed more tactile sensitivity than the material could offer. But Steve and Brent saw something the material scientists hadn't: this technology could prevent hand injuries on industrial job sites every day.
They pitched the technology to the biggest glove manufacturers in the industry, hoping to find a partner to help bring it to market. Some were interested, but only with exclusive rights. Steve and Brent saw an opportunity in safety, something bigger than a licensing deal.
They'd seen the injury data and knew workers couldn't wait for someone else's timeline. They didn't know anything about the safety industry or distribution, but they started anyway, with the same scrappy, figure-it-out approach that would define the company for the next 20+ years.
So instead of giving up the rights, they bought the exclusive license and taught themselves how to make gloves, building a business right out of Steve's garage in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
That fabric, SuperFabric® brand material (exclusively licensed by HexArmor®), is engineered with a configuration of tiny, layered guard plates that block, deflect, trap, or arrest dangerous hazards workers face every day. It became the foundation of HexArmor's glove offerings; no one had seen anything like it, and the material’s capabilities are still unmatched on the market today.
What began as a handful of industrial gloves grew fast. Within a couple of years, more hand-protection categories joined the lineup, along with arm and body protection, new technologies, and new sectors – all to solve more problems that workers faced in the field.
In 2016, Germany's uvex safety group GmbH & Co. KG formed a strategic partnership with HexArmor®, pairing our hand-protection expertise with their 90+ years of experience across the PPE landscape – and helping us expand into safety eyewear, head protection, hearing protection, and safety footwear.
Today, HexArmor® employs more than 380 people. The purpose hasn't changed since that Grand Rapids garage: help send every worker home safe, every day, by solving the problems others won’t.
Early industry firsts that changed hand protection
HexArmor® changed the game of hand protection, period. With SuperFabric® material as the heart of many of HexArmor’s first gloves, jobsite safety drastically improved – giving workers the confidence needed to gear up for the day.
That's how our reputation as an innovator and problem solver started – but it didn't end there. We helped shape the future of safety, ensuring workers everywhere got better hand protection. Because for us, it's never just about making better products. It's about caring enough to push the entire industry forward – people deserve the best protection.
A few of the milestones that SuperFabric® helped us achieve:
- Off-the-charts cut resistance that rewrote the standard: When SuperFabric® gloves hit the market, the U.S. industry was still measuring cut resistance on a scale of 1-5 – and SuperFabric® blew right past it, one of several signs the old scale couldn't keep up with where materials had gone. HexArmor® employees serving on the ISEA board took part in the broader industry effort that followed, helping shape the new A1-A9 scale, one that accurately reflected real-world cut resistance.
- Hazard resistance without the bulk: While the industry leaned on thick, rigid materials or even double-layering gloves to hit higher ANSI/ISEA cut ratings, HexArmor's SuperFabric® broke that trade-off entirely – reaching A6–A9 cut resistance (exceeding CE Level 5 and other high levels of hazard resistance) – while staying lightweight and dexterous.
- Setting the bar for needlestick protection – ahead of the standard: As the opioid epidemic and rising bloodborne pathogen risks turned needlestick injuries into a growing threat across recycling, waste management, and law enforcement, HexArmor® was already engineering SuperFabric® gloves tested against actual 25-gauge needles – not simulated hazards – to prove real-world performance. That work was shaped in part by collaboration with Waste Management's own safety team, whose workers face exposure to billions of improperly discarded needles each year. So, when ANSI/ISEA-105 was updated in 2016 to formally include needlestick testing, HexArmor® wasn't scrambling to catch up – we'd already been refining protection against exactly that hazard for years.
Beyond gloves: Redefining PPE, category by category
It would be easy to assume HexArmor's story ends with hand protection. That's what put us on the map. But our reputation as innovators and problem solvers didn't stay contained to gloves. Customers started bringing us the same kind of problems, just outside of hand protection.
As we grew, that same "problem solver" philosophy got applied to nearly every category of PPE a worker puts on, from head to toe, including eyewear, head protection, hearing protection, footwear, and wearable robotics.
Each one of them came with its own set of challenges: visibility, fit, comfort, communication, long-term wearability – the list goes on. When customers came to us, it was always some version of: let's roll up our sleeves and see what we can do. Understand the problem, find where the market's falling short, and build something around the real conditions of the job, not around what's easy to manufacture.
Here’s how we’ve redefined safety so far:
- First viable needle-resistant glove on the market for use in recycling
- First glove for the global oil & gas industry with impact, cut, and puncture resistance
- First manufacturer to offer:
- Entire A1-A9 cut-resistant spectrum of products
- Level 1-3 impact gloves to comply with updated ANSI/ISEA 138
- Thinnest and lightest-weight level 2 and 3 impact with i2™ impact technology
- First American manufacturer to offer:
- Permanent anti-fog and scratch-resistant coatings
- Front-to-back safety helmet ventilation
- Magnetic safety helmet accessories
- All-new suspension technology with Kinetix®
- Earplugs in multiple sizes
- First American PPE brand to offer an asphalt-specific work boot
- First American PPE brand to offer an ergonomic, powered exosuit
How we approach safety differently
Being first only matters if it's followed by staying the best. We discovered that solving problems meant more than just protection – it meant rethinking what PPE could be, from the ground up.
This mindset is one we live and breathe every day, choosing to get it right over getting it done. It shows up in the science we invest in, the way we test, the way we design, who we partner with, and how we show up after the sale.
A few things set HexArmor's approach apart in PPE – and service:
- Science and technology as a core differentiator, not a marketing line: R&D is the foundation everything else is built on. We invest in engineering genuine breakthroughs for real-world hazards that deliver our signature Wearability® – the perfect balance of comfort, fit, performance, and style – truly solving problems and preventing injury.
- Design that workers actually want to wear: Style factors into every design decision at HexArmor®, not as an afterthought but as a requirement. It started with motorcycle gear – but that was just the beginning. We've kept chasing that same standard everywhere we look: streamlined profiles, articulated fit, materials that move the way the body moves. The result is PPE people are proud to put on – and keep on.
- Testing in the lab and on the job: HexArmor® repeatedly emphasizes that safety ratings are a starting point, not a finish line – which is why we push for field trials and hazard-specific testing that reflect what workers encounter.
- Protection designed around the worker: Rather than treating comfort and protection as competing priorities, HexArmor's engineering is built around delivering both simultaneously, which drives the compliance that makes PPE programs work. Comfortable, well-designed gear gets worn, period.
- Direct collaboration with industry partners: Several of HexArmor's product innovations have come out of direct work with companies in high-risk sectors, designing solutions around specific, documented injuries and patterns rather than generic hazard categories.
- Above-and-beyond service: We deliver more than just PPE. Through our HexArmor Shield® program, we partner with companies to design a PPE safety program that specifically meets the needs of each application and hazard workers face in the field – with proven success from the top down.
The industries our gear is built for
HexArmor's products serve workers facing some of the most demanding hazard profiles in the industrial world:
- Oil & gas: Cut, puncture, and impact protection for workers handling heavy equipment and sharp materials in volatile environments. Read oil & gas case study here.
- Construction: Abrasion and impact resistance suited to constantly changing job-site hazards. Read construction case study here.
- Utilities and energy: Protection against wire, metal, heat, and electrical hazards. Read utilities and energy case study here.
- Lumber/building materials: Cut, abrasion, and puncture protection for one of industrial safety's highest-frequency injury environments. Read lumber case study here.
- Pulp and paper: High cut-resistance gear for material handling around blades and rough surfaces. Read pulp and paper case study here.
- Recycling and waste management: Needlestick and puncture protection for one of the most overlooked high-risk sectors in industrial safety. Read recycling case study here.
- Law enforcement, firefighters, and first responders: Needlestick, fire, and bloodborne pathogen protection for the people who protect us. Read firefighter case study here.
- General manufacturing: Broad-spectrum protection for everyday operational hazards. Read manufacturing case study here.
- Transportation: Broad-spectrum protection for everyday operational hazards. Read transportation case study here.
Looking ahead
HexArmor® started in a garage in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Today, we're a global, head-to-toe PPE company, backed by one of Europe's largest manufacturers, protecting workers across nearly every industry.
All to support our mission of sending every worker home safe, every day.
That's still what drives everyone at HexArmor®, from the team testing gear against real hazards to the people answering the phone when a customer calls with a problem nobody's solved yet.
Each day, we aim to ask the same question Steve asked when the big glove makers passed on him: who's getting hurt right now, and what's it going to take to fix that?
We're not finished – there are still workers out there compromising on gear that doesn't fit, doesn't work, or doesn't get worn. And we may just be the ones who solve that, too. We can’t wait to show you what’s next.
Our specialists are ready to help answer any additional questions you may have about HexArmor® and our industry-leading solutions. Call 1-877-MY-ARMOR or send us a message.
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