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Our
Personnel
Lonna Speer, our founder and
president, has been a health professional for more than 30
years. She has Bachelors of Science degrees in Health
Education and Nursing, and a Public Health Nurse certificate.
Working in Santa Cruz County’s
jail enabled her to earn her certification as a Detention
Registered Nurse. For fun,
Mrs. Speer rides her bicycle, does crafts projects with her niece
and goes camping with Dennis in their Toyota
camper. She and her husband
rent out rooms and live cooperatively in their seven bedroom
historic house. With the
growth of the company she’s been able to palm off
administrative tasks on Dennis and focus more on new product
development. As a child she
aspired to be an inventor and likes to think she’s
accomplished this goal.
Vice President, Dennis Speer, was an
administrator at the University of California, Santa Cruz for 30 years
prior to coming to Ferguson Safety Products. During those
years he oversaw design and construction of laboratories,
classrooms, offices and housing facilities as well as teaching film
and video production, photography and marketing. In his
private consulting business Mr. Speer contracted with numerous
Fortune 500 companies to develop training materials, product
demonstrations and advertising campaigns. He also worked with
hospitals and individual doctors producing nursing staff training
materials and documenting ground breaking new surgical techniques
for presentation at AMA conferences. Mr. Speer belongs to a
men’s philanthropic organization and coordinates community
service projects supporting battered women and youth
services. He is also a bike rider and loves to spend time in
the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Jack Harris, our General Manager, comes to us
from one of the largest photography service businesses in Northern
California. Mr. Harris has extensive experience as a Plant
Manager and supervised procurement, production, shipping and
inventory control of four separate facilities for nearly a
decade. Mr. Harris has been a successful financial planner
and investment consultant and has a deep interest in international
relations. He remains close with his family, which enjoys the
sense of humor he developed during his years as a military brat
moving from base to base across the country and around the world.
Our Philosophy
Our goal at Ferguson Safety Products is to make the hard job of
managing inmates and patients easier, safer, and cheaper. We
take the time to test and review every facet of the design of our
products. The materials we use in every product are
researched thoroughly to make sure it is the right thing for the
most effective safety product available.
We rely greatly on comments and suggestions from correctional
mental health, medical and security professionals to guide
us. Your comments tell us what you need in order to do your
job and we take them all quite seriously.
We are an old fashioned company in that we believe in providing
you with strong, durable, long-lasting products. We are
determined to maintain the high standards called for of the first
company to produce garments and bedding for suicidal inmates. Our main product line is known
for its incredible lifespan. It is not unusual for us to
contact customers that have not purchased from us for over five
years and find that this is because our products are still serving
them well. We held off releasing our mattress for suicidal
inmates until we could be sure we’d developed a cover fabric
that was the strongest in the world and would not crack or peel for
more than 20 years.
We’re also old fashioned when it comes to customer
service. When you call us
during business hours you can expect a human to answer the
phone. There’s no time limit on our standard product
guarantee. When we make
mistakes, we knock ourselves out to make things right.
Ferguson insists on quality throughout. Every one of our
quilted products has gone through four separate inspections before
it is sent to you. By the time you receive one of our
mattresses it has gone through at least four inspections and
carries the Ferguson guarantee. If, at any time, you
are dissatisfied with any Ferguson Safety product you can return it
for a full refund.
We stand behind all of our products. Should one of our
products become damaged we ask that you send it to us so our lab
can inspect it and find out what happened. Any failure due to
faulty materials or workmanship will result in us replacing the
product for free. If the damage was caused by a weapon or
tool of some sort we will contact you and if it can be repaired to
a safe status we can arrange for it to be done at cost.
Our Office
We are located in the historic Old Sash Mill at 303 Potrero St.
in Santa Cruz, California. Santa Cruz is situated about 70 miles
south of San Francisco, on the Monterey Bay. It has long been a
tourist town, a retreat from inland heat, and famed for its boardwalk
and surfing spots. Our office is on land that was once the Santa
Cruz Mission's pasture land -- Potrero is the Spanish word for
pasture. Our building was a
factory that converted the giant redwoods of the Santa Cruz
Mountains into window sashes for the rebuilding of San Francisco
after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
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