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Our
Personnel
Lonna Speer, our esteemed
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 sings in a local chorus and goes camping with Dennis in
their Toyota
camper. She and her husband
rent out rooms and live cooperatively in their 7 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.
Carrie Winter started
out with Ferguson in
2000 as Office Manager and now functions as a sales
representative. This allows
her the flexibility to care for her delight, Finian Thomas born
this August. Her years with
us make her an expert in our products and doing business with
corrections, and if you’ve ever talked to her on the phone
you’ve got a sample of her friendly, outgoing personality.
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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