It was clear from spending days on the exhibit floor of the National Safety Congress and Expo held in San Diego this past September that your father’s PPE company is so last century.
For decades, from the dawn of OSHA in 1971 through the 1980s and ‘90s, PPE companies and PPE distributors simply sold on the basis of “OSHA says” you need ear plugs, safety glasses, hard hats, steel-toe boots, respirators, fall protection and so on. Regulations and enforcement drove PPE demand. To be sure, it still does and always will to an extent.