Original subtitles

Anytime you buy a gun safe, you're taking the word of the manufacturer that

you're getting is going to withstand a burglary or it's going to give you a

certain level of security.

The gun safe industry has continually thinned the steel used in the bodies of

the safe to cut costs.

They're not secure anymore once the body reaches a certain thinness.

Guys break into homes with crowbars.

That's the one really odd thing about our industry, is that we're selling a

product that people are never going to really get to test.

You can see some of the deformation that occurred during the price test.

If they make their decision based solely on price, they're probably going to

find out that they wasted their money, and it'll be too late.

My name is Don Suggs, and I am the CEO and founder of Rhino Metal.

I grew up on the East Coast, just south of Washington, D .C.

A lot of fishing in the Potomac River, a lot of playing in the woods.

Graduated high school and...

Went to Virginia Military Institute, and you have to be in the ROTC. Got an ROTC

scholarship out of that.

Four years active duty Air Force.

Getting to be an Air Force pilot was an amazing experience.

I mean, I saw and did things that I could never have dreamed of.

I applied for a spot in the Air National Guard, got that, went through that

training.

As a guard pilot, you're really only part -time, so you've got to come up

something else to do.

I couldn't afford real airplanes, but I started building this one out of a kit,

and so that's aluminum.

And so I learned basic metalworking, and then it just kind of went from there. I

had to learn how to weld and make some.

fixtures and then that kind of transformed into a welding shop.

The whole time I was still in the guard and then even for a while after I left

the guard for a couple years I was in the airlines.

When I was hired was the top airline two and a half years later was bankrupt and

they furloughed me with a bunch of other pilots.

So all I had was my business.

It's kind of sink or swim at that point.

The day after my first daughter had been born, my dad asked, Don, I got to get

all these guns locked up. I need a gun safe. And I went to the sporting goods

store. They're too expensive.

They want like $1 ,500.

I can't afford it. Can you make one?

So I went to the sporting goods store and looked at them. And I was like,

I can make that.

I had the equipment to do it.

And I also like a challenge.

So this is what we made.

It's a pretty simple safe with a plate door design, but it's still very secure.

Myself and my employees, we came up with this design, and in a couple weeks we

had it done. We did it in an automotive paint job. It started the whole Rhino

safe transition from a weld shop to safe manufacture.

My father, he's passed now.

We keep this here. It's a way for me to remember him and also kind of for us to

see where we started.

This is the genesis of hundreds of thousands of rhino safes out there now

protecting families, just like this one protected our family.

He was very happy with it because it exceeded his expectations.

He thought he was going to get a box with a padlock on it.

I had the employees by that time, and it just kind of kept growing.

Well, when you're operating a manufacturing company in the United

presented with a number of pretty big challenges.

You can solve that problem by throwing a bunch of money at it, which we didn't

have. So we did it with ingenuity. We engineered the solution rather than

financed it.

Hi, I'm Don Tuggs, and I want to tell you why a RhinoSafe is the best home gun

safe you can buy.

For the first probably 20 years of the company, that's all it was,

just trying to get by, reinvesting money, not really being able to get the

equipment that we really need. You basically try and focus on your

innovate around your weaknesses.

My name is Jennifer King. I'm the president of operations at Rhino Metals.

Almost 18 years.

I grew up in a little farm community.

There was no walking. There was no town. We were really far away, so everything

was intentional and just really hardworking.

I went to Boise State for a year and quickly found out it really wasn't for

I joined the Army. I spent four years, and I was 31 Mike, which is a multi

-channel communication operator.

Spent 13 months overseas, absolutely loved it. I got to drive two and a half

five -ton trucks with communication shelters and logged about 12 ,000

-free miles in a foreign country, which was wild.

Well, the story ends up with me at a trailer manufacturer.

Heavy equipment in 2007, 2008 hit. We all got laid off.

She was hired originally as an assistant in customer service.

So I come down.

There's a card table and a lawn chair in the corner, a notepad and a pen, no

phone, no computer, no nothing.

But I could see that she had a lot of potential, constantly taking on more and

more responsibilities.

It was taking things off of Don's plate a little at a time.

She wanted more. I gave her more responsibility. She just kept taking

eventually she was running the whole.

The production operation, and actually operations includes customer service,

trucking division, everything.

She's in all that.

So when I first started, we had a few independent local dealers that we were

selling to. I think domestically we made two face -to -day, maybe one.

We scaled the business, and now we're in every Costco in the nation, going from

one or two face -to -day domestically upwards of 300.

She filled a need that we had that I honestly wasn't, I wasn't capable of it.

I'm more interested in new products and the Safex thing initially came out of,

you know, recognizing that the industry was producing safes that were thin. The

old locking system just didn't work on the bodies that were being used. And

a, you know, it's a quantum leap in security over the old mechanism.

You may think all safes are created equal, but we regularly do pry tests on

competitor safes and our own safes. This is not one of our safes.

We have two professional safe crackers here to show you just how easy it is to

get into one of these safes that you can get from the other guys.

You'll see when we do the Safex the difference.

And, like, you saw how easy these things just popped over. The doors start

separating, and you'll see with the Safex you don't get any of that

This whole system of locking the door is obsolete for anything that's even up to

a 10 -gauge body because you can pry them. Here we have another competitor's

safe, and as you can see, it is absolutely gorgeous. We are not denying

This is a very well -made safe on the outside.

door hangers, have these nice drawers for your jewelry.

This is everything you could ever want in a safe. And for $1 ,500, it should

So, 22 seconds. 22 seconds.

22 seconds. So, you beat the other one. That was 23, right?

This is a 12 -gauge body.

So, this is thicker than the previous one.

To keep things fair, we're going to break into one of ours as well.

So, this is one of our entry -level models you can find at big -box stores,

like those other ones we busted open.

But we are going to try to crack this one open and see.

Just how secure Safex is.

No bolts and bars on the outside, right?

Our Safex locking system uses these studs, holes in the door with a steel

that slides over, secures to these bolts, making it virtually unpryable. As

matter of fact, the more you pry on this, the tighter the door is going to

to these bolts.

So prying this safe is pretty much impossible.

Good?

I'm out of breath.

Sweating.

It's tough.

You can't get in there. I don't care how strong you are.

It ain't happening.

The steel gave way before the door did.

This is our entry -level safe, and they weren't able to get into it, and they

were trying way harder.

What you can see is, okay, here, even the weld is the miter, but this...

It actually tore the steel.

But because the door is connected to the door frame underneath here with those

anchor bolts, even if it tears here, you still can't get it apart.

There's no gap between this door frame and the door. The more you bend it, the

tighter it gets.

Well, my name's Ray White.

And I guess my title would be I'm the jack of all trades and the master of

I do a little bit of everything.

When I met Don, he was building 12 safes a week and wanted to take it to a

different level, and he knew I had a lot of production background experience.

I came in on an interview and realized that he was building gun safes, which

an interest of mine because I'm an outdoors person. I love to hunt. I love

fish. I got into archery, so I started archery deer hunting.

So I agreed and came to Rhino, and it's been a 13 -year journey with him.

Being older, you know, I'm not a young guy anymore, 74 years old, and I've had

the opportunity to work at a lot of different places and do a lot of

things. He is like the ultimate American, I think.

The guy can do anything.

You could say, hey, I don't like where that mountain is. Can you move it over

like 100 feet? He would do it. He can figure out a way to move it. My dad had

the philosophy, I'll never pay somebody else to do something I can do myself.

And so he made us kids do everything.

And that's how I kind of learned a lot of different trades, by just getting in

and doing it.

When you run a company, you like to have people.

that aren't afraid of challenges like that and that can get things done.

It's really interesting with Don.

He has an innate ability to find talent that we didn't know we had.

When he does the interview process, he's not really like honing in on, you know,

have you ever worked on a $5 million piece of equipment before? He's asking

basic questions to figure out who they are.

And it's one of his strongest talents is finding people.

Don, I mean, put up a sign. I don't know if you notice the sign outside when you

come in the building here. It says, Rhino Ray, no slackers allowed.

And he recognized that from day one when I was here. I'm not going to tolerate

people that aren't here to do the job. And as long as they want to show up to

work and work hard, then I will train them. I'll work with them every day to

teach them the skills.

But the ones that have survived it are doing very well because they have good

work ethic.

Well, when you look at the finished product, you have to realize that the

is starting as a flat sheet of steel.

The whole design nowadays, everything's done in 3D modeling.

It's a spit -out file to an automated laser system.

It cuts it. It's a fiber optic laser.

We'll take those parts. If they need to be formed, we form them on different

bending machines.

The top and bottom will be tacked on. The inside will be welded out

While that's being done, the door is being made.

Then the safe is prepared for whether it's going to get paint or powder

The logos will be applied with silk screening, the

fire lining, and all the mechanisms are stuck into the safe at that point.

Those parts have been made off to the side on various pieces of equipment.

The lock is put in, everything's tested, and there's a ton of people that go

into that process and a ton of knowledge so that you end up with a product

that works correctly, that looks really nice, and that you can be proud of.

We put a lot of effort into doing things the right way and not the short

way, not throwing a bunch of money or marketing at something, but to build the

best product that we can.

A lot of the guys that are here at the safe plan, you know, I hired 12 and 13

years ago, and they're still here. That means we're doing something right

because they're not leaving.

You know, you have pride in your product.

You see it in somebody's home or it gives you a sense of accomplishment.

But honestly, life is about relationships.

That's what makes life worth living.

I think a safe really is protecting the American dream.

You've got everything that's important to you in there.

I have an old hex -barreled .22 pistol that my dad had. Don't know if it's

anything, but I know what it's worth to me.

You know, in my safe, I've got my grandmother's heirloom jewelry. I've got

kids, their first haircut, you know, a little ponytail haircut.

You know, you have these California fires or the tornadoes or some of the

things, and people lose everything that they have.

You know, when you hear about the attempted burglary that were thwarted or

fires that didn't destroy somebody's stuff, it gives you a sense of

accomplishment.

You've got to sell something that you're proud of.

Furniture means nothing. The big screen TV means nothing. But I have a picture

of my late wife when we were in the Bahamas that I will cherish forever.

Would I ever want that ruined?

No. That'll be in my safe.

It provides security for your family and for your legacy.

We build for the people that don't want to gamble with what matters.