SentrySafe is a brand of safes manufactured in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

. It is owned by the

Master Lock Master Lock is an American company that develops padlocks, combination locks, safes, and related security products. Now a subsidiary of Fortune Brands Home & Security, Master Lock Company LLC was formed in 1921 by locksmith-inventor Harry E. ...

Company. It markets safes designed for home, business, and gun storage. In addition to security, SentrySafe includes a range of

Underwriters Laboratories The UL enterprise is a global safety science company headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois, composed of three organizations, UL Research Institutes, UL Standards & Engagement and UL Solutions. Established in 1894, the UL enterprise was founded as ...

(UL)-rated safes to protect valuables from both fire and water.

History

In 1930, John Brush, Sr. and his brother-in-law, Willard Punnett, opened a small shop for the manufacture of safes at 545 West Avenue in

. The Brush-Punnett Company was a pioneer in the

stamping (metalworking) Stamping (also known as pressing) is the process of placing flat sheet metal in either blank or coil form into a stamping press where a tool and die surface forms the metal into a net shape. Stamping includes a variety of sheet-metal forming ma ...

of steel safes. During a long and arduous startup period that spanned the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the company had some success by selling safes to

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

for its dormitories and steel skids to

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

. In 1943, after purchasing his sister and brother's-in-law interest, John Brush Sr. became the sole owner of the company. It was Brush's intent to pass the business on to his sons John Jr., Richard, and Robert. John Jr. joined the business in 1954 after serving in the

U.S. Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...

, and graduating from

St. Lawrence University St. Lawrence University is a private liberal arts college in the village of Canton in St. Lawrence County, New York. It has roughly 2,400 undergraduate and 100 graduate students. Though St. Lawrence today is non-denominational, it was founde ...

(1950) and

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

. The company changed its name to John D. Brush & Co. in 1955. Brush & Co. moved into a new plant at 900 Linden Avenue in Rochester in 1968, with over . In 1987, it began doing business under the name Sentry Group, in order to better identify the company with its trademark name safes — "Sentry". Sentry Group produces more fire-resistant chests, safes, security storage containers, and gun safes than any other company in the world and has won several awards, including "Vendor of the Year" from

Lowe's Lowe's Companies, Inc. (), often shortened to Lowe's, is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada. A ...

in 1999,

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

in 2001, and

OfficeMax OfficeMax is an American office supplies retailer founded in 1988. It is now a subsidiary of The ODP Corporation, which is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. As of December 2012, OfficeMax operated 941 stores in 47 states, Puerto Rico, the U ...

in 2002. In 2014 Sentry was sold to

, which is a division of

Fortune Brands Home & Security Fortune Brands Innovations, Inc. (or "Fortune Brands") is an American manufacturer of home and security products, headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. Its portfolio of businesses and brands includes Moen and the House of Rohl; outdoor living ...

. In 2016 Master Lock closed the Rochester, NY based production facilities and moved production to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

Legal cases

In 1991, Michael Redman of Virginia brought a

product liability Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause. Although the word "product" has b ...

suit against Sentry Group after his coin collection was stolen out of his Sentry Supreme Safe, Model #5570. Redman noticed the safe in a Value-Tique advertisement that appeared in the magazine

Coin World ''Coin World'' is an American numismatic magazine, with weekly and monthly issues. It is among the world’s most popular non-academic publications for coin collectors and is covering the entire numismatic field, including coins, paper money, med ...

. The magazine had advertised the safe as a “burglar deterrent”. Redman won the

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England d ...

verdict In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales ...

in district court, but the case was appealed. The

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

reversed the decision, holding that Redman failed to present evidence demonstrating that the safe violated industry standards, government standards, or reasonable consumer expectations. Redman's safe was specifically designed to meet fire-resistant standards, but not “burglar deterrent” standards, even though it did provide “a degree of protection against burglary.” An

expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...

testified that materials that enhance burglar-resistance on safes consequently reduce the fire-resistance.

Notes

References

"About SentrySafe"

"Made In Our Hometown: SentrySafe, 13Wham, December 2012"

"At Sentry, Employees Feel Secure", R News website

"Alfred University Presents Awards to Four Rochester-area Family Businesses", AU Press Release 5/24/01, Alfred University website

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928055614/http://www.rbj.net/fullarticle.cfm?sdid=56665 "Sentry Group begins making large capacity gun safes here", Rochester Business Journal, by Andrea Deckert, August 29, 2005.]
Sentry Safe Guide
* "The Story of an American Small Business," Sentry Group company pamphlet, 2005. * "Fireproof hard drives unveiled by Sentry," Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, November 15, 2007, ''available at'' http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071115/BUSINESS/71115006/1001 * "Sentry Group Partners with Maxtor Storage Solutions on Fire-Safe/Waterproof Hard Drives," Sentry Group Press Release, November 13, 2007, ''available at'' https://web.archive.org/web/20071117121254/http://www.sentrysafe.com/content/news.aspx *"Last day for many Sentry Safe workers in Pittsford", 13WHAM, June 2016, http://13wham.com/news/local/last-day-for-many-sentry-safe-workers-in-pittsford

External links

* {{Official website Manufacturing companies established in 1930 1930 establishments in New York (state) Security equipment manufacturers