Wells Bullard presents Bullard helmets to members of the German Red Cross in recognition of their service to the community.
One hundred years ago, World War I veteran Edward W. Bullard returned from Europe with a new appreciation for protective headgear and invented the first industrial hard hat. Today, from its manufacturing headquarters in Cynthiana, Kentucky, and its new research and marketing center in Lexington, the fifth-generation, family-owned business that carries his name is still carrying on his safety mission across the globe.
In addition to its trademark head protection, Cynthiana-based Bullard manufactures thermal imagers, firefighter and rescue safety equipment, supplied-air respirators, powered air-purifying respirators and air quality equipment for customers around the globe. The 120-year-old company, which is dedicated to advancing human safety through new technologies, also operates sales offices in Singapore and Germany.
The company originated in the late 1890s, when Edward Dickinson Bullard, the father of the hard hat inventor, moved to San Francisco to supply carbide lamps to gold miners in California, along with silver miners in Nevada and copper miners in Arizona. By 1909, he had formed the Edward D. Bullard Company. A decade later, his son, Edward W. Bullard, was back home after serving in World War I. He had worn a doughboy army helmet in the trenches in France, and in 1919, he designed and patented a “Hard Boiled Hat,” using steamed canvas and glue, adding a leather brim and painting the hard hat black. He built a suspension device for the hat, and it became commercially available as the world’s first industrial head protection device.
Edward W. Bullard had worn a doughboy army helmet in the trenches in France, and in 1919, he designed and patented a “Hard Boiled Hat,” using steamed canvas and glue, adding a leather brim and painting the hard hat black. He built a suspension device for the hat, and it became commercially available as the world’s first industrial head protection device.
In the 1930s, workers building the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco wore Bullard hard hats and respirators. But it wasn’t until the 1970s, when the nation began implementing broader worker safety standards, that the company started really taking off and relocated to Kentucky. With the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, safety programs became the norm for industries beyond construction, including transportation and utility companies.
“At that time, we brought in an outsider,” Jed Bullard said. “I was 22. ... We needed another production facility outside the Bay Area, if we were going to grow and expand outside the West Coast.”
After the first OSHA regulations were put in place, the Bullard company was busy as could be, shipping safety equipment all over the country. When you put a round hat in a square box, empty space is wasted, but freight companies still charged for that space. It was pretty expensive to ship air, though, Jed Bullard said.
The new president of Bullard sent an employee from the headquarters in Sausalito, California, to the Midwest to scout out a more centralized manufacturing site. As the story goes, Jed Bullard recalled, the employee called the company president from the Cincinnati airport as he prepared to come home empty-handed. “I’ve been to Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Tennessee,” he said on the phone. “I found one old metal building in a place called Cynthiana, if you’re interested in being in rural Kentucky.”
The employee was told to cancel his flight and buy the Harrison County building post-haste. Local banker (and horseman and entrepreneur) Tracy Farmer facilitated a loan for the Bullard company to buy the plant and some equipment.
By early 1972 the E.D. Bullard Company was up and running at its production facility in Cynthiana. So practical was the geographical location and so strong the workforce in Kentucky, the California plant was closed the following decade. Jed Bullard moved his family to Central Kentucky in 1989. “I’m a grateful person to this state and community,” he said.
Bullard as a business and the Bullards as a family believe in giving back to the community. The company has a community involvement committee in place at the headquarters in Cynthiana to support charitable organizations like the Harrison County Community Fund and events such as the American Cancer Society’s “Making Strides Against Breast Cancer” walk in Lexington. Jed Bullard is an active member of Bluegrass Angels, an angel investor group, and received the Bluegrass Business Development Partnership’s 2018 “Harvey” award for his efforts in championing entrepreneurship in Central Kentucky.
Bullard CEO Wells Bullard
In November 2017, the reins were handed to the fifth-generation Bullard when Wells Bullard, Jed’s daughter, was named CEO. A graduate of Stanford University, where she studied international relations and Spanish, she worked in Atlanta for an industrial supply company and then earned her MBA at Harvard in 2008. She spent the next 10 years on the floor at Bullard as product manager of head protection, then as director of marketing and product development, and vice president.
“We’re looking to grow,” Wells Bullard said. “There are exciting opportunities around the world to serve our customers with protective equipment. It has become evident there are a lot of opportunities.”
Bullard Center opened in Lexington on Fortune Drive in August 2018 “to accommodate that growth and allow us to work even more closely with the University of Kentucky,” she said. The new center houses the company’s research and development departments, new product development, global shared resources and marketing.
“Our vision is to advance human safety to enable long, healthy, productive lives through innovative solutions,” said Wells Bullard. “That’s a big, lofty, aspirational vision.”
On any given workday she may be in Cynthiana or Lexington, or traveling to a subsidiary in Europe or Asia, always thinking about the company’s 300 employees globally and the end users: firefighters, ironworkers, fabrication and industrial manufacturing workers and all others who need hard hats and safety equipment. “I see myself as a steward of the company,” she said. “We want to do the right thing today for years in the future.”
Record-Topping Attempt
As part of the company’s centennial celebration, Bullard is providing 10,000 hard hats to Rupp Arena for the Vanderbilt–Kentucky game on Jan. 12. A Guinness World Records rep will be on site to see if fans at halftime can break a world record for the most people wearing a safety helmet for at least five minutes. CEO Wells Bullard will also present a donation to UK President Eli Capilouto for the College of Engineering.