California off-road racer excels as defense contractor

Glenn Harris tilted a heavy piece of pockmarked armor onto its edge.The green veneer was gouged and dented with quarter- and dime-sized cavities. Next to each divot was a bit of writing, some in white, some in gray and black: "7.62 x39LC," "5.50," "AP 308.""That one's armor piercing," said Harris, a 49-year-old champion off-road racer turned defense contractor. He owns Southern California Gold Products in Oxnard.He pointed at another hole, where the caliber of the projectile was marked in white."That's a high-velocity round," he said while drifting his finger over it. "And that one's from an AK-47."Harris' company began installing "up-armor kits" on Humvees, trucks, bulldozers, cranes and other military vehicles about three years ago.On Harris' factory floor is an armored door with blast glass that's been tested with a simulated IED explosion. The fragments split open the metal covering on one hinge, cut the skin of the door in spots and knocked a big spider web of cracks into the window, but nothing blew all the way through.Knowing that their work makes a difference has driven Harris and his employees to work harder."It's saved a lot of lives," he said of the company's first armoring effort in early 2004 - shields mounted around gun turrets on top of Humvees. "We got e-mails and photos from guys thanking us."It's been an evolution for the Camarillo, Calif. native, who went from competing in off-road races in Baja Mexico and the deserts of Nevada to running big-company racing teams before launching after-market add-ons for trucks.In the 1990s, he landed a Humvee dealership in Japan. He later developed something called a "slant-back," a shell that snapped onto the back of older Hummers. Harris' business, which he operates with his wife, Gina, out of a new 13,000-square-foot warehouse in Oxnard, employs about 12 people. When factoring in subcontractors, he provides jobs for as many as 100 others.Last year, his $10 million-a-year company got a $7.3 million contract with the Navy to armor trucks used by Seabees.Despite being just a few miles from the base, Harris' connection to the military started by chance and a few hundred miles to the south with something called the Gypsy Rack.On his way to a race in Baja Mexico in 2002, Harris stopped at Camp Pendleton after getting a call from a Marine general with a logistics problem. It was during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The Marines were worried about the range of Humvees, which are so integral to light infantry. Beyond that, the general was looking for a place to stow extra water and gear without eliminating space for ammunition.Harris came up with a solution in three days - the Gypsy Rack, which holds six jerrycans of fuel or soldiers' gear. He ended up winning his biggest contract to that point, a $1.5 million deal to build 2,500 racks."We showed them we could do an excellent job, that we'd deliver on what we promised," Harris said.In a letter to the company, Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis said the "Gypsy Rack certainly came through for us" by "extending the Division's legs and giving more confidence to our lads, who knew they could press just a little farther toward their objectives each time the fuel needles began to get low. And in a fight, it's all about confidence."The quick delivery and simple ingenuity of the design - the racks are made of steel tubing and easily installed - led to more work. In late 2003, the Marines asked if Harris could come up with armor plates to protect gunners on Humvees.The turret had an armor shield in front, but nothing on the sides and back, which meant Marines were getting killed or injured.Harris' crew came up with a way to quickly and securely attach armor plates to all sides. They later even developed a way to shape the armor kits.After an Army officer saw how well the armor protected Marine gunners, Gold Products got an Army order for 5,000 gunner shield kits."We delivered 5,000 kits in eight weeks," Harris said.(Scott Hadly writes for the Ventura County Star in California)