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About Us

Reflex Protect™ is a revolutionary non-lethal self-defense option for families anxious about having a gun readily available at home, nurses or others relying on wasp spray to defend against workplace violence, or teachers facing the terrifying potential for their schools to become next on the list of American tragedies.

Our Specialty

Its uniquely intuitive Grab & Shoot™ operation empowers individuals to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from the realities of an often incomprehensible and dangerous world, while reducing the potential for tragic and permanent consequences arising from the use of lethal force.


We hope you need never use Reflex Protect™, but we also hope you feel more secure knowing we were thinking of you when we made it.

How We Began

Reflex Protect™ began in March 2017 when two men born into Montana cattle ranching families met in the start-up friendly Missoula environment fostered by The University of Montana. 

steve mangold reflex protect image

The first, Steve Mangold, came to the meeting with a lifetime of experience as an avid outdoorsman, hunter, former U.S. Army MP, NRA member, and inventor. He brought with him perhaps his most prized invention, the Pistol Style Spray Head™ (“PSSH”) – a highly accurate and intuitive new chemical agent deployment system. 


Steve recognized that the PSSH solution could revolutionize self-defense for American households seeking the same elusive non-lethal option. So, in 2014, he set about securing patent protection for his invention and seeking a business partner to work with to bring it to market.

joe anderson reflex

Joe Anderson, the second player in the Reflex Protect™ story, left Montana at 18 for college at Stanford and law school at Georgetown, after which he settled into practice as an attorney at Pettit & Martin in the 101 California Building in San Francisco. On July 2, 1993, a deeply disturbed man boarded an elevator in that very building, exited on the 34th Floor in the midst of the Pettit & Martin offices, pulled two machine pistols from beneath his jacket, and began shooting. It was the worst mass murder in San Francisco history. 


Joe lost friends and colleagues in the tragedy and responded to the traumatic event by changing his life trajectory from a corporate path to an entrepreneurial one. When he met Steve and was introduced to a technology that might have saved lives had it been available at Pettit & Martin almost a quarter of a century earlier, it felt as though the journey begun that tragic day in San Francisco had come full circle.

Sharing our Knowledge

In reviewing the existing options for self-defense products, the two found them, first, not terribly intuitive to use, thus causing user error or failure under stress; and second, they were prone to collateral damage and unintended consequences. The two founders knew they could provide families, workplaces, and schools a simpler, more effective non-lethal self-defense alternative. 


Together we built Reflex Protect™ for you.