HP White Labs, world renown for ballistic testing excellent announced yesterday the opening of Cooper Main, a new Environmental Test Facility for personal and vehicular armor. The facility is named in honor of the company’s longest standing employee, Lois Cooper, who has been employed by HP White Laboratory for 53 years. Over her tenure, Cooper has held a variety of positions throughout the organization, ranging from ballistics technician to controller. Lois Cooper joined HP White Laboratory in 1958, following graduation from North Harford High School. During 53 years of service with HP White, Cooper has been a QC manager, ballistics technician, statistician, inventory manager, FSO, and most recently, company controller. Cooper will retire from HP White in the summer of 2011.

“Lois Cooper’s strength and longevity are hallmarks that underscore the H.P. White brand,” said Mike Parker, president, H.P. White Laboratory. “Over five decades Cooper demonstrated uncommon loyalty and adaptability to best serve customers’ needs and the lab’s.”

The new laboratory houses four Environmental Conditioning Chambers capable of achieving temperature ranges from minus 75 degrees C to 150 degrees C, and humidity ranges from 10% to 98% for hard and soft armor samples up to 39.4”x35.5”x39.4”. What’s more, the new facility provides a 575-square-foot sample storage room maintained at between 25-degrees C and 20%-50% humidity for compliant storage of samples awaiting testing.

With the addition of Cooper Main, HP White now provides vehicular and personal armor manufacturers with one-stop environmental conditioning and ballistics resistance testing required by multiple standards and regulations, including National Institute of Justice (NIJ), MIL STDs, UL 752, STANAG, military hard and soft body armor standards, and a host of other domestic and foreign protocols that require environmental conditioning. Manufacturers and suppliers can validate armor packages for research and development, certification, and acceptance testing. For hard and soft armor manufacturers whose armor must pass environmental conditioning requirements, Cooper Main represents significant cost and time efficiencies.

For more information visit www.hpwhite.com.

HP White, the World’s Largest Independent Body Armor Test Laboratory Gains National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) Accreditation for its Environmental Conditioning Test Facilities in Support of NIJ Body Armor Certification Regimen

NVLAP has awarded HP White accreditation to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 0101.06, Sec. 6 Flexible Armor Conditioning Protocol; fortifying the lab’s existing ISO/IEC 17025:2005 Scope of Accreditation (NVLAP Lab Code: 200825-0). HP White joins a handful of NIJ certified ballistic testing laboratories that can conduct the required environmental conditioning of personal body armor, in addition to the ballistics resistance testing required for NIJ 0101.06 body armor certification.

“Since 1972, HP White has been conducting body armor testing for NIJ and its predecessor the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice,” said Mike Parker, president, HP White. “Through the years HP White continues to evolve its operations with the NIJ programs and customers’ needs. This NVLAP accreditation will provide our customers with more efficient NIJ testing cycles, and faster throughput and market readiness of their products.”

Ok, so now you are saying to yourself, “What does this mean for me?” What it means for you is that HP White is now certified to conduct a protocol “designed to subject test armors to conditions that are intended to provide some indication of the armor’s ability to maintain ballistic performance after being exposed to conditions of heat, moisture, and mechanical wear. This protocol will not predict the service life of the vest nor does it simulate an exact period of time in the field.” This protocol is critical to predicting how well armor will perform in real world conditions. Nobody gets shot in a lab. It’s always in the rain, or bitter cold, or sweltering humidity.

HP White is a household name in the armor world and more testing/certification capacity is good for the market. It means new configurations can be tested more rapidly. This should help shorten the development cycle and encourage competition. Competition in the market place means improved armor and lower costs.

www.hpwhite.com