The Origins of Protac
Protac began in 1998 when Eileen Curtis made a watch cover and some small pouches for her husband Sean while he was enlisted in the Irish Army as a NCO. Soon other members of his unit were asking for similar pieces of kit, which Eileen began to make on an old Singer sewing machine and so Protac was born. Originally the business began as mail order, slowly it built up to the point where it had taken over the main rooms of the Curtis household. So it was time for a move.
Next the business moved to North Dublin taking over half but not all of the house! By this point Protac was supplying several shops in Dublin and had begun to garner international attention. As the operation snowballed in growth another move, this time to Wicklow, and the construction of a factory was called for.
So we now had a factory and the next obvious step for the business was our own outlet shop. The first shop on the Curragh was opened officially by Charlie McCreevy in 2001, this lead over time to the concentrating on the outlet store and wholesale and less focus on the mail order aspect. It became uneconomical for the shop and the factory to be over 60 miles apart, with the help of the Kildare County Council another move was made this time the Factory was moved to Newbridge in Kildare. This was a larger operation than Sean or Eileen had ever operated and allowed for Protac to grow to be the international success it is today.
In 2004 the shop and the factory were brought even closer when they moved into the same unit on the Curragh Camp. Today we employ 7 staff and supply kit to the Special Forces of 5 different countries, members of the Irish Army and the general public. Our next step has been to expand the company with an online presence and coming full circle back to the origins of the company as a mail order business.