Following former Morrow County Sheriff’s Deputy Brandon Moore’s long, ardous recovery from wounds he sustained in the line of duty, it became appearant to the law enforcement officer that he was no longer able to perform the physical duties of his position.
Moore, despite his preference to continue, decided that his body was not able to handle this rigorous line of work any longer. He chose to turn to his brain child, Hero Holsters.
During his days of physical therapy, Moore ordered an inside the belt holster for his Concealed Carry Weapon.
Upon receiving it, he began to tinker around with it to find ways that he could improve the design.
“It started off completely as a hobby,” he said. “I’m just a tinkerer. It was one of those things that I just picked up.”
Beginning to perfect his design over those months of being laid up, Brandon began to see people become interested with what he was making.
After posting a picture of his redesigned holsters, he instantly received 10 orders and people from all over began asking him to design a holster for them.
That, Moore says, was exactly what he needed during his recovery to kick start his life in the right direction again.
“Seeing it grow was kind of a win for me, and all men need a challenge to overcome,” he explained. “Having this win was important for me after everything.”
His business now called Hero Holsters grew from a few online orders, in addition to visiting gun shows every months, to crafting 60-80 holsters for the Inspector General for the Department of Housing.
At this point, Brandon expected his business to continue booming, but as life goes, things began to slow down again.
His peak time was over and orders were not as large as they used to be. Due to the lack of business, Brandon decided for the well-being of his family that it was time to look for another job.
During a job fair, Brandon was lucky to stumble upon the iForce tent.
After talking for a moment with the person working the booth, Brandon was on his way to having another form of employment.
He has now been with the outfit for seven months, climbing his way up to a supervisor position.
Brandon still takes orders for his holsters and completes them in his spare time, which sadly, is not much.
When asked about family time he said, “I am more in love with my wife now than I was on the day that I got married. My relationship with my family is stronger than ever, and it will always take precedent over my work. That is something I will never be willing to give up.”
Brandon’s zeal for his family often leads him to long work weeks and hours spent late at night making holsters, but he loves what he does and never complains at any point.
Moore only attends the Mansfield Gun Show, which he says is where it all started.
On the weekend of the Mansfield show he packs up his equipment and travels to the site where he will make holsters to order in his booth.
“The word hero was used a lot after the shooting. It was kind of troubling and also very humbling, because someone was trying to kill me and I was just trying to stay alive,” Moore explained. “I was just a guy trying to get home. After the shooting, a teacher from Lexington invited me to speak at hero week.”
“She kept telling the kids, ‘A hero is an ordinary person who does an extraordinary thing.’ And I thought that was great; anyone who is willing to take up arms and guard their family, friends and themselves is doing an extraordinary thing, and that person is a hero in my book. So if I can help equip that person, why not call it ‘Hero Holsters’”?
