It's been about three years since retired Toms River Police Officer, Kelly Conklin Sr., started up Superior Protection Professionals alongside his son, Kelly Conklin Jr., and many others by providing armed and unarmed security detail at various events and locations.

They've continued to grow during that time and expand on their protection of schools, offices, buildings, events, and so much more while also offering services throughout the state.

"We have armed and unarmed guards and we operate in all of New Jersey. The reason we started was back when there were a lot of church and synagogue shootings and my son and I thought we had to do something about it and being a retired police officer, I said, 'you know what, it's got to be something dear to my heart that I have a passion for and it's got to have a positive, meaningful change in people's lives, so, we figured, if we're out there protecting people, we're doing something good," Kelly Conklin Sr. told Townsquare Media on 'Shore Time with Vin and Dave' on 94.3 The Point and 105.7 The Hawk, on Sunday morning. "Back in the spring of '19, we started Superior Protection Professionals."

Kelly Conklin Sr. and Kelly Conklin Jr. (Mike Pierson MP Pics Photography)
Kelly Conklin Sr. and Kelly Conklin Jr. (Mike Pierson MP Pics Photography)
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The list has grown for the types of places and venues where SPP provides security detail.

"We're in all different venues in the state, whether it be retail, private parties, schools, it could be an amusement park -- we've had so many different ones, literally from an old lady whose having a tree cut down in her yard, she hired us so her neighbors didn't give her a hard time. From that to executive protection to sitting on homes when they have domestic issues or just anything that someone needs to be protected at any time, we have our guards there ready," Conklin said.

SPP is first and foremost about de-escalation training and communication and trying to resolve any conflicts peacefully.

"All our guys are very well trained in de-escalation, the majority are retired police officers and we have some active guys on the roster also," Conklin said. "When I mentioned domestic violence, it's not during an incident, it's after an incident has happened and the police have handled it and the person fears that person coming back at some point, so they'll hire us to basically post up in front of the residence round the clock sometimes just to make sure that they don't get harmed after the incident already happened."

Kelly Conklin Sr. and Kelly Conklin Jr. (Mike Pierson MP Pics Photography)
Kelly Conklin Sr. and Kelly Conklin Jr. (Mike Pierson MP Pics Photography)
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Over the last year or so, following the recent tragic shootings at schools across the country, Conklin and SPP have become hyper-focused on doing more at schools to protect everyone as well including with bulletproof backpacks.

"We were thinking of a way that we can have a farther reach and protect people even in the absence of our guards and a great way we can across was there are bulletproof backpacks out there. It's a very difficult subject to talk about, a lot of people don't want to talk about it but the reality is that there are bad people out there looking to harm good people and quite often they use handguns or rifles to carry that out," Conklin said. "We've been looking for a very good company to partner with and sell their product and the AR500 is the backpack that we chose. It's a reasonably priced backpack and it protects against all handgun rounds -- and the sewn-in panel in there, the ballistic panel, is the same threat level that police officers wear when they're on patrol. It stops all handgun rounds, it can stop six rounds from a .44 magnum and we also sell the plates that you can slip into your favorite backpack or your laptop carrying case and have some form of a shield to protect you in the event of some sort of tragedy."

You can listen to the full interview conversation with Kelly Conklin Sr., right here.

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