Peter Roque
Chief Executive Officer
Peter and his family, owners of Blackinton® for decades, bring unparalleled lifelong experience and vision to Blackinton® as well as a keen sense for the public safety industry. Peter started his career at Blackinton® in 1975 as a high school student, working his way through many of the disciplines in the factory. These tasks included polishing, enameling, stenciling, and the extensive product knowledge of the stock room. As a graduate of Bryant College with an Accounting Degree, Peter’s talents were well received in cost accounting. His manufacturing prowess combined with his analytical capabilities aid management in making educated and impactful decisions concerning the direction of the Blackinton® product line.
Through the 1980’s, Peter continued to lay the ground work for an esteemed career at Blackinton®. In the late 1980’s, Peter helped to make Blackinton® a household name in the public safety marketplace. Peter brought his unique interpersonal skills to the sales department, where he had tremendous success growing the business while expanding the Blackinton® dealer base. His ability to build long-standing and mutually-respectable partnerships, which still exist to this day, is a major contributing factor to the success of Blackinton®. In 1993 Peter became Vice President of Blackinton®, a role he held until 2002 when he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer.
Peter’s most impactful and revolutionary contribution to the company was his answer to security concerns being felt in the marketplace. In the early 2000’s, the Federal Government sought a secure badge solution. While other manufacturers answered with holograms, micro-engineering and die mapping, Peter pursued a technologically-advanced solution which involved embedding an RFID chip into the metal badges. A trip to a home improvement store and seeing a light go off as someone tried to exit with an active RFID product security tag was the beginning of Peter’s two year journey to bring the U.S. patented badge solution, SmartShield®, to the marketplace in 2005.
Although slow to take off in a struggling U.S. economy, this high-security badge solution is opening up untapped markets for Blackinton®. Thanks to Peter’s innovation, in Latin America where the national police urgently need a badge security solution to combat police impersonation and corruption, over 200,000 SmartShield® badges have already been deployed.