EATI ‘upfits’ various cars, trucks and boats for rigorous emergency work
Have you ever wondered about all of the flashing lights, loud sirens, special added-on equipment and computer technology loaded on and in squad cars, ambulances and other emergency vehicles?
Indeed, law enforcement and public safety agencies have gone high tech these days, and there’s no greater example than what you see in and on your local city police or county sheriff squads. From on-board computers and sophisticated lighting arrays to data/network connections and camera and radar systems, and everything in between, technology and electronics abound.
These vehicles don’t arrive at your local cop shop stocked with all of those bells and whistles. Someone needs to install the technology and electronics, and that’s where Emergency Automotive Technologies, Inc. (EATI) comes in.
EATI has found an uncommon – and vital – business niche, serving a range of law enforcement, fire, emergency medical services (EMS) and public works agencies in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, providing, as its website states, “innovative vehicle solutions” since 1986.
Locally, EATI operates a facility in Hermantown, where the company just purchased a new building and is moving into its 7,500-square-foot space in the Hermantown Industrial Park. The firm also has a location in Jordan, Minn., and a main facility in Oakdale near St. Paul. EATI employs 55 full-time and 10 part-time workers, including 10 full-timers in Hermantown. The firm did not disclose annual sales.
Essentially, the company does all of the outfitting –EATI and the public safety industry refer to it as “upfitting” – of vehicles that transforms them from basic cars, SUVs and trucks into police, public safety and other emergency vehicles.
“We take existing cars or trucks from the three manufacturers, Ford, Dodge, Chevy, and build a complete turn-key police squad car or emergency vehicle,” said Kelly O’Toole, who is a co-owner of EATI along with Andrea Altmann. Both are Duluth area residents. “We get cars that are basically heavy-duty police pursuit-rated vehicles, we work with multiple dealerships and often the police municipalities we work with will purchase their own vehicles … and then they bring those to us” for the installation work.
The company’s largest customer right now is the Minnesota State Patrol, O’Toole said, with other customers located throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and Iowa.
The list of vehicle types that EATI equips includes (and this is not a total list, only examples): marked squads, unmarked squads, K-9 units, mobile command centers, special services vehicles, SWAT units, boats, ATVs, rapid response vehicles and amber-safety vehicles (such as public works and transportation department vehicles). EATI also outfits fire department vehicles, though they don’t do the actual fire and ladder trucks.
The list of what the company installs is extensive. A few examples (again, not a total list) from the company’s website include: siren controllers and speakers, emergency lighting including light bars and perimeter lighting, weapons storage, partitions, push bumpers, running boards, center consoles, computer mounting and docking stations, storage solutions, graphics, window tinting, K9 deployment and kennels, camera systems, radar, remote starts, back-up alarms, ignition over-ride, auto eject, mobile command units, special vehicle configurations, on-board chargers, shore power and scene lighting.
Most of EATI’s employees work as installers and have backgrounds in low-voltage electronics, O’Toole said. And, like most industries these days navigating labor shortages, he said employee recruitment is a challenge.
“Our biggest asset is our people,” Altmann said, “so, we try to take care of our staff and team members” with a competitive benefit package, on-the-job training and other benefits.
Altmann and O’Toole bought EATI in 2024 from Mike Schwartz, the company’s founder, who wanted to retire. Altmann and O’Toole are also owners of locally based Aluminum Cabinet Company, which they started in 2007, and which specializes in custom aluminum and stainless-steel cabinets for home and commercial use. They had been leasing space in Hermantown to Schwartz and EATI.
Beyond serving as Schwartz’s business landlord, their Aluminum Cabinet Company had also been partnering with EATI, “doing the fabrication for a lot of the squad car builds and global command centers,” O’Toole said. As Altmann added, “We were already a collaborator on so many projects that it was just a natural fit to look to us as a buyer” of the company.
The business partners cited several keys to EATI’s success. Having three locations “strategically placed throughout the state” has been helpful to customers “so they don’t have to go to just one central location,” Altmann said. Second, a strong “attention to detail” has been a key, O’Toole noted, and, finally, “Customer service is No. 1.”
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