With military deployments to Afghanistan and the 2020 bushfires, Firevolt’s founder Hayden Heath brings impressive credentials to his new venture.
His experience sparked an interest in fire safety and when he left the military, he worked in a fire safety company as a fire trainer.
While he already ran an e-commerce brand selling plasma lighters, Hayden soon decided to take a bigger leap of faith and set up is own fire safety business.
Established in 2023, Firevolt now offers fire extinguisher maintenance, fire training, and test-and-tag services to help Queensland businesses comply with Australian standards and regulations.
“We also deal with all the emergency planning and diagrams to make sure we make sure we essentially make businesses compliant with the Australian standards and regulations,” Hayden said.
“Often that’s the last thing that small business people think of. They’ve got a coffee shop or whatever, but they don’t think about whether their fire extinguishers work, or if their staff are training to handle an emergency.
“They might think they are doing the right thing, but they are not always. That’s where we come in. We take all that compliance stress, and they just love it.”
The company also services Advanced External Defibrillators (AEDs) across all Queensland Defence bases due to a chance meeting at an ICN networking event with representatives from Downer.
“We’re super grateful to ICN. It’s because of them that we got the Downer contract,” Hayden said.
“Through the ICN network I heard about an event that was happening with Downer, Serco and Ventia. ICN was there presenting three big contracts that were coming up.”
At that event, a Downer representative asked Hayden if Firevolt services AEDs. Hayden said he would look into it and the rest is history.
“It’s been very tangible for me and the business to have the Downer contract. It gives us great authority in our field. And I now have the experience and knowledge about the contract process.”
All this happened within a month of Hayden launching the business.
“People who have been in business for 10 plus years are just mind blown that I somehow stumbled my way there,” he said.
“But it’s not because I had only been in business for a couple months, it’s because I had been in Defence for 9 years.”
At this stage, Firevolt employees just two people – Hayden and his partner Alexandra – but the long-term goal is to expand and offer employment to other veterans.
“We can qualify a veteran pretty quickly with test-and-tag and a fire safety licence because of their background knowledge,” Hayden says.
“Customers will get an ex-military service personnel coming into their workplace and talking about fire and emergencies. Not many people have that experience, but military people deal with high-threat situations.
“This gives staff confidence that they are safe in their workplace.”
Nowadays Hayden combines his two business, handing out plasma lighters to his fire safety clients. “It’s a great way to be safe in your workplace,” he says.
For more information, follow Firevolt on LinkedIn, or go to https://www.firevolt.com.au/
