EOTYA 2024 Finalist: Tony Overstead & Justin Rooney

When firefighters arrive on the scene, they face much more than a raging inferno. The flammability and related toxicity of everyday man-made materials in today’s built environments present an additional challenge.

Add to that higher levels of regulation for incumbent fire technology, rising insurance premiums and extreme weather events, which all combine to make the fire safety sector one fraught with important risks and challenges that need addressing. 

Enter Flame Security International (FSI), which is focused on mitigating the increasing threat of fire through the development of innovative products and services.

FIRECOAT is an innovative intumescent undercoat paint that has been designed to protect homes and structures from bushfires up to BAL-40 rating. This is the first of its kind and a game-changer for Australia and recently for the United States as well.

Thanks to the solution’s international success and its contribution to safety, Co-Founders Tony Overstead and Justin Rooney were both finalists at The CEO Magazine’s 2024 Executive of the Year Awards.

"I get excited seeing our dedicated team of scientific ‘overachievers’ getting commercial and public recognition for the academic firepower they contribute to developing world-first technology," Overstead says.

"Their efforts behind the scenes in our labs are making a tangible social, environmental and economic difference in the community, which will be their long-term legacy," Rooney adds.

"The team has a unique blend of characters, cultural backgrounds and skills yet still has a proactive and collegial team ethos where individual successes are celebrated and individual contributions are acknowledged across all functions."

Community driven

Since its foundation in January 2018, FSI has teamed up with world class University of New South Wales PhD chemical, material and fire engineers, plus a range of state governments, other research institutions, industry partners, manufacturers and distributors, to invent and commercialize fire protection products to benefit the community, industry and the environment.

By understanding the risks, FSI is able to create innovative solutions, which exceed industry needs and opportunities.

"Our company works with all major stakeholder groups including first responders, regulators, the best local and international universities and industry partners to satisfy our common goals," Overstead says.

"It’s been a success, with local and international recognition, a long list of global patents and a suite of world-first products generated from sovereign sources of intellect, industry feedback and funding." 

FSI’s flagship product is FIRECOAT, a fire retardant undercoat paint designed for the bushfire-prone Australian environment. The undercoat is developed with advanced polymer technology for extreme fire protection, up to BAL-40 rating – the second highest bushfire attack level.

FIRECOAT is also environmentally safe, making the solution even more accessible for homes and structures in Australia. It’s for these reasons that FIRECOAT took the top spot in the Problem Solver category at the Universities Australia Shaping Australia Awards.

The product was partly funded via a Cooperative Research Centres Project grant from the Australian Government, which along with the University of New South Wales, are key partners of FSI.

"Innovation is a part of our company’s DNA," Rooney says. "Australia’s universities are a hotbed of academic firepower, creating change and solving cross border problems with ingenuity and expertise."

Changing the game

FIRECOAT has the potential to be a game-changer in more ways than one.

"Until now, property owners and builders in areas threatened by bushfires globally have had no effective and accessible options for minimizing damage and loss from fires other than water," Overstead says.

"People who live in high fire risk areas, both city and country, are always looking for ways to better protect their homes and assets, and FIRECOAT has been proven scientifically to be the most effective fire-retardant coating in the world."

FIRECOAT’s virtues extend to the insurance and building industries, explains Rooney.

"It potentially changes the outcome from a situation in which assets must be replaced to one in which repair becomes an option. It could also contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions and other environmental impacts simply because properties are far less likely to be consumed by flames."

Doing the right thing

Overstead’s military background has imbued FSI with a disciplined, measured and results-focused mindset, while his leadership has ensured the team is all about doing the right things, large and small, all day, every day.

"The startup community has a high failure rate, so to me the key skills contributing to FSI’s success have included agility, adaptability, flexibility, mental and physical resilience, competence and most importantly, character," he says.

Complementing Overstead’s expertise, Rooney brings with him years of experience in banking, capital markets and wholesale investing, making him the ideal person to liaise with shareholders and identify innovative insurance-based risk solutions.

"At FSI, character is often demonstrated in how closely our actions, decisions and relationships adhere to ethics and values," Rooney says. "When you treat people with dignity and respect, you earn and build the trust of your team and customers by setting the highest standards and holding yourself and everyone in your organization accountable for maintaining them."

By harnessing FSI’s considerable human capital, academic intellect and technology, the company has collaborated with industry and capital markets to achieve not just commercial success, but a long-lasting legacy of community benefits.

"Through our efforts combined, we want to be regarded as one of the great Australian innovative exports and to make a meaningful improvement to public safety."