Eighty Years of Excellence: Willo Products reflects on its evolution and prepares to debut new detention solutions in 2025
By Lindsey Coulter
Willo Products of Decatur, Ala., is in the business of safety and security, centered on cell-door locking systems. The company has seen a lot of evolution across its 80 years of operation and is excited to kick off its ninth decade of manufacturing high-quality detention locking systems, hard-wired door control solutions, parts and services.
After decades in business, the detention-specific manufacturer is even more invested in listening and responding to the ever-evolving needs of justice and correctional owners and operators. In 2024, Willo issued a nationwide survey asking about correctional leaders’ general experiences with facility locks. Roughly 50% of respondents said that they had experience with locks being tampered with or compromised, and about 64% reported experiences with doors that seemed locked but were not — posing significant security threats. The survey also reiterated that door and lock security is often the single largest day-to-day security concern for correctional officers but is often just as important for incarcerated people themselves. Malfunctioning locks are often cited as a contributing factor to institutional violence or death, and Willo solutions aim to mitigate this risk.
A Focus on Quality
Willo has found its detention niche by providing high-quality locking systems for swinging and sliding cell doors in jails and prisons. The company also provides detention controls and maintains a thriving service and parts division that offers service contracts as well as one-time repairs.
“The problem with door lock security is that it’s an ever-evolving situation inside prisons and jails,” said Russell Roberts, chief operating officer. “Door lock security consistently remains under attack through abuse and through day-to-day activity. We are constantly evolving our technology, engineering new solutions, and designing new features to prevent and thwart those attempts, so that both correctional officers and those incarcerated are in a safe environment.”
The company has become particularly well known for its innovative Willo Wedge. The product was invented in response to a customer that was struggling to maintain the security of narrow jamb locks on its facility’s swinging doors. Willo assessed the situation and engineered a tailored solution to solve the client’s problem.
“We were able to pull the narrow jamb lock out of the frame, offset it, surface mount it and install a grade-one maximum lock,” Roberts explained. “This was not only a more secure solution, but it was less expensive than replacing the narrow jamb lock alone.”
Company Evolution
Willo Products was originally founded in 1945 as a steel fabrication company. In the early days, it produced fuel tanks and offered specialty steel fabrication for farmers and local industries, later moving into the structural steel market and providing beams for bridges and power plants. In the 1960s, the company first entered the detention market.
“Back in those days, a jail was built out of steel,” said President Dave Wood, who has been with the company for more than 40 years. “It had steel walls, steel ceilings, steel windows, steel furnishings and the doors were often heat-treated bar grading. We manufactured all of those products, and we designed our first sliding cell door device in the 1960s.”
At that time, most detention door controls were relay-based systems that were mounted in steel cabinets, so Willo integrated the cabinet into its product line and later the door controls. By the 1980s, Willo worked exclusively in the detention market. This was fortuitous timing for the company, as the shift in product focus aligned with a countrywide correctional building boom.
“New jails and prisons were going up everywhere,” Wood said. “And Willo was one of the largest detention equipment contractors in the market.”
During that period, the company employed 120 manufacturing employees, with 150 more in the field installing products in facilities across the country. As the building boom slowed, however, the company refocused on its manufacturing capabilities, adding security hollow metal to its product line and selling detention products to other detention contractors.
Along the way, Willo found opportunities to help existing jails and prisons with locking system problems, solving security problems by upgrading aging sliding devices or replacing door control panels that no longer worked. This demonstrated need in the detention market eventually became the focus of the business.
Willo Today
Having scaled its operations, the company maintains a workforce of 40 employees and has continued to develop its reputation for locking system expertise and for placing a premium on customer service, execution, delivery and results.
“I just joined Willo 18 months ago, and I’ve never seen a company with such a consistent good reputation,” Roberts said. “That reputation, I think, is in large part due to the reliability and the consistency with which Willo products are engineered, operated, installed and in continual use for years. Ultimately, customers are highly satisfied because we solve these critical safety problems.”
Willo continues to distinguish itself by remaining the only company in the industry that is exclusively focused on innovative locking systems. While the company continues to develop new tamper-resistant features for the Wedge or sliding devices, it also keeps a strong focus on retrofit solutions. As the company manufactures its own devices, products and parts are always available.
“What really excites us is when our customers tell us how our product performs or how we as a company perform,” said Wood. In a recent project in a large city in the Northeast, Willo Products helped address a major facility security problem, prompting the longtime client to send a letter applauding the company’s products and services. Willo’s various product lines have also performed exceptionally well in third-party testing, far surpassing competitor models in durability and reliability.
“Just last week I got a call from a detention consultant who said, ‘I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news,’” Wood said. “The bad news was that there wasn’t going to be as much work on a particular facility for us as we had thought, but the good news was that our 40-year-old sliding door devices looked and operated like they were installed yesterday. So. that was quite a compliment.”
New Innovations for 2025
Despite the continued success of its standard product line, Willo has new innovations in development with three patents pending related to tamper-resistant features that will debut in 2025. The company is also excited to announce its participation in several significant projects later in the year. For now, however, the Willo team looks forward to increasing awareness of its solutions, bringing new tamper-resistant features to market and helping ensure that door lock security becomes more proactive versus reactive in the industry.
“Also, historically, Willo was a competitor with traditional detention equipment contractors, but we’re now a supplier and a manufacturer, and we want to continue to build out our partner network along with customers directly,” said Roberts.
“As was mentioned in a recent Correctional News article, there’s no shortage in the amount of renovation work over the next five years — and the volume of new construction is very high,” added Wood. “So, Willo is ready to be a valuable supplier in both renovation of locking systems and in providing tamper-resistant locking systems and high-quality slider solutions to the new construction space, so that all facilities have the best security available.”
While company leaders look to build external relationships, they continue to nurture their internal team. In a recent survey, Willo employees unanimously said that the company feels like a family, a culture Willo leaders work hard to maintain and that helps attract and retain new talent.
“Having satisfied customers creates a sense of pride for our staff,” said Wood. “We talk a lot about the importance of the work we do. When we can help create a safe detention environment, we’re helping ensure that the correctional officers make it home to their families at the end of the shift, and that rehabilitative work can take place inside a facility so that lives are changed, and people have a second chance. Our team understands that what we do matters and that helps keep us focused.”
This article was originally published in the Jan/Feb 2025 edition of Correctional News.