Twenty years ago, people threw their old bills and bank statements out with the trash. Fast forward to today and you’ll find them taking steps to destroy their confidential information before they dispose of it.

That’s not a daunting task for an individual but for a doctor’s office or government contractor, disposing of the paper generated in the course of business is a major undertaking.

Enter Patriot Shredding, a Rockville company dedicated to the destruction of sensitive and confidential information. 

“Our machine is designed for use with classified info,” said co-owner Grant DiGioia.  “It has pulverizing screens that chew it up.” 

With 12-millimeter, 10-millimeter, and 3-millimeter screens, there’s no way the information they shred can ever be recreated or recovered. 

For DiGioia and partner Chris Braga, the decision to start their own business shortly after  graduation from college in May 2009 was an easy one. Both are from entrepreneurial families and both saw a burgeoning market for secure data destruction in the DC metropolitan area. 

“Grant came to me with the idea in October 2009 and we kind of worked on it for a while,” Braga said. “I decided if I was going to take a shot, now was the time to do it.”

Braga and DiGioia launched Patriot in September. Their customer base is within a 50-mile radius of Rockville. They come to your business to pick up your shredding or you can bring it to their offices on Wilkins Court. 

“The new calendar year is usually the busiest in the industry because retention times are up then,” DiGioia said.  “The law says [documents] need to be destroyed.”

Braga agreed. “Since the new year we’ve really been getting more and more calls each week, I think because our Web site is up and running and we’re getting our name out.” 

Patriot Shredding can destroy computer hard drives, too.

“We’re one of a handful of companies in the United States that offer that type of security with hard drive destruction,” DiGioia said. “It’s best to disintegrate it to protect it.”

In fact, National Institute of Standards and Technology recommendations state that the highest form of security is physical destruction by disintegration. That’s the standard at Patriot. 

Braga and DiGioia are working to expand their customer base beyond one-time customers. Their plans call for building a platform of routine service customers who have Patriot consoles in place and receive shredding services on a scheduled basis.

To attract customers, Patriot is participating in Rockville Rewards and has started a blog that includes accounts of sensitive data disposal disasters. They have also outfitted a truck with shredding equipment, allowing them to perform their services at the client site.

As more and more businesses move to a paperless model, the need for secure destruction of hard drives and other media will continue to grow, DiGioia said. Patriot intends to be a major player in the industry.