Leading Australia’s Shooting Range Capability: Dr Daniel Knight

In 2022, Zeroed was established as Manteena’s newest subsidiary, focusing on delivering world class shooting range and live-fire training facilities to the Australian market. General Manager, Daniel Knight, never imagined this would be the direction his career took, despite a long-term link to Australian Policing.

Tell me more about your career to date. How did you end up at Manteena?

After completing my PhD, I relocated to Singapore where I spent 3 years working in a specialist company operating in the space of infrastructure protection and resilience for projects all over the world. This included Australian Government work throughout South-East Asia and the Middle East, as well as infrastructure resilience projects throughout Europe and the USA. This work quickly built my appetite for specialist and unique construction using leading products and materials. Upon returning to Australia, I commenced with Manteena Security as a Project Manager on domestic and overseas high-security projects.

In 2018 we identified a growing industry requirement for indoor shooting range facilities within Australia and began to focus our attention on this space and build a dedicated capability. This led to the securing of specialist works on various Australian prominent indoor shooting range projects. In the last 5 years we have been involved in the delivery of all major range projects for Australian Police groups.

In 2022 Zeroed Pty Ltd was officially established as a subsidiary within Manteena, with a core focus on delivering world class shooting range and live-fire training facilities. At this time, I assumed the role of General Manager.

Why Shooting Ranges?

It is a unique and niche space globally, and one that is of incredible interest to me given the focus on technology application and unique modular construction techniques. I came from a Policing family, my father served as a Police officer for nearly 20 years, so when the opportunity arose within Australia I was eager to pursue building a career and capability with the Manteena Group.

How would you explain Zeroed’s offering?

Zeroed has a unique offering to the Australian industry. As part of the Manteena Group, we lean on the extensive heritage and experience of an Australian awarded builder who operate in a unique space with projects both in Australia, and globally.

We partner with specialist suppliers in the shooting range industry and apply their product knowledge and technology to support Australian requirements for Police, Defence and Commercial customer bases. This enables us to use a turn-key approach to deliver major projects starting from design, through procurement, construction and maintenance and servicing – under a single capability.

Our core partner, Action Target, have been fundamental to our growth and success. We work hand in hand with the Action Target team to tailor products and services for the Australian market, this includes local procurement initiatives and fabrication of key systems.

An important component for us is also understanding what our customers’ requirements are. We regularly receive feedback from our customers on their growing needs in this industry and tailor products to suit, this included internal R&D initiatives and product developments.

Did you always think this was an area you may end up working in?

In the early years of my career this was never a pathway that I imagined would exist but having unearthed this space I have grown a passion for the industry and further developing our capability to support our Australian customers.

What would you tell anyone considering a career in project management and/or the shooting range space?

Being involved in such a unique space which supports the training needs of Law Enforcement and Defence is incredibly rewarding. On a daily basis I am fortunate enough to interact with some of the leading special operations personnel in Australia to understand their growing training needs, or how they are utilising our equipment or services.