Today, we’d like to introduce you to Justin Li. He shared his story with us below:
Justin Li, a former Reserve Deputy with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, regularly battled hot and cold extremes as part of his work in law enforcement. Inspired by Stanford University studies that demonstrated cooling the body is more effective than anabolic steroids in addition to preventing
heat injuries, the idea for what would eventually lead to the birth of Qore Performance came to Li during a search for an armed suspect in the high deserts east of San Diego. A few years later, he invented ICEPLATE®: a 50-ounce water bottle shaped like an armor plate that controls core body temperature for people wearing personal protective equipment (PPE).
Dozens of Fortune 1000 companies have embraced ICEPLATE®, originally designed to prevent heat stroke for US Military personnel wearing PPE. These companies have adopted ICEPLATE® to protect their team members from the harmful effects of increasingly hostile environments, a testament to its proven effectiveness. ICEPLATE® boasts a perfect operational safety record, with over 6,000,000 hours worked without a single minute lost to a heat injury since 2017.
This success story of ICEPLATE® anchors the Qore Performance® IceAge Ecosystem: a comprehensive suite of thermoregulation technologies that weaponize temperature to enhance performance and survivability, liberating humans and machines from the constraints of their environment.
His grandparents saved Justin at the age of 10. Today, Justin leans on his faith to guide him personally and professionally. Justin and his wife, Tracy, reside in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road? If not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Heck no! Entrepreneurship is a hard path to take. It is a path for those with exceptional grit and determination. I’ve made every mistake possible, but I’ve also learned that the only way to make it as an entrepreneur is if you can sell, create, and manage in that order.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We invented the niche performance category of consumable thermoregulation. Before Qore Performance, there were hydration companies (CamelBak, Nalgene, Yeti) and “cooling vest” companies, which are largely cheap commodity players from China or Mission.
The fundamental problem with these companies was that the hydration companies couldn’t help you thermoregulate, and the “cooling vest” products weren’t drinkable, meaning they started heavy and stayed heavy throughout your use. We bridged that gap and created the first (and patented) solution called ICEPLATE® that lets you drink your cooling/heating element, meaning your load gets lighter during use.
So, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you before we go? How can they support you?
All of our products are available for purchase from our website for all of our customers: consumer, enterprise, and government. Our contact info is available on our website and also via our Instagram account: https://www.qoreperformance.com/pages/press-kit-contact-us and https://www.instagram.com/qoreperformance/
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.qoreperformance.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qoreperformance/
- X: https://x.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2FQorePerformance
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/qoreperformanceusa

Image Credits
Qore Performance
