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After several hectic weeks spent in global competition for protective equipment for health workers, the Vermont team charged with assembling emergency supplies is relying on Vermont connections and Vermont manufacturers to build up its stores for the weeks and months ahead.
Half a million procedural medical masks are due to arrive at the Morrisville loading dock of Concept2, the privately owned company that makes rowing machines and other athletic equipment, on Wednesday. Concept2 used its own manufacturing connections in China to buy the masks, which it will donate to local health care entities and the state.
The state is working on a deal with JK Adams, the Dorset wood products manufacturer, which plans to produce 50,000 face shields per week if it gets the orders. Meanwhile, production started this week on 4,000 face shields at the Generator, a Burlington maker space that is using its own 3D printers and several borrowed from local manufacturers. The state recently also took delivery of 1,900 face shields made and donated by Revision Eyewear of Essex Junction.
Meanwhile, of the several other PPE shipments expected to arrive in Vermont this week, most were obtained through Vermont connections, said Chris Cole, the state’s commissioner of buildings and general services, who is leading procurement efforts. One is a California company with a connection in China that the state learned of through a Vermonter. In a sea of unsolicited offers, many suspicious-sounding, a tie to Vermont is one way to make sure the state is working with reputable suppliers, Cole said.
“For vetting companies, it’s just like anything: it’s who do you know in terms of what is their reputation as a person to do business with,” he said.
For many Vermont companies, the last several weeks have been a mad dash to make equipment that can be used to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Distilleries announced early on that they were shifting gears to make hand sanitizer. Vermont manufacturers quickly started working with the University of Vermont Medical Center and other groups to put their engineering and manufacturing resources to work making ventilators and safety equipment.
Efforts to connect with Chinese companies are starting to pay off. Public Safety Commissioner Mike Schirling, who is working closely with Cole, said a shipment of 1 million surgical masks will leave China for Vermont on April 20. Another 150,000 should be arriving in Vermont this week.
Concept2 got involved after the privately owned company started looking for ways to make face shields, said mechanical engineer Trevor Braun. With its customer base in quarantine, the company had quickly sold out of its supply of rowing machines and other workout gear, and due to stay-at-home orders issued in March, couldn’t make more.
Braun, who often works with overseas suppliers, reached out to distributors in China and elsewhere looking for a plastic material that would be of use to Concept2 in making protective masks for health care workers. His supplier offered a half-million procedural masks, the three-layer lightweight safety masks often used in operating rooms.
Braun said it became apparent to him that Concept2’s experience in handling customs and other paperwork, and its contacts in Asia, would be more helpful to the state than its manufacturing expertise.
“We have the supply chain set up to do this,” he said. “This is what we do every day all day, just instead of chains and sprockets, we’re bringing in masks.”
Concept2 is paying for the masks, which left Shanghai on Sunday and are expected to travel through Anchorage and Cleveland before landing on Concept2’s loading dock in Morrisville on Wednesday. The company plans to give some masks to Copley Hospital in Morrisville and to local first responders and nursing homes before turning the rest over to the state Department of Public Safety.
Concept2 doesn’t expect to purchase any more masks, but the company is now lending its Asian supply chain expertise to the state as the state orders more PPE equipment, Braun said. Cole said many other Vermont companies are doing the same.
Cole has University of Vermont clinicians meet with manufacturers to make sure new products will meet their specifications. He also looks at their supply chain and reliability.
“We’re all competing for the same limited manufacturers,” Cole said of the states. “A lot of the states have been turning to their own state manufacturing capacity.”
Gov. Phil Scott on March 24 ordered Vermonters to stay home and avoid all non-essential contact with others. In the weeks since, state officials have slightly improved the outlook for the state. At a press conference Friday, Michael Pieciak, commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation, said a slowdown in the rate of new cases indicates Vermont is unlikely to run out of important health care needs like hospital beds, intensive care beds and ventilators.
Vermont’s PPE is being stored in two state supply warehouses and another set up by the Vermont National Guard. Although there is a lot of equipment headed to Vermont, the state isn’t going to end up with a surplus, said Schirling. PPE will still be needed by elder care facilities, home health companies, and other entities where close human contact is part of the job.
“In order to keep the health care workforce safe, and to keep people safe in general, there will be the need to use PPE at a more enhanced rate than normal for weeks and months,” Schirling said. “We’re positioned to be able to assist with that going forward.”
Some of the pivots underway now are happening in close partnership with the state. Cole said he procured raw materials from the Williston-based Vermont Plastic Specialties and sold it to J.K. Adams at cost for the face shields. He also located blue fabric for face masks from Port-a-Brace in Bennington, which makes camera bags and medical supply bags for a worldwide market. Cole said the Vermont Manufacturing Extension Center and Associated Industries of Vermont have helped him communicate with manufacturers.
“I get an update of a spreadsheet from him every morning,” said Cole of Bill Driscoll at AIV. “They vet the manufacturers to see if they can scale up, and they greenlight the ones they think we should talk to.”
Another key figure is Charles Miceli, the chief supply chain officer for the UVM Medical Center, whom Cole said had been working with state officials seven days a week.Â
Vermont has spent, or committed, $4.9 million so far on PPE, and expects about three-quarters of that to be reimbursed by the federal government, Schirling said. That doesn’t include Covid-19 tests, which are being procured by the Vermont Department of Health laboratory and the UVM Medical Center lab.
At JK Adams, CEO Daniel Isaac intends for the face shield business to stay in place when the side that makes kitchen utensils is up and running again. Isaac is buying plastic for the masks from a company in New Hampshire and said the company will have a capacity of 50,000 shields a week if there is demand.
The company has orders from New York and Vermont, Isaac said.
“If you look at the other suppliers, they’re all really far away in California, Texas, Utah,” he said. “We’re actually the prime location in New England for this product.”