Corrected: Mayo, PMI partner to produce ‘much-needed’ PPE
A Lake City manufacturer has joined forces with the Mayo Clinic to produce hundreds of thousands of face shields to help protect against the spread of COVID-19.
Pepin Manufacturing (PMI) is running two shifts, six days a week, for two weeks to produce the roughly 200,000 pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) that Mayo said was “much-needed” in a news release.
It all began with a conversation between Jon Solberg, PMI’s business development manager, and his brother Todd, a Mayo employee.
Jon said his brother told him that Mayo needed face shields and put him in contact with someone at Mayo in charge of procurement.
Josh Rodewald, PMI’s automation engineering manager, and the company's engineering team developed a prototype that Mayo approved, and on April 1 the mask went into production. All of this took place in the span of about a week and a half.
“I was so impressed how Pepin’s production employees offered to step up to help with assembly and manufacturing, offering to work nights, weekends and overtime in order to fulfill these large orders. Everyone was eager to step in to help whenever needed,” said Solberg.
In order to supply the PPE in the desired timeframe, Mayo is also supplying part of the labor force needed to produce the masks.
Mayo staff, some 35 to 40, have volunteered to fill the eight to 10 positions needed for two full production shifts for about two weeks beginning April 1, according to Mayo. About half are coming from Rochester. The rest are coming from Mayo Clinic Health System’s Lake City and Red Wing locations.
In a news release announcing the partnership, Chris Gulden, Mayo’s operations administrator for hospital and emergency medicine service line in the southeast Minnesota region, said: “We’re so impressed with how Pepin Manufacturing has stepped up to fill this need for us, and equally impressed by our employees who are doing their part to ensure these face shields reach their colleagues across the Mayo Clinic enterprise.”