BREMERTON — Novel coronavirus spurred John Broshears to start a farm.

What he grows at his Kitsap Lake home, however, is not on vines or trees; rather it is personal protective gear, produced layer by layer, under the sounds of five humming, oscillating, three-dimensional printers that operate around the clock in the face of a pandemic.

"I'm excited to see what my power bill will be," joked the 1999 Klahowya Secondary School graduate, who has long run his own auto reconditioning business. "If we get any larger we may need to move the operation to my four-car garage."

Like many during this pandemic, Broshears was looking for ways to help. He's produced hundreds of face shields and raised more than $3,000 toward the efforts. But he ultimately joined a greater cause: a small army of Kitsap Peninsula residents that rapidly organized a supply chain to create and distribute 3D printed Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

"Who knew we had a community "distributed manufacturing network" right here in our own backyard?!" noted printer Bryce Weber, a technology manager at Keyport and a fellow printer on the team's Facebook page of 260-plus members.

At this point, thanks to some dedicated founders, it's a well-oiled machine. The Kitsap COVID-19 PPE Maker Team, started just three weeks ago, has raised nearly $17,000 and produced more than 3,000 pieces of PPE. It has its own website. There's a daily route for pickups of finished PPE and drop-offs of printer filament from Central Market in Poulsbo to Ashley's Pub in downtown Bremerton so the printers can stay on task.

Group members did not stop at the peninsula's needs; they're now distributing gear across the country, to places including Kaiser Radiology of San Jose, California, Taylor Hospital in Ridley, Pennsylvania, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to name a few.

Broshears' own story of helping has similar tones to those around the country. He knows medical professionals at area hospitals are concerned about whether they can weather coronavirus with their current stock of PPE. He's also known people who've fallen ill to the disease known as COVID-19.

"We have to keep these health care workers healthy and safe," he said. "Who knows? At some point, my children, wife or myself may get sick and need them."

Team members also view it as empowering "in a time where I think a lot of us feel a bit helpless," said Ellie D. Galen Hussey, a software developer and systems analyst for a local school district who has produced face shield frames and brought a bunch of mask ear relief bands to Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton.

For Paul Diamond, who works for Microsoft, the need for PPE hits close to home. His father's a doctor and mother a retired nurse. So he "dug out a few old broken 3D printers I had laying around my office and jumped into action repairing them and getting them producing after finding this group," he said.

There's also the possibility that the group, now united, can continue its synergy on a project when the threat of novel coronavirus subsides, said Tim Duffey, a West Bremerton resident who made the team's web site.

"My hope is that after the virus has run its course, a new community of makers in Kitsap will be created and be able to use the website I built going forward," said Duffey, who works as a web developer at Redfin in Seattle and is also vice-president of Kitsap's STEM-promoting West Sound Technology Association.

Poulsbo:Man used 3-D printer to make critical protective gear. Then, the Navy joined in.

'A bunch of geeks and nerds rallying together to save the day'

It's no secret that when it comes to engineering, Kitsap County punches above its weight. Between the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, the Navy's submarine base and undersea warfare center at Keyport and the many who commute to Seattle for tech jobs, the peninsula is a known hotbed for the science and technology-minded.

"Kitsap County has a relatively large number of engineers," said Elizabeth Court, director of the Olympic Workforce Development Council, pointing to state data.

In tech-rich King County, about 1.5% of positions are engineers, Court said of data provided by the Washington Employment Security Department Labor Market and Economic Analysis Branch. In Kitsap County, the same figure is estimated to be north of 2%.

Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that there are a lot of 3D printers here, machines that are not nearly as simple as their two-dimensional counterparts to operate.

"It’s amazing to see how many people are using 3D printers in our community," said Rich Peel, a retired Keyport engineer who serves as director of Kitsap CREATE, a local nonprofit focused on STEM education.

"Besides, the idea of a bunch of geeks and nerds rallying together to save the day is pretty awesome!" noted Carlos Soto, a Navy veteran and emergency planner at the shipyard who hopes to be printing 100 pieces of PPE once his second printer is delivered.

It isn't just the enthusiasts that have been printing on the peninsula. Additive manufacturing at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center have penned unique agreements to put their industrial-sized devices to work for the sake of health care workers.

Engineers at Keyport, under agreements with both Naval Hospital Bremerton and CHI Franciscan, have been making face shields, including elaborate Powered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPR) hoods, according to Kristin Carver, Keyport spokeswoman.

“I continue to be inspired and impressed by the Kitsap community’s generosity, willingness and capability to support our health care professionals who are combatting COVID-19,” said David Weiss, MD, associate chief medical officer for Harrison Medical Center and St. Anthony Hospital.

Some members of Kitsap's team have also reached out to similar operations around Puget Sound. Still others have found national organizations to pitch in to. Doug Salot, a studio lead at the Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network, said it's turned its 3D printers loose on a variety of projects, to include masks, shields, clips for them, and more. A Slack channel of dozens of islanders has linked together and has been printing for masksfordocs.com, a nationwide resource group.

Anything to help in a tight-knit community like Bainbridge seemed wise, Salot said.

"We're an island, so we feel kind of isolated," he said.

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Reach reporter Josh Farley at josh.farley@kitsapsun.com.