When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

And when life gives you the coronavirus, you make respirator masks.

At least, that was the approach ActivArmor chose to take when confronted with a crisis that has knocked many businesses for a loop.

The Pueblo-based company has spent the last five years using 3D printing technology to make custom-fitted orthopedic casts for its clients. Then people started scaling back their activities outside of home as medical professionals got a better sense of the potential dangers posed by the virus.

Fewer elective surgeries being scheduled meant less demand for ActivArmor’s main product.

“We were really in a down time,” said Diana Hall, the company’s founder and president. “We were doing a third of our usual sales.”

Instead of just waiting around for a government bailout check, the company decided to shift gears in response to the crisis. A board member familiar with the federal Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory approval process suggested that ActivArmor begin making and selling masks.

Hall liked the idea. She thought the company could design masks that were washable and reusable, which would be an improvement over disposable masks. Also, using the 3D technology, Hall believed ActivArmor could create masks molded to fit the contours of their wearers’ faces, making it more difficult for germs to get past them.

“One of the advantages we have is that our products are custom made,” Hall said.

ActivArmor came up a design for lightweight masks with plastic fronts that show the wearers’ facial features. Transparent masks make it easier to read the wearers’ lips, which can help with communication when words are muffled.

Like other medical devices, the new product had to be tested to demonstrate that it was capable of doing what its manufacturers hoped it could do. ActivArmor took the masks to an institute at the University of Maryland that specializes in that type of testing.

Although it can take months to get new types of medical devices approved, the university reviewed ActivArmor’s product on an expedited schedule to help meet the demand for the masks in the medical community.

From there, the challenge was finding a production facility where the masks could be made in large numbers. With the help of the Pueblo County Economic Development Corp., city government and the local utility companies, ActivArmor got set up in an old warehouse at the Pueblo Airport Industrial Park that formerly had been used by the Loaf ’N Jug convenience store chain.

Jeff Shaw, PEDCO’s president and chief executive officer, said it took less than 24 hours to get ActivArmor access to the building with the utility service the company needed. Which just goes to show that government officials can cut through red tape and move quickly when they have to.

Full production of the masks began Monday, about a week and a half after the idea was first discussed. Hall said she already had more than 400 pre-orders for the masks before the company publicly announced that they would be available.

Hall said ActivArmor is capable of producing several hundred masks per day. However, one bottleneck in the process is that people who wish to have custom-fitted masks must get access to the scanning equipment needed to provide accurate facial measurements.

Although ActivArmor primarily deals with hospital networks, Hall said individuals with access to that equipment can order masks, too.

Hall said the cost of the initial mold is about $140, plus $25 each for the masks and filters.

There also are plans in the works to develop masks that wouldn’t be individually customized, but could be worn safely “off the shelf.” Hall said the company is capable of producing about 2,500 masks per day at full capacity.

“We’ll be hiring more and more people as the demand comes in waves,” she said.

To me, this is a great example of a business adapting to changing conditions, like the booze distilleries that shifted to making hand sanitizer after the crisis hit. Or restaurants that have increased their takeout and delivery operations to compensate for the lack of in-person business.

How many of these changes to business practices will endure after the crisis has passed is probably a column for another day. In the meantime, I think ActivArmor deserves some credit for identifying and responding to a critical need in our world today.

At a time like this, we can use all of that kind of help we can get.

Blake Fontenay is The Pueblo Chieftain’s opinion page editor. To suggest future column topics for The Business Case, contact him at bfontenay@chieftain.com

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