Jim Hofmann felt helpless.

He read the stories of doctors and nurses not having enough protective face masks as they treated COVID-19 patients. Some were turning to bandannas and sports goggles to keep the deadly germs out of their eyes, mouths and noses.

Then he thought of his son, Justin, 28, a third-year physician resident at Newark’s University Hospital. What about helping him?

“You say to yourself: ‘What can you do by yourself?'” Hofmann asked, then quickly added: “Not a lot.”

This gruesome epidemic has made so many of us feel powerless. As the death count rises, we wonder if we’ve washed our hands enough or wiped the doorknobs or sterilized the outside of that box of cereal box we just picked up at the grocery store.

And, like Hofmann, we wonder if our kids are safe — especially if they are on the front lines in our hospitals. Or as Hofmann recalled: "You can hear the tone in your child's voice."

Hofmann, 59, who grew up in Closter and now coaches the robotics team at Newton High School in Sussex County where he also teaches a variety of science and technology courses, wrestled with a whirlwind of worries. He can explain the peculiarities of lasers. But this deadly virus with the odd name seemed as mysterious as the outer reaches of the solar system.

Then Hofmann received an unexpected email late on a recent Sunday from Rutgers New Jersey Medical School student Rohan Sawhney.

Hofmann already knew Sawhney. The two met more than a year ago when Sawhney, 26, who grew up in Morristown, reached out to Hofmann to discuss how 3D printers and other high-tech gadgets might be used in hospitals.

In his email, Sawhney mentioned the lack of protective masks at hospitals treating COVID-19 patients. Or as he put it when I called: Masks “are becoming the next toilet paper.”

“This is a worldwide pandemic,” Sawhney said. “We can’t order parts from China.”

Suddenly, Hofmann had an idea.

He had a 3D printer in his basement. He could put his hands on two more at Newton High School. Why couldn’t he make plastic face shields for hospitals?

That was two weeks ago.

Early on Monday, Hofmann produced the first dozen or so prototypes of face shields for area hospitals. Each has a 9-by-9-inch clear plastic face with head straps. Each can be sterilized and reused — a far better option, experts say, than cloth surgical masks.

By the end of the day, Hofmann had churned out 75 masks. By Tuesday, he had produced another 150. And on Tuesday afternoon, Hofmann said his wife, Amanda, scooped up 75 masks and delivered them to the couple's son, Justin, at University Hospital in Newark to pass out to doctors, nurses and other staffers treating COVID-19 patients.

Hofmann hopes he can make hundreds of masks by the end of the week, then more — and more.

And this, he says, may be just the beginning.

Certainly, it's timely. In recent weeks, as COVID-19 cases mounted, hospitals said they burned through supplies of protective masks, face shields and protective gowns. Some hospitals said doctors and nurses were reusing masks — a dangerous practice, health officials say, in treating a disease that is so communicable.

Federal and state governments scoured warehouses and other nations for help with varying degrees of success. On Sunday, 80 tons of gloves, masks, gowns and other items arrived in New York City on a flight from China. White House officials say it is the first of 22 flights of hospital gear from China set to arrive across America in the coming weeks.

But more is needed.

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Hofmann’s idea — and enthusiasm — rippled through the high-tech, robotic community of New Jersey and other parts of America.

Thorlabs of Newton, which produces medical imaging devices and other machines for hospitals, tracked down a cache of 4-by-8-foot plastic sheets at a New Jersey distributor. A Newton sign company — Gravity Design Works — offered a laser to cut the plastic sheets into face shields.

A grocery chain kicked in some cash. A lumber firm promised trucks to deliver the face shields to hospitals. Newton High School freed up two 3D printers.

And so on.

“It was all hands on deck,” Hofmann said when I caught up with him the other day between testing his 3D printer and recruiting several high school students to help.

There is something quintessentially American about this seat-of-the-pants effort. Our nation's economy was built by risk-takers and fast-track problem solvers. And in this national emergency, it may be people like Hofmann who will step into a breach that needs filling.

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Major industrial firms are promising to produce face shields and other protective gear for hospitals and first responders. But converting an assembly line at a factory that makes vacuum pumps or lawnmowers is akin to turning around an ocean liner in a tight harbor. It takes time.

Hofmann sees himself as just filling a need now.

“We’re just trying to bail them out until the big boys can get up and running,” he said.

One of those “big boys” is Thorlabs.

The firm, which does more than $550 million in business worldwide, is now gearing up to produce plastic face shields.

“We’re building a supply chain that would allow us to be making thousands per week,” Thorlabs CEO Alex Cable said. “But it takes time to set up a supply chain.”

At Gravity Design Works, owner Mark Maruska wrote on Facebook about the 3D printer project to produce masks. Did anyone have an extra 3D printer to make masks with Hofmann?

Within 48 hours, someone donated $10,000 to buy two new printers.

“That’s unbelievable to me,” he said. “That’s just people sharing my Facebook post and the community coming together.”

Like Hofmann, Maruska knows the limits of this project. Even with a dozen 3D printers working round-the-clock, they can make only a few hundred masks a day. Nationwide — and despite the doubts raised by President Donald Trump in recent days about hospitals hoarding protective gear — health care workers say they need far more masks.

Maruska even suggests the plastic face shields should be worn by other vulnerable workers too, from grocery checkout lines to takeout restaurants.

“It’s not a mass production thing,” Maruska said. “But it’s a good stopgap. It just stops the bleeding.”

For now, a Band-Aid may be the best solution.

But Hofmann wonders whether more Band-Aids could emerge across the nation. He says he has already reached out to robotics experts around the nation and asked if they could boot up their 3D printers.

Hofmann has a kit with a design program he’s happy to send.

“My phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” he said.

And that’s a good sign. The nation has paused and is hunkering down in these days of social distancing.

And yet, people have not stopped their generosity.

“We didn’t re-invent the wheel,” Hofmann says. “We just went with what we could locate.”

Mike Kelly is an award-winning columnist for NorthJersey.com. To get unlimited access to his insightful thoughts on how we live life in New Jersey, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kellym@northjersey.com Twitter: @mikekellycolumn