How Livingston County companies are producing products to protect against COVID-19

Officials at three Livingston County companies say the coronavirus pandemic created demand for products related to the fight against it — from hand sanitizer to mobile ICUs for U.S. soldiers.

Switching gears to personal protection equipment has helped the companies weather the resulting financial crisis. 

Kem Krest, a chemical manufacturer and packager with plants in Green Oak Township near Brighton, as well as Fowlerville, lost about 50% of its revenue in April, according to Andy DesJardin, general manager of manufacturing in Michigan for Kem Krest.

DesJardin said the company's solution was to diversify.

Kem Krest is now producing thousands of gallons of hand sanitizer.

The company is also distributing disinfectant made by other companies to its industrial and commercial customers from its Elkhart, Indiana headquarters and warehouse. 

"Our intention is to really have a separate piece of the business focused around health and safety," DesJardin said. "The hand sanitizer is going to industrial and commercial companies that are opening up and need to keep their employees safe. ... We have a couple of the larger healthcare customers that have gotten our product."

He said the company's two Livingston County facilities are operating with a full workforce, at about 130 employees either working from home or on-site.

He expects May revenue will be up. 

"We're also seeing our core business come back a little," he said. 

Kem Krest supplies a variety of chemicals to Tier 1 automakers and other industrial and commercial customers.

The company supplied chemical components, mainly adhesives, to Ford Motor Co. and General Motors for production of ventilators at the automakers' plants. 

In March, people were panic-buying hand sanitizer, DesJardin said. 

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"We started producing hand sanitizer for our staff, internally, as a way to help provide our associates a way to stay safe, and then the market changed quickly," DesJardin said. "Luckily we were able to change our mindset."

He said the company has made around 400,000 gallons.

"Our first product (for sale to other companies) came off the line April 3, and we were fully operational at the end of April," he said. 

Kem Krest will continue producing hand sanitizer while there is market demand. 

"It's hard to know exactly what will happen in the future. This will buy us some time to understand what the economy will do long-term," DesJardin said. "There will be some changes to our habits, when we go to stores, go into our business, we all will need to keep ourselves sanitized."

A contract for the troops

Highland Engineering, Inc. in Genoa Township near Howell makes troop support products. 

"We're about 90% military contracts," company President Ralph Beebe said. 

When COVID-19 spread across the planet, the U.S. Air Force hired Highland Engineering, Delta Airlines and defense contractor UTS Systems, to convert shipping containers into mobile intensive care unit hospital pods to transport U.S. military personnel by airplane. 

"The scenario as it stands now is to protect air crews from COVID-19 and also other scenarios," Beebe said. 

He said the military already had a small number of mobile ICU units created in response to Ebola. 

"The effort was to scale up their capacity to fit a larger number of patients inside," he said. 

One version of the ICU pods is designed to fit 28 people — including patients on litters and seating for passengers like air medical and air evacuation crews — and fit inside a C-17 cargo transport aircraft. 

A smaller version will likely fit a dozen people in a smaller transport aircraft. 

Beebe said he expects the units to be used to bring back U.S. military personnel stationed overseas who have been impacted by COVID-19.  

"This capability will ensure USTRANSCOM has the flexibility to meet both the capacity and modularity challenges of COVID-19 patient transport while ensuring the safety of Aircrew and Medical Professionals on these missions,"  U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Paul Hendrickson said in a press release. 

Benjamin and AJ Wynn of Pinckney, who own Aunt Betty's Restaurant, are also national retailers who procure and sell all sorts of products to businesses and municipalities. 

The brothers, who were already selling personal protective equipment through their company Wynn Innovations — from masks and gowns to respirators — when COVID-19 disrupted other revenue sources.

They temporarily closed the family restaurant and shifted their energy to selling PPE.

Benjamin Wynn, who also lives part of the year in Sacramento, California, said they sell PPE to public and private customers, including the state of California.

"Prisons, hospitals, fire, state departments and schools, they were clients before, and I have purchase orders from them," Wynn said. 

The brothers partnered with PPE supplier Urgent Response Network to get PPE to more types of customers. 

Wynn said they are trying to fix a major problem in distribution. 

When he went to large distributors to try to secure PPE products for his customers, he said he was turned away. 

"Either they are in trouble financially or they can’t make a decision that quick," he said. "They were allocating a lot of PPE to the federal government. ... It was the federal government's decision that broke up the supply chain or it was broken from the get-go and we’re here to fix it."

He said he had to "flip it on its head" and go directly to factories and negotiate contracts with them. 

"Now I'm supplying distributors," he said. 

"A big problem we see is small batches. It’s difficult to get (small batches) except on Amazon and we are the ones supplying Amazon," Wynn said. 

He said he is working on getting small batches, less than 10,000 units, of PPE into distribution channels and warehouses across the country. 

He hopes to sell PPE to more big box stores, schools, and individuals to get more of it into the hands of more individuals.

"We sold PPE before, but it wasn’t our number one," AJ Wynn said. "Now that this has happened, everyone wants it and it’s hard to keep up."

He said many types of customers are clamoring for PPE they can't find elsewhere.

"Around here, there are a lot of contractors reaching out to us. They can’t get the masks and gloves they need, people who do plumbing and wholesale supplies. They just can’t get it," he said. 

Contact Livingston Daily reporter Jennifer Timar at 517-548-7148 or at jtimar@livingstondaily.com. Follow her on Facebook @Jennifer.Timar99 and Twitter @JenTimar99.