Piper Aircraft Stepping Up To Help With Coronavirus Emergency

It announced late last week that it will be manufacturing personal protective equipment for the nearby Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital. It will also be donating more than 1,300 N95 approved masks to help health care providers at the hospital do their life-saving work more safely.

The company hoped to start making face shields this week, which it said would be used by medical personnel again, as part of their personal protective gear. With its existing facilities and tooling, the company says it can make "thousands of face shields daily," which will surely help given the huge demand for them nationwide.

The story of how Piper got into the medical device manufacturing business is kind of inspiring. From the release: "The Manufacturing Engineering team at Piper Aircraft has been following the growing demand and resulting shortage of PPE (personal protective equipment) and has been looking for ways to support the need. Earlier this week, the team designed a prototype face shield with off-the-shelf materials such as: plastic, industrial tape, foam and elastic. With approval of the prototype, the team set out to source the necessary materials from wholesale suppliers and create a manufacturing line within the Piper factory."

Which it has done.

Piper's COO James Funk put it very nicely, saying, "This is a critical time for our community, our country and the world. It is a time for action, cooperation and collaboration. As a team, we can make a difference for people in need and directly support those fighting the battle on the front lines of this unprecedented crisis. This is just one small way that we are trying to help."

Our only disagreement with that statement is, it doesn't sound to us like a small thing at all.