🔒Manufacturing czar Cooper, trade groups fill key PPE matchmaker role

It’s been less than a year since former Whitcraft Group CEO Colin Cooper became the state’s inaugural manufacturing czar, a position created to serve as an intermediary between policymakers and a sector that employs more than 160,000 people statewide.

Workforce development and creating a more friendly business environment were supposed to be Cooper’s main priorities in 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic has changed that dramatically.

Much of his time now is focused on helping the state meet significant demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) for front-line healthcare workers, and Connecticut manufacturers are playing a key role in filling the gap.

Cooper has been working to match manufacturers willing to produce PPE with healthcare providers in need of it.

“The response from manufacturing companies has been so overwhelming,” Cooper said, noting the state took hand sanitizer off its shortage list after in-state suppliers began producing enough of it.

Cooper isn’t the only one working as a go-between for the manufacturing and healthcare industries during the pandemic.

The Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA) and its affiliate CONNSTEP, along with the state departments of Economic and Community Development and Administrative Services, launched a website (www.ctcovidresponse.org) that streamlines the matchmaking effort.

As of April 27, 183 healthcare entities and 107 manufacturers had used the site to either request or offer supplies, said Bonnie Del Conte, CONNSTEP’s president and CEO. Of the manufacturers, about 40 are making PPE, while others are making medical-equipment components.

More companies appear to be selling products through the site than donating them, Del Conte said, but there hasn’t been any price gouging (CONNSTEP doesn’t interfere with pricing).

“[The manufacturers have] got some capacity and they say ‘if we can keep our people busy and employed, and if we can help the community, we should,’ ” Del Conte said.

More than 300 requests for PPE — including face shields and masks, disposable gowns, shoe and head covers and hand sanitizer — have been filled through the website by manufacturers that made products in-state, Del Conte said. However, Connecticut manufacturers haven’t been able to produce N95 respirator masks, thermometers or nitrile gloves.

The state has spent about $43 million as of mid-April ordering PPE and other supplies like ventilators from domestic and foreign sources, Cooper said.

But with so many items hard to source due to overwhelming global demand and competition, Cooper said he has worked to find ways to come up with equipment that’s proven difficult to acquire through regular supply chains.

“What you find is the entire supply chain, up to raw materials, is strained,” Cooper said. “The rules of engagement are very different right now, and they’re changing daily and even hourly.”

Finding a match

One of the partnerships born out of the matchmaking effort is between the University of Connecticut and Cooper’s old company, Whitcraft.

A UConn engineering professor designed a prototype of a ventilator that Whitcraft has agreed to produce in its South Windsor plant. The Eastford-based company, whose main business is making aerospace parts, could manufacture the ventilators for about $2,500 apiece, Whitcraft Chief Operating Officer Steve Ruggiero said. They typically cost as much as $50,000 to buy, he said.

If healthcare officials approve the prototype, Whitcraft could begin filling orders, Ruggiero said, but it’s too early to tell who would buy them and how many the company could make.

The state is also putting forward a financial incentive for manufacturers to produce medical equipment.

The board that oversees the state Manufacturing Innovation Fund (MIF) decided to repurpose the Manufacturing Voucher Program, which has provided Connecticut manufacturers with 300 or fewer employees matching grants of up to $50,000 for investments in innovation or new technologies. Now the program offers grants of up to $75,000 to companies that adjust production to make in-demand medical equipment.

That effort comes out of necessity, as Connecticut is just one of many states, countries and private entities trying to source the same equipment, and dealing with price gouging in traditional supply chains.

“Based on my experience, … very clearly, you have states competing against each other and competing against other countries,” Cooper said.