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V O L . X X V I I N O. V M A R C H 8 , 2 0 2 1 14 M A N U FA C T U R I N G T imothy Templet's phone started ringing in mid- March last year and hasn't stopped ringing since. Puritan Medical Products Co., the century- old manufacturer of medical swabs in Guilford, found itself in the center of the chaos of the global pandemic and one of only two companies in the world able to pro- duce the testing swab needed to diagnose COVID-19. e calls that began on Saturday, March 14, 2020, were unlike any Templet, Puritan's co-owner and exec- utive vice president, has ever fielded before: e White House Covid-19 Response Team; Brett Giroir, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, among others. What additional products did Puritan have? How fast can you make more? Hundreds of millions more? "You don't have a lot of time to think about it. You react. We're small — we can react when we have to. We can have all the valuable people in one room and do many things at once," Templet says. Immediately, Puritan began working at warp speed. Days consisted of 3 a.m. conference calls and the pace accelerated from there, Templet says. "In a pandemic, the hour of the day does not mat- ter. We were working 24 hours a day, basically. Time didn't mean anything to us," Templet says. Founded 102 years ago, during another pandemic, Puritan began as a toothpick maker. It later expanded its product line and in 1928 introduced its first medical product — the tongue depressor, which it still makes today. It now makes roughly 1,200 products, including 65 types of swabs. Before the pandemic, Puritan had annual revenues of $45 million. Templet declined to disclose Puritan's profits or discuss its finances during the past year, other than to say Puritan "managed quite well." Last year, Puritan received $126 million in gov- ernment contracts through the Defense Production Act and the Cares Act that helped it build two plants in Pittsfield, which supplemented its existing manufacturing facility in Guilford. Puritan had to do a lot at the same time: get equipment drawings in place and find a way to build new manufacturing machines, secure a build- ing, find a contractor, hire hundreds of people, source raw materials and keep production going on its other products. e government put Puritan and shipbuilder Bath Iron Works in touch to solve the machine problem. BIW says it was originally contacted by Air Force Major General Cameron Holt, Director, Air Force Acquisition COVID-19 Task Force and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Contracting. e task force learned about BIW capabilities from Factories to meet pandemic needs Puritan Medical teamed up with other Maine businesses to build two swab factories in record time B y J e s s i c a H a l l F O C U S Puritan Medical Products now employs 1,300 people, up from about 500 before the pandemic. P H O T O S / C O U R T E S Y P U R I TA N M E D I C A L P RO D U C T S Before and after aerial views of Puritan Medical Products Co.'s new factory in Pittsfield, where it produces swabs used in COVID-19 tests.

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