Staff photo / Ron Selak Jr. Hope Davis of Youngstown assembles a face shield last week at the Dinesol Plastics plant on North Meridian Road in Austintown. The company retooled an injection molding machine to produce the plastic shields to give to local medical personnel and others working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

AUSTINTOWN — Mahoning Valley manufacturers didn’t hesitate to convert, retool or repurpose their plants to help address the rapidly growing need for personal protective equipment for health care and other professionals on the front lines fighting COVID-19.

The examples are plentiful. Among them:

• GLI Pool Products in Youngstown, which makes pool liners and safety covers, transitioned the cut-and-sew side of the business to make cloth masks for first responders.

• JuggerBot 3D in downtown Youngstown went from designing and manufacturing 3D printers to using those machines to 3D print visors for face shields, then assembling the shields using components bought by the company.

• Candella Micro Distillery in Boardman went from producing spirits to hand sanitizer.

• Dinesol Plastics, which has plants in Niles and in Austintown, retooled some of its production line on North Meridian Road to make face shields. The masks, like much of the other PPE produced locally, stay in Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties. They are donated to the emergency management agencies in each of the three counties to disperse on the front lines.

Dinesol Plastics started making the shields April 10. The equipment can produce a plastic shield every 18 to 20 seconds. Workers then assemble the piece of equipment, adding a piece of foam to the inside to rest against a person’s forehead and an adjustable snap in the back, similar to those found on baseball hats, to fit a person’s head.

Company President Bob Hendricks said the goal was to have 20,000 shields done by Friday with the goal to make 30,000. More than 6,000 had been shipped by then.

It took a couple of days to build the tooling and make the molds to make the shields for the company that uses injection molding to make plastic items from totes to laundry hampers and containers. The company also had to locate a supplier for the foam headrest.

Hendricks said he was contacted by U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Howland; state Sen. Michael Rulli, R-Salem; and others to help fill the gap for desperately needed PPE.

Hendricks credits his team of employees for eagerness and desire to help.

“It’s a win-win for Dinesol. It helped the morale of the people on the team, and we’re helping first responders,” Hendricks said. “From the people who helped make it and the people who are using it, it’s a good thing.”

DONATIONS

Over at JuggerBot 3D, when word began to spread of its effort, calls started to come from people wanting to help. They’ve had donations of close to $1,000, said Vice President Dan Fernback.

One of those donations came from Cindy Wilson of Boardman. She’s known Fernback for several years — he and her son grew up together — and her soon-to-be daughter-in-law is one of those front-line medical workers treating novel coronavirus patients. She is a nurse on the COVID-19 floor at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

“Since his company I knew had the capability, I thought, my gosh, that would be great if he could get involved in that, and if he needed some money, just give him some money to help get started,” Wilson said. “I wanted to pitch in and help in any way that I could.”

She said she also gave some money to a man she knows who is using his 3D printer at home to make shields for supplies.

“It’s just so awesome that people are thinking out of the box and being creative, helping any way they can,” Wilson said. “It’s all part of the coming-together aspect of this thing.”

Fernback said the company still intends to make 250 of the shields. Some already have been delivered to nursing care facilities in the region. About 80 were made last week with another production run planned for Monday, Fernback said.