MINNEAPOLIS — It's a busy time of the year for the team at Jostens, who normally produce more than 70% of the country's graduation gowns, class rings and yearbooks - but not for the reason you might think.
In the midst of a world health crisis, the company is pulling double duty, revamping their 13 manufacturing plants across the country to supply hospitals with personal protective equipment or PPE.
"We didn’t expect to be in the healthcare business this year," said Jostens CEO Michael Burgess.
"At the plants that are making the masks and the medical gowns they would typically be making graduation gowns and regalia, caps, tassels all of those things for graduations. We first offered up our graduation gowns, the excess supply we had to immediately ship them to the hospitals," said Burgess.
However, after realizing that’s not what the hospitals needed, the company decided to go a different route.
"We then sourced medical grade materials and switched the production in our facilities to making those medical grade gowns and masks, said Burgess.
With the manpower to produce roughly 400 thousand masks and 120 thousand gowns a month his team has been working nonstop to get life saving equipment to those on the front lines.
"It was our team members who came up with these ideas. We were hearing about people in the hospitals having one gown on for their entire shift when they should be able to, you know, change their gowns for each individual patient," said Burgess.
While medical equipment isn’t their forte, as long as there’s a need, the big boss says, they’re in it for the long haul.
"We’re going to do everything we can for as long as it takes to get gowns and masks to the people who need them," said Burgess.
The company plans to ship out their first 120,000 gowns to a hospital in New York next week.
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