VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - With a new federal mask mandate in place, a Virginia Beach company has been working to make millions of masks to be used around the country.
Last year, News 3 took you behind the scenes of Premium-PPE and showed you its growth throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
In June, the company said they were making 1 million masks a month in Virginia Beach. Fast forward seven months later, they’re now making the same number of masks per day in Hampton Roads with materials from the United States.
“It's amazing, honestly,” Premium-PPE Chief Commercial Officer Brent Dillie said. “If folks need the product, we're going to make it and give it to them.”
The company has continued to make millions of masks in 2021.
“[President] Biden's doing 100 million vaccines, so we're going to do 100 million masks in the same time period,” Dillie told News 3.
They’ve supplied millions of masks to several hospitals, medical centers, restaurants, bars and the federal government. Dillie added they’re supporting Operation Warp Speed and have shipped almost 70 million masks to the Department of Defense (DOD).
“Helping everything from the U.S. government to the guy that owns a corner restaurant down the street,” he said.
The company has about 250 employees making masks on two dozen machines.
“A lot of the folks that we hired were folks that were out of work. Some certain industries were hurt extra hard by COVID,” Dillie said. “We continue to be extremely proud that we were able to add a lot of jobs.”
They have plans to continue expanding their business to help fight COVID-19 in Hampton Roads and around the country.
“It's a testament to small businesses,” Dillie said. “With hard work and a little bit of luck and really just taking something and believing it can be more, a lot can be achieved.”