Jacob Holm, the manufacturer Sontara  nonwoven fabrics in Nashville, TN., partnered with global sports performance brand Under Armour headquartered in Baltimore, MD, to produce much needed personal protective equipment including face masks and isolation gowns. The partnership has involved more than 50 Under Armour teammaates who created a new mask design and contributed to a 65% increase in Sontara production since March.

Under Armour is supporting healthcare and related organizations, housing/community agencies and human services based across the state of Maryland with the production and supplying of much needed personal protective equipment.

 

Sontara has been creating medical-grade fabrics for more than 45 years. In the last month, they have seen a multifold increase in demand for healthcare fabrics, requiring a 65% increase in production in March over their 2019 projections and leading to the hiring of 67 new production employees.

“This situation is unprecedented,” says CEO Martin Mikkelsen. “However, for Jacob Holm as a company, the only way forward is to lean in to what we know and use the full force of our experience to help contain the spread of COVID-19 and make a positive impact on the well-being of our communities.”

As proof of this effort, two of Jacob Holm’s five manufacturing sites reported record production volumes last month. To support this effort, Jacob Holm hired relatives and friends of current employees who were furloughed or laid off.

When called upon by local healthcare systems in its home state of Maryland, the response by Under Armour employees was decisive. Says Randy Harward, SVP of Advanced Material and Manufacturing Innovation at Under Armour, “More than 50 Under Armour teammates from materials scientists to footwear and apparel designers from laboratories in Baltimore and Portland quickly came together in search of solutions.”

Just one week later, Under Armour and Jacob Holm had found their way to partnership, leveraging their individual strengths and coming to a quick understanding of what it would take to create a no-sew protective mask that could be produced quickly and at scale and while acting as a barrier for the wearer. Under Armour is now converting Sontara material into its one piece, no sew mask design. The mask acts as a first level of defense, reducing virus laden moisture and droplet spread from the wearer, and preventing face touching by the wearer.

Given the unprecedented need, Under Armour is donating its time, design, facilities, equipment and process to make supplies for the purpose of helping to stop the spread of COVID-19. Under Armour is also making its mask design and method available to other manufacturers, and the expectation is that any manufacturer that chooses to use Under Armour’s face mask plan and method should do so for the betterment of the community, rather than for profit, while taking all advisable steps to protect their employees’ health and safety. To date, Under Armour have used nonwoven material to produce and supply more than 1.1 million face masks and nearly 20,000 isolation gowns to its partners.

 

Concurrently, Sontara has increased mask and gown production partnerships across the U.S. and Europe and has donated the equivalent material of well over a million masks through Spain and France. In addition, they have made donations of disinfectant wipes and meals to emergency personnel within the local communities of their production sites.