Automotive News - September 21, 2020 - Best Practices Supplement - S43

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 | 43
or antique cars to sell at his dealership group,
with locations in Burlington and Lumberton,
N.J.
Just as automakers such as General Motors
and Ford Motor Co. have pivoted to building
medical equipment, Lawrence last month
started using the printers to make face shields
and masks to send to local hospitals and doctor's offices. He also dispensed the gear
among the store's employees, neighbors and
family.
"It's the right thing to do, but especially because I had the machines," Lawrence told
Automotive News. "These major manufacturers can't keep up with everything. I would
hope that somebody else [with printers]
would do the same."
Two of the printers are at his home and he
moved one into the closed showroom of Lucas Chevrolet. Lawrence started with face
shields, producing about 20 to 25 a day for
about a week. He then transitioned to washable, reusable face masks using an opensource design from a clinic in Billings, Mont.
Raw material for the printers is sold in
spools online. On average, each spool of filament costs $40, and it takes one spool to produce about four masks, depending on the
size. Last Monday, Lawrence donated 15
masks to a local OB-GYN office.
Lawrence takes his masks and shields to a
local drop-off site, which then sanitizes and
ships them to wherever they're needed.

Jason Lawrence of
Lucas Auto Group in
New Jersey is
3D-printing face masks
and shields inside a
closed showroom.

The donations vary in size and are happening across the country.
Lithia Motors, the third-largest public dealership group in the nation, donated 4,800
gloves and 40 protective eyewear products
last month to Oregon hospital system Asante,
near its headquarters in Medford, Ore.
Lithia's stores had the supplies in stock but
felt compelled to donate as much as they
could while leaving enough available for their
workers.
"During this time, it's our duty to do whatever we possibly can not only for our team members but for our communities," Lithia CEO
Bryan DeBoer said.
"We know our health care workers are struggling now to get the protective equipment
they need to stay safe, so this is just a small
contribution to help in that regard."
There was a similar effort on the East Coast,
where John Wall, owner of Wall's Ford in Salisbury, Mass., donated dust masks from its service center to the local fire department.
"They're not medical-grade by any means,"
Wall said. "Whatever they could get at that
point was better than what they had, which
was nothing."
In Morristown, N.J., Beyer Family Automotive Group loaded a Ford Transit Connect
with cases of 3M masks to drop off at the Morristown Medical Center.
The company also has donated fruit for the
hospital staff for a number of weeks.

"It's a no-brainer," Bridget Beyer, dealer
principal, said in a video promoting the
group's efforts.

Helping a friend
For some, the decision to donate is more
personal, driven by family and friends who
work in the health care industry.
Elliot Silk, service director for the five-rooftop Suntrup Automotive Group in St. Louis,
said a friend called him last month, worried
about his daughter who is a resident doctor
and was working on coronavirus patients
without a protective mask.
Silk said he was able to locate and buy 40
N95 respirator masks and filters used for body
shop paint work - for a few thousand dollars
- and on March 27, Suntrup donated the
masks to Silk's friend's daughter to be used at
Saint Louis University Hospital.
"The CEO of SLU called me on my cellphone
later that day to thank me personally [and
said] that the pulmonary doctors and the
heart doctors are using the product and they
loved it and they wanted to reach out to me
personally and thank me for getting all these
masks for them," Silk said.
Silk said he's trying to locate more masks
and replacement filters.
"As soon as we get those in, I'm going to donate those to them as well," he said. a
Melissa Burden contributed to this report.

Automotive News - September 21, 2020 - Best Practices Supplement

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