The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 12
Ocean Reef made 3D-printing files of its mask apaters free and downloadable
(left). MasksOn.org bought
snorkeling masks to get
them to health care workers
for PPE (right).
Behind the Masks
I
n January, Ocean Reef
started seeing a significant
increase in demand for its
gas masks. "Unfortunately,
out of prior experience with Gulf
Wars, 9/11, and Arab Spring, we
knew that meant something bad
either has happened or is bound
to happen," says Luca Gamberini, the brand's marketing
manager. Of course, "something
bad" was COVID-19.
Gamberini got on a call with
his father, Sergio Gamberini,
who is Ocean Reef's president,
to strategize. Clearly there would
be a need for personal protective
equipment, but producing gas
masks to meet demand would be a
"massive and unmanageable" approach, Luca says. "My dad threw
out an idea based upon logic."
Ocean Reef, with headquarters in
Genoa, Italy, and Vista, California,
has been making PPE for 30 years
and had adapted its gas masks
12 THE WEEKLY / OUTDOOR RETAILER SUMMER 2020
for scuba diving and its scuba
diving masks for snorkeling. The
next step in the evolution was to
transform a snorkeling mask into
a simple, inexpensive emergency
protective mask with the use of
adapters and air filters. "Within
minutes of the call, our engineers
had put together a functional prototype," Luca says. In February,
the design was finalized, and on
March 16, the brand filed a patent.
Patent or no, the company made
its 3D-printing files free and downloadable for hospitals and nonprofits. But to achieve high-scale production and quality control on the
adapters, Ocean Reef invested in
injection molding. While the brand
donated 1,000 retrofitted masks
to hospitals in Italy, Luca says the
company's efforts to support its
employees and retailers, while not
headline grabbing, may ultimately
make more of an impact.
At a time when many outdoor
CO U R T E SY E L E O N O R A F O N TATA N
Brands, nonprofits, 3D companies, and manufacturers have mobilized
to transform snorkeling masks into PPE. By Helen Olsson
http://www.MasksOn.org
The Weekly - May 5, 2020
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Weekly - May 5, 2020
Contents
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - Cover1
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - Cover2
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - Contents
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 4
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 5
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 6
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 7
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 8
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 9
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 10
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 11
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 12
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 13
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 14
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 15
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 16
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 17
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 18
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 19
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 20
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 21
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 22
The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 23
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