Glendale label company pivots to face shield production; owner hopes to increase to '6 per second'

GLENDALE -- Amid the coronavirus pandemic, we've heard incredible stories of businesses shifting focus to fulfill the needs of the nation, and a Glendale company is among those helping health care workers on the frontlines.

"The president asked for innovation," said Aaron Karan, owner. "This press can put out one face shield per second."

In a time of need, it's amazing what Wisconsinites are capable of.

"Within a week, we designed and started manufacturing this kind of face shield," said Karan.

Kenco Label and Tag is a family-owned business in Glendale, and while their production is local, their reach is national. Karan saw a frontline need, so he began making face shields.

Aaron Karan

"We knew there was a massive shortage of PPE," said Karan. "We knew we could pivot very quickly to help with the need. We got feedback from a neurosurgeon that one of the problems with the traditional style of face shields is that they can cause indentations on the head, scaring, abrasions, headaches."

They realized they would have to pivot one more time.

"That's when they described to us the need for a face shield that attaches to the mask that the doctors and nurses are already wearing," said Karan.

Their in-house engineers went back to work, and with some help from 3M and six presses, the orders started rolling in.

"Over this weekend, we had over 100 orders for face shields," said Karan.

While hundreds are good for now, Kenco is aiming a bit higher, but they need help.

"We're doing this all on our own," said Karan. "What we need is help from the FDA to get us an emergency use authorization so we can increase our production to millions of face shields per day."

That's right, millions of shields per day.

"We're running this on six different presses, so we will be producing six face shields per second," said Karan.