Multi-use Antibacterial Sanitizer Availability

The Midland Daily News highlighted several Midland area manufacturers addressing the need for more personal protective equipment gear during the COVID-19 crisis. Below are the excerpts from the interview with Rebecca and Gordon Cox of the Savant Group which is producing hand sanitizer to address the needs of our community. 

 Rebecca Cox, president of Savant Group, and her husband, VP of marketing and sales, Gordon Cox, said the executive board at Savant felt it was important for the company to contribute in some way to the cause.

She said the production of personal protection equipment stood out as most critical and making hand sanitizer was closest to their wheelhouse. They knew they would be able to respond quickly by doing something they already had the knowledge and experience doing. “We felt that we were fortunate to be in a position and be able to help out this way,” she said. “And honestly, we kind of carry the philosophy that if people in companies took it upon themselves to find ways to contribute to the greater good, we all would be able to produce and live in a world that was able to respond faster when critical areas of need like this come up. So, we just wanted to be able to be that type of company and those types of people that step up when the need was there.”

Founded in Midland, the Savant Group consists of Savant Labs, Tannas Co., King Refrigeration, and the Institute of Materials, which together have reshaped the lubricant industry over the last 50 years. With half of the company’s business done in an international marketplace, the group has not been unaffected by this pandemic, Rebecca said.

“Speaking for the whole group of companies, we’ve been affected pretty drastically,” she said. “Although we serve companies that are operating in critical infrastructure sectors, like energy or transportation, food production; oil – those types of areas – our production is about a quarter of what it usually is at this time of the year.”

So, with production lines a lot quieter in Midland, they’ve begun using what would normally be blending and bottling reference oils and calibration fluids, to hand sanitizer. Gordon said they’ve begun to acquire the raw materials to blend and bottle hand sanitizer in one-gallon bottles to ship out.

Beginning next week, their output will be about 1,500 gallons a week. They already have orders placed in places like Bay City and even in Illinois, and the company hopes to provide supplies to institutions like police departments, schools, and healthcare systems, long after the executive orders expire.

“The way we’re looking at this – even when the stay-at-home mandate is lifted, there is still going to be the COVID-virus out there, and now we're bringing people back into intermixing. So, if anything, the demand and the need for hand sanitizer is going to increase over the next few months, not decrease,” Rebecca said.

Read the full article written by Ashley Schafer, Midland Daily News.