MyPillow announced that it “is proud to answer the President’s call to action as we are producing much-needed face masks to help protect our brave medical workers on the front lines of this invisible war.” So, the host of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, Ed Henry, starts this interview by asking, “What led you to this place and how’s it going so far?”
MyPillow is making 10,000 masks/day and is hoping to get up to 50,000 masks/day
Mike says that his “passion has always been to help people.” So, this move is a natural for him. To determine what masks to make, he worked with the administration’s coalition. Then, Mike created the prototype. After that, it took MyPillow three days to convert its 200,000 square-foot factory to mask production. Now, MyPillow is making about 10,000 masks/day and is hoping to get up to 50,000 masks/day very fast.
Since the masks have to be made by hand, one person can only make 100-120 masks per day. So, the bottleneck is the people. But, Mike is intent on making as many masks as possible. He has even switched his factories that make other products for MyPillow in Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Northern Minnesota to masks.
Mike is working with both small and large hospitals
To distribute these masks, Mike is working with both small hospitals and the companies that are the frontline responders. Mike is doing the shipping, since “that’s what we do at MyPillow.” So, “a lot of this fell right in line with what we do.”
Mike will keep making masks in the future
Mike wants to continue making masks in the future. “As the President says, ‘we want our manufacturers here in the USA,’ especially since we don’t want 90 some percent of our supplies coming in from overseas. We want to make them right here and we’re going to learn from this and make America safe.”
So, as Ed Henry puts it, Mike is “making these masks right here in America and stepping up at a time of critical need. I salute you for jumping in and helping the people who need it most.”