Puritan Medical Products is an American manufacturer of swab, diagnostic, and specimen collection products. [1] [2] Puritan is North America's largest manufacturer of COVID-19 testing swabs. [3]
Based in Guilford, Maine, Puritan was a subsidiary of Hardwood Products Co., LP (its two subsidiaries being Hardwood Products Co., LLC and Puritan Medical Products Co., LLC), but has since split from Hardwood Products. [4] [5] [6] Guilford has been described as America's "swab capital," with Puritan's manufacturing reportedly ushering in the "golden age of the swab." [7] [8]
Puritan operates three facilities in Maine (one in Guilford and two in Pittsfield), as well as a manufacturing plant in Orlinda, Tennessee, producing swabs and diagnostic testing supplies. [9] [10] In June 2022, Puritan was named "Innovator of the Year" by the Maine International Trade Center. [11]
Puritan is a family-owned business. [12] The company is led by co-owner Timothy Templet, who serves as executive vice president of sales. Templet's grandfather, Lloyd Cartwright, founded Puritan in 1919 during the influenza pandemic. [13] His daughter, Virginia Templet, serves as Puritan’s manager of marketing. [14] [15]
A business advocate, Templet urges American workers to join small companies and other private-sector employers as a way of combating labor shortages. [16] He also believes in proactively bracing for the next global health crisis, claiming the COVID-19 pandemic was a "wake-up call about stockpiles and being prepared." [17] Puritan urges people to practice vigilance in the face of new COVID spikes by continuing to test for emerging variants. [18]
Bob Shultz is the president and CFO at Puritan. [19] He is focused on recruiting workers from rural parts of Maine and Tennessee to join the company. [20] Derek McKenney serves as Puritan's director of corporate engineering. [21]
In April 2020, Puritan received over $75 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to produce more “flock tip testing swabs,” which are preferred for COVID-19 testing. [22] [23] [24] In June 2020, President Trump visited the company, highlighting its “noble tradition of American manufacturing excellence for more than 100 years.” [25] [26] In July 2020, Puritan received another $51 million from the Defense Department to “expand industrial production capacity of flock tip testing swabs.” [27] To meet demand, the company partnered with Cianbro Corp. to open another swab production facility in Pittsfield, Maine. [28] Granted federal funding to churn out 40 million swabs per month, the new Pittsfield facility is hiring and training hundreds of workers to produce up to 100 million swabs a month. [29] In total, the federal government provided Puritan with more than $250 million in funding to accelerate COVID-19 testing swab production. [30]
In November 2020, Puritan was awarded over $11 million to produce three million more testing swabs per month, with the money coming through the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. [31]
In December 2020, Inc. named Puritan the magazine's “Company of the Year,” describing it as “the most important manufacturer in the world.” [32] [33] Governor Janet Mills praised Puritan for "stepping up during tumultuous times to meet the needs of our state." [34] According to Bloomberg, Puritan offers full benefits and pays fully trained employees $15 an hour, higher than the $12.15 hourly minimum wage in Maine. [35]
In April 2021, Puritan announced plans to open a new manufacturing and distribution center in Tennessee, expanding the company’s national presence. [36] With construction underway, the Tennessee plant will create as many as 625 new jobs over the next five years. [37] In addition to accessing a larger workforce than in Maine, Puritan chose the Tennessee location for "the location, logistics, and incentives offered by Tennessee state and county development officials." [38] [39]
In addition to manufacturing COVID-19 testing swabs, Puritan is also active in the environmental, forensics, genetics, and microbiology media industries, among others. [40] This includes the production of environmental surface sampling kits. [41]
In September 2023, Puritan partnered with GenoTyping Center of America, a Maine-based genetic testing company, to produce specialty swabs that collect DNA from rodents without the need to use a surgical procedure or harvest a fresh tissue sample from each rodent. [42] Improving animal welfare, the new genotyping process is a DNA collection method that supports necessary biological research. [43] Heather Johnson, commissioner of the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development, claims the partnership “illustrates the growth of Maine’s life sciences industry.” [44]
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Puritan Medical Products is an American manufacturer of swab, diagnostic, and specimen collection products. [1] [2] Puritan is North America's largest manufacturer of COVID-19 testing swabs. [3]
Based in Guilford, Maine, Puritan was a subsidiary of Hardwood Products Co., LP (its two subsidiaries being Hardwood Products Co., LLC and Puritan Medical Products Co., LLC), but has since split from Hardwood Products. [4] [5] [6] Guilford has been described as America's "swab capital," with Puritan's manufacturing reportedly ushering in the "golden age of the swab." [7] [8]
Puritan operates three facilities in Maine (one in Guilford and two in Pittsfield), as well as a manufacturing plant in Orlinda, Tennessee, producing swabs and diagnostic testing supplies. [9] [10] In June 2022, Puritan was named "Innovator of the Year" by the Maine International Trade Center. [11]
Puritan is a family-owned business. [12] The company is led by co-owner Timothy Templet, who serves as executive vice president of sales. Templet's grandfather, Lloyd Cartwright, founded Puritan in 1919 during the influenza pandemic. [13] His daughter, Virginia Templet, serves as Puritan’s manager of marketing. [14] [15]
A business advocate, Templet urges American workers to join small companies and other private-sector employers as a way of combating labor shortages. [16] He also believes in proactively bracing for the next global health crisis, claiming the COVID-19 pandemic was a "wake-up call about stockpiles and being prepared." [17] Puritan urges people to practice vigilance in the face of new COVID spikes by continuing to test for emerging variants. [18]
Bob Shultz is the president and CFO at Puritan. [19] He is focused on recruiting workers from rural parts of Maine and Tennessee to join the company. [20] Derek McKenney serves as Puritan's director of corporate engineering. [21]
In April 2020, Puritan received over $75 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to produce more “flock tip testing swabs,” which are preferred for COVID-19 testing. [22] [23] [24] In June 2020, President Trump visited the company, highlighting its “noble tradition of American manufacturing excellence for more than 100 years.” [25] [26] In July 2020, Puritan received another $51 million from the Defense Department to “expand industrial production capacity of flock tip testing swabs.” [27] To meet demand, the company partnered with Cianbro Corp. to open another swab production facility in Pittsfield, Maine. [28] Granted federal funding to churn out 40 million swabs per month, the new Pittsfield facility is hiring and training hundreds of workers to produce up to 100 million swabs a month. [29] In total, the federal government provided Puritan with more than $250 million in funding to accelerate COVID-19 testing swab production. [30]
In November 2020, Puritan was awarded over $11 million to produce three million more testing swabs per month, with the money coming through the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. [31]
In December 2020, Inc. named Puritan the magazine's “Company of the Year,” describing it as “the most important manufacturer in the world.” [32] [33] Governor Janet Mills praised Puritan for "stepping up during tumultuous times to meet the needs of our state." [34] According to Bloomberg, Puritan offers full benefits and pays fully trained employees $15 an hour, higher than the $12.15 hourly minimum wage in Maine. [35]
In April 2021, Puritan announced plans to open a new manufacturing and distribution center in Tennessee, expanding the company’s national presence. [36] With construction underway, the Tennessee plant will create as many as 625 new jobs over the next five years. [37] In addition to accessing a larger workforce than in Maine, Puritan chose the Tennessee location for "the location, logistics, and incentives offered by Tennessee state and county development officials." [38] [39]
In addition to manufacturing COVID-19 testing swabs, Puritan is also active in the environmental, forensics, genetics, and microbiology media industries, among others. [40] This includes the production of environmental surface sampling kits. [41]
In September 2023, Puritan partnered with GenoTyping Center of America, a Maine-based genetic testing company, to produce specialty swabs that collect DNA from rodents without the need to use a surgical procedure or harvest a fresh tissue sample from each rodent. [42] Improving animal welfare, the new genotyping process is a DNA collection method that supports necessary biological research. [43] Heather Johnson, commissioner of the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development, claims the partnership “illustrates the growth of Maine’s life sciences industry.” [44]
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
{{
cite web}}
: |last=
has generic name (
help)