This blast shelter business on the Burin Peninsula is expecting a boom
A Burin Peninsula business is expecting to see a sales boom in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic, while many others across Newfoundland and Labrador remain shuttered as a way to prevent the virus from spreading.
Dynamic Air Shelters has been manufacturing in Grand Bank for 20 years.
The company builds industrial blast shelters, but has reverted to building emergency field hospitals, which is how it began.
"They're not like a tent, although they look like a tent, and they're manufactured obviously to be what we call a temporary structure. But in essence they outlive many of the people that I know today," David Quick, CEO of Dynamic Air Shelters, told CBC Radio's On The Go.
The company's structures can fit 1,084 people in its largest builds, according to its website.
Quick said the business has been fielding calls from around the globe in recent weeks, while the employees at the Grand Bank facility have been practising how to build the structures with physical distancing measures in mind.
He said one of the benefits of the Grand Bank facility is the amount of space it has, and the emergency shelters are much smaller to construct.
"But it's such a clean facility anyway. I would eat off the floor in Grand Bank. They keep it so well," Quick said.
The Grand Bank plant employs 47 people. Quick said it's going to stay that way, unless business really does take off, in which case he wants to bring more people on board.
However, no purchase orders have been placed just yet, said Quick. But he's adamant on helping out where he can during the global pandemic.
"I'm anticipating keeping the folks working for the next few weeks, for sure, to build up the inventory," said Quick. "I'm like every other company in Canada. I'm keen to get in and support and help, of course, people globally."
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