The World’s ‘Company Of The Year’ Is In Maine

When the COVID-19 pandemic initially set in, this Maine company and its employees based in Guilford  really rose to the occasion.

Puritan Medical Products, a subsidiary of Hardwood Products Company LLC, and the manufacturer of millions of those precious medical swabs used in the testing of COVID-19, has just been named Inc.'s "Company of the Year."  This is a pretty prestigious award for this once small family-owned business located in Piscataquis County.

Kudos the the owners and all of the employees there!

From the time back in March when a federal government official and a Maine U.S. Senator called one of the company's co-owners and its general manager, both pleading for the company to ramp up production of its medical swabs, to right about now, the company has increased production "30 fold."

Puritan Medical Products received a $75.5 million federal contract, and quickly began hiring more employees and opened a second facility within a converted smoke detector plant in the town of Pittsfield. By the end of this past November the company was churning out 90 million COVID test swabs per month.  One Puritan manager that was quoted in the business magazine's article said, "We had people come in and work a second shift because they wanted to help their nation."

A third Puritan factory in Pittsfield will open sometime this March with another 200 new employees, which will pretty much double the amount of employees the company had at the beginning of 2020.  The third plant will also contribute about another 50 million medical swabs per month.