From left, Abby Dunten, RN, Dr. Kaare Tinglestad, and Lexi Liebelt, RN, in the Saint Alphonsus emergency room wearing face shields made at the Baker Technical Institute.

News of the shortage of personal protection equipment for emergency service and health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic did not escape the attention of Doug Dalton, president of Baker Technical Institute.

And neither did it escape the attention of a family member whose adult child works as a nurse at Saint Alphonsus Medical Center.

About the time Dalton began wondering how BTI could help remedy the situation, he got a call from the concerned parent wondering, “Is there a way for BTI to help?”

Although students are not in classes, BTI staff members put their heads together and met with Saint Alphonsus Medical Center officials last week to see what BTI’s engineering lab could do to produce face shields to protect workers.

“When the hospital reached out and asked if BTI could produce these, I was excited to have an opportunity to contribute to the cause,” Chris Wittich, BTI engineering instructor, stated in a press release.

“We immediately went to work on the design and began prototype production with the use of 3D printers in our lab,” he said.

Wittich reviewed three designs, one each from Hewlett-Packard, Portland State University and Boise State University, before choosing the BSU design, Dalton said.

“Boise State had worked with Saint Alphonsus on the shield and already had met the medical standards,” and it was the easiest to assemble, Dalton said.

The face shields are made from plastic sheets measuring 4 feet by 2 feet. The sheets are cut down to 10-by-11-inch shields, which are shaped, edges rounded and holes punched along the top (using the same three-hole punch that prepares paper to be placed in binders).

The plastic visors, which are produced layer by layer on the 3D printers, are attached by the fabricated notches that align with the holes punched into the plastic shields. Rubber bands are used to connect the visors across the back of the wearer’s head to hold them in place.

The pieces can be assembled in about a minute, Dalton said. And the face shields can be replaced as needed.

“It would have been great if we could have had students do some of the design work,” he said, but because of the school closure, which on Wednesday Gov. Kate Brown extended to the end of the year (June 10 for Baker students), and the governor’s social distancing orders to hold the line on the coronavirus in the state, that was not possible.

Dalton said Wittich is working with his engineering students online and has kept them apprised of the project.

“I wish they could have had a bigger part in it,” Dalton said. “That would have made it even better.”

The Baker City hospital has ordered 40 of the face shields and more are being produced for Baker County Emergency Management and St. Luke’s Clinic.

Dalton said BTI expects to produce 120 to 140 of the shields for those entities. At this time the 3D printers and BTI staff members are working night and day and on weekends to meet the requests. Those participating in the project include Dalton, Wittich, Sandy Mitchell, who’s the BTI administrative and marketing assistant, teacher Dave Frazey, and Julie Homan, who works in the District’s print shop.

BTI, with five 3D printers set up for classroom work, has one of the largest inventories of the specialized printers around, Dalton said. Only three printers have been used for this project.

Dalton said the printers are not suited to large production work, but instead are intended for classroom use. Three shields are produced every three hours in the BTI lab, Wittich said.

The first batch went to the Baker City hospital Wednesday and the shields were well-received by Saint Alphonsus doctors and nurses, Dalton said.

Dr. Leslie Jackson, the hospital’s vice president of medical affairs, expressed her appreciation for the school’s efforts.

“Manufacturing these face shields for our health care providers is an incredible gesture from BTI,” Jackson stated in the press release.

“It will allow us to further protect our colleagues on the front line fighting this pandemic,” she said. “This effort demonstrates BTI’s innovative organizational cooperation, which is one of the many community strengths found in Baker City. We are truly grateful.”

Dalton said helping the hospital employees prepare for the county’s first confirmed COVID-19 case is nothing more than repaying the efforts of those who have eagerly welcomed BTI students into their facilities and provided their guidance and expertise to the health care component of the career and technical training program. BTI, which is housed in the northwest wing of Baker High School, was started in the fall of 2014.

“This is us giving back the other way,” Dalton said.

He said the face shields are being offered free to the Baker County partners. And for others, they will be made available on a first-come-first-serve basis.

“We’ll keep printing and keep shipping them out,” he said.

Other communities or health care providers can place an order for the face shields at bakerti.org or by calling 541-524-2651.

The face shield production project is just another way the Baker School District is using its resources to serve the community, Dalton said. He pointed also to the weekday free food service program for all children 18 and younger and the child care service offered to essential workers in emergency services and health care occupations throughout the community.

“Everybody has offered to pay,” Dalton said of the face shield project, but the cost of supplies is minimal and the staff is already on the job working.

“If people want to donate to the engineering program or BTI or to a scholarship for the students, those would all be great things — but not expected,” he said.

The additive manufacturing processes — including computer-aided design and 3D printing— students are learning in BTI’s engineering and construction programs are state-of-the art, he said.

“It’s pretty amazing what can be done,” he said.

“Manufacturing these face shields for our health care providers is an incredible gesture from BTI.”

— Dr. Leslie Jackson, vice president of medical affairs, Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City