Buddy Michaelson and his father Ky have been in the business of manufacturing life-saving devices for years. The Michaelsons run Rocketman Enterprises in Bloomington, where they make parachutes for worldwide customers to use during skydiving or to safely exit a rocket. Since the pandemic began, a different life-saving product has become their focus: high quality face masks.
In March, 20-year-old Buddy received a large roll of polypropylene—the same material used for filtration in N95 masks—from a friend at 3M. The material, which quickly became in high-demand, was enough to make 2,500 three-layer masks.
“My initial goal wasn’t business at all, it was trying to mask up the community,” Buddy says.
When word began to circulate that the Michaelsons were making masks in those early months, the community flocked to him. Thousands of people came to his door, he says, “at all hours of the day… from 6 a.m. to midnight.”
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