A group of University of Arkansas alumni have begun teaming up with medical professionals and area business people to help produce aerosol boxes for local first responders to the COVID-19 crisis.

Aerosol boxes can be used by medical personnel while intubating a patient to protect themselves from any particles that could be released from the patient's airway during the procedure.

Tyler Garman, president of The Roark Group, and an alumnus of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, donated materials, machine time and assembly labor to help create the boxes.

Dayton Castleman, director of visual thinking of Resource Design in Rogers, is managing and coordinating this project pro bono on behalf of his company.

"Roark put 100 percent skin in the game regarding production," Castleman said. "Which was great, because having a central source for producing these boxes allowed for an increase in efficiency, consistency and project flow."

Castleman was able to coordinate with his personal doctor, Dr. Joel Fankhauser, and Dr. Jason McKinney, an intensivist at Mercy Hospital, to assess medical equipment needs related to COVID-19. They determined that aerosol boxes were the most beneficial and able to be produced by designers like Castleman.  

Joel Gordon, making and tinkering manager of the Scott Family Amazeum in Bentonville, created the initial drawings and provided the first prototype to Mercy. Once approved, Castleman reached out to agencies that had the capacity to produce the boxes locally and The Roark Group was able to help.

"When Dayton reached out it was perfect timing at Roark," Garman said. "We have an amazing and talented team of makers, and due to the economic slowdown, we have some capacity. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to put our team to work on a project that can hopefully help protect our frontline caregivers."

With this partnership the group has been able to create 25 boxes for Mercy Hospital Northwest, 15 boxes for Arkansas Children's Hospital Northwest and Little Rock, five for other hospitals that might need them and seven to the Rogers Fire Department that were modified to fit on their smaller stretchers to protect first responders.

Should demand for the boxes grow they are taking donations through Rogers Experimental House, which is the fiscal sponsor for the project.

If you have resources or want to help this project, please email dayton@redarchitecture.com.

Follow the development of this project.

This project compliments the efforts of the aerosol box project led by U of A professor Morten Jensen and Dr. Drew Rodgers of Washington Regional Medical Center.

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