{"id":65159,"date":"2020-04-09T09:30:59","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T13:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=65159"},"modified":"2020-04-09T09:30:59","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T13:30:59","slug":"brock-grads-company-producing-essential-equipment-amid-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2020\/04\/brock-grads-company-producing-essential-equipment-amid-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock grad&#8217;s company producing essential equipment amid COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Body\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Within 72 hours after receiving a call from a local hospital, Andrew Pittam\u2019s (BSM \u201906) company had completely switched gears to help essential businesses amid the COVID-19 outbreak.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The Brock University graduate is the Vice President of ASTOUND Group, a design and build company based out of Oakville that specializes in creating exhibit booths for businesses that host trade shows, have retail spaces and hold live events. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">When COVID-19 began rapidly spreading, ASTOUND dropped everything \u2014 and quickly \u2014 to start producing safe screening booths for local hospitals. Their products are specifically designed for rapid deployment and construction in order to be able to support as many communities as possible.<\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u201cSt. Michael\u2019s Hospital in Toronto reached out to us when the virus outbreak first started,\u201d said Pittam. \u201cWe are known as a custom fabrication company that can pull things off very fast. From concept to install, the first project was completed in 72 hours.\u201d <\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The products that ASTOUND are creating have a plexiglass front to protect healthcare workers who are taking information from possible COVID-19 patients. <\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u201cWe have built and installed over 100 screening stations in hospitals throughout Ontario so far,\u201d said Pittam. \u201cWe have also built one Rapid Assessment Centre at St. Michael\u2019s hospital in Toronto and are talking with several hospitals about significant projects that include more than 100 temporary treatment rooms and some offsite temporary hospital projects.\u201d <\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The company is also working with essential business across North America, such as grocery stores and hospitality businesses, to help alleviate the shortage of personal protective equipment like masks by using the protective plexiglass stations. Once ordered, the product is ready within three days, is customizable and can be self installed.<\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Body\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">ASTOUND has more than 600,000 square feet of manufacturing space between Canada and the U.S. To request a safe plexiglass booth for frontline workers,\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"Hyperlink0\"><span lang=\"EN-US\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astoundgroup.com\/containment?hsCtaTracking=9b3ee528-50d7-4a4e-8920-ad6105522a69%7C2b80e267-5787-4119-a642-d398eba7be2d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">visit their website<\/a><\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Within 72 hours after receiving a call from a local hospital, Andrew Pittam\u2019s (BSM \u201906) company had completely switched gears to help essential businesses amid the COVID-19 outbreak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":65160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,36,1,4],"tags":[3333,8849,8791,8833],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65161,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65159\/revisions\/65161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}