Private Sector Coalition Partners with Ohio to Save Lives During COVID-19

CEDARVILLE, Ohio, May 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- When Ty Bryant speaks during an upcoming webinar for entrepreneurs, he won't just be speaking as a biomedical inventor. He will also be there as an Ohio healthcare hero.

The Beyond Entrepreneurial Accelerator Investor Impact virtual event at Cedarville University will be Friday, June 12, at 10 a.m. on Zoom. The free webinar is open to the public. Click here to register.

Bryant, a 1964 alumnus of Cedarville, is the founder and president of Visioneering Bio Design, which develops smartphone apps that alert caregivers when in-home patients need assistance with Foley bags or other medical devices.

VIDEO: Private Sector Coalition and State Government Partner to Save Lives During COVID-19  

But when the coronavirus hit, Bryant was moved by calls from President Donald Trump for private industry to help battle the COVID-19 public health crisis. Then he heard from a friend whose packaging company had shifted production to making face shields, but wasn't sure how to connect supply with demand.

Bryant began reaching out to potential customers for the face shields, including the state of Ohio. "I had no comprehension of what lay ahead of me in terms of the complexity and bureaucracy," he said

Although Bryant was a volunteer, he attacked the sales efforts like a man on commission. He doggedly reached out to the state of Ohio until, as he put it, he got a "nibble."

"Do you know what a nibble is?" he asked. "I had a name and a phone number." He contacted Kelly Sanders, chief procurement officer in the office of procurement services for the state of Ohio, who serves on Gov. Mike DeWine's coronavirus task force.

Bryant also reached out to the manufacturer for samples, and he went the extra 90 miles, driving the face shields to Gov. DeWine's Cedarville home, leaving them in a bag on the back porch. That was the morning of Saturday, April 4.

"Now, I believe I hold the world's record for getting an FDA approval," he said. "I had the FDA certification by Wednesday, and the original verbal order of 600,000 increased to one million."

His efforts to connect Ohio health care workers are now paying dividends in saved lives.

Located in southwest Ohio, Cedarville University is an accredited, Christ-centered, Baptist institution with an enrollment of 4,380 undergraduate, graduate and online students in more than 150 areas of study. For more information, visit www.cedarville.edu.

SOURCE Cedarville University

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http://www.cedarville.edu