Pandemic drives demand for Presque Isle maker's medical products
Courtesy / Acme Monaco Corp.
Acme Monaco Corp. is on track to produce 4 million of its medical guidewires this year, up from 3 million in 2019. Seen here is the production floor of its Presque Isle facility.
STEVE LASCHEVER / HARTFORD BUSINESS JOURNAL
Siblings Rebecca Karabin-Ahern and Lucas Karabin are co-presidents of family owned Acme Monaco.
A manufacturer of formed metal products with a plant in Presque Isle has seen demand for one of its medical devices surge as a result of the pandemic.
Acme Monaco Corp. is on track to produce 4 million of its medical guidewires this year, up from 3 million in 2019.
“We’ve been hiring,” Rebecca Karabin-Ahern, the company’s co-president, told Mainebiz.
Acme Monaco was founded in 1947 in New Britain, Conn., and opened its Presque Isle manufacturing facility in 1989.
At the time, said Karabin-Ahern, “We looked up and down the East Coast and the local president of the industrial council was the only gentleman on the East Coast who called my dad back when we were looking for places to expand.”
The company opened a third plant in Singapore in 2007. Today, Acme Monaco is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of orthodontic wires, among its products.
“If you know anyone who wears braces, chances are that’s our guidewire in their mouth,” said Karabin-Ahern.
It’s also a major producer of catheter guidewires. The guidewires are the devices that have been in high demand this year.
“Productivity has gone up quite a bit because our orders have gone up significantly,” she said. “We’re very busy producing catheter guidewires.”
Acme Monaco is an essential supplier of products to the medical device industry, manufacturing devices for use in neurology, urology, cardiology and vascular interventions.
The company began to see a spike in demand in June from hospitals around the world, Karabin-Ahern said.
Catheter guidewires are used in a variety of applications. For example, they’re used to deliver stents and feeding tubes into the body.
“The wire goes in first, the catheter goes over it, then the wire is removed,” she explained. “It’s guiding the catheter.”
The pandemic caused demand to spike because patients who were very sick from COVID-19 and on ventilators may come off the ventilators with other medical issues such as cardiac problems.
“So our wires are needed in the catheterization of these patients,” Karabin-Ahern said.
The company has longstanding customers around the world and has been seeing orders surge in sync with surges of illness in various countries. That began in Asia, then progressed to Europe in the spring and summer.
“Over the summer, as it got into Brazil, our big customers down there were placing huge orders,” she said.
As some countries experience second waves of illness, “All of a sudden, customers are saying, ‘Make my 100,000-piece order 200,000 pieces,’” she said.
To keep up, the company is seeking to hire about 35 employees across its three plants. It employs just over 200 at all three plants. In Presque Isle, it has about 50 employees but typically has 75.
“We’ve had some folks retire,” she said. “But we’ve been in growth mode and we’ve been hiring.”
The company has been working with local career centers and temp agencies. In Presque Isle, it hosted a career fair at the plant in September, where people could apply in person and be interviewed on the spot. But the timing was unfortunate.
“It was during harvest, which was a mistake,” Karabin-Ahern said. “So we’ll try to do it again, hopefully in November.”
It’s also been working with the Aroostook County Action Program, whose services include workforce development; and advertising with local broadcast stations. Positions including quality control inspectors, machine operators, and medical assembly operators, custodial, and shipping and receiving. The company offers an apprenticeship program and additional training to help employees advance their careers, she said.
In a March letter to its customers, the company noted that it’s monitoring the overall supply chain of raw material, components and service suppliers to mitigate any potential supply disruption.
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