Davis A&M equipment used in COVID-19 fight
CMSD NEWS BUREAU
4/9/2020
Like all CMSD schools, Davis Aerospace & Maritime High School is closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but equipment from its fabrication lab is producing face shields to protect healthcare workers and first responders from the virus.
PHASTAR Corp., a nonprofit that co-founded the school with the District in 2017, is making the visors with 3-D laser cutters and printers that have been moved temporarily to the company’s facilities.
The reusable shields consist of a visor, plastic frame and adjustable elastic strap. PHASTAR donated the first load of 64 shields to the Cuyahoga County Emergency Management Agency on March 31. Orders are in the works for shields that will be given to hospitals in Cuyahoga and Summit counties.
“We are getting more requests than we can produce. We’ve got a run of 100 going right now,” said PHASTAR President Andrew Ferguson. He is making the shields with Danny Smith, who oversees the Davis A&M lab for PHASTAR.
Several Davis students are assisting from home, scanning the Internet for designs of additional shield models and other personal protective equipment for PHASTAR to make. Ferguson hopes to involve more students as the District gears up distance learning.
The District also contributed PPE last month, when nurses retrieved a large quantity of masks, gloves, sanitizer and other items from their offices in schools and donated them to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.
Davis, located downtown on Lakeside Avenue, teaches a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) program through the lens of the aerospace and maritime industries.
Graduates are not locked in to those fields, but Davis and PHASTAR give them opportunities for adventure on water and in the air.
Sydney-Marie Flowers drew media attention last year by earning her student pilot’s certificate at the age of 16, before receiving her driver’s license. She and two other Davis students were working to get private pilot’s licenses before the outbreak grounded them.
Students learn the ropes aboard a 25-foot sailboat and a 25-foot rescue boat that escorts commercial freighters and pulls people in distress from Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River. The school is restoring a 51-foot steel-hulled boat that will vacuum and hoist debris from the water and house a water-testing lab.
Ferguson is a career firefighter and emergency medical technician, boat captain, airline transport pilot and certified flight instructor. He spent eight years with MetroHealth’s Life Flight service.