This Columbia company helps fix COVID mask issues in US and hopes to keep you safe
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Carolina, entrepreneur Lance Brown saw an opportunity.
In May 2020, it was clear that everyone needed to wear masks, and health care workers were desperately in need of more Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE. A shortage of the highest medical grade masks, the N95 respirator, made doctors, nurses and hospital staff have to reuse the same mask day after day for 12 hour shifts in some areas of the country.
What better business to start than a medical supply company? Brown saw an opportunity to use his business skills to connect manufacturers to buyers, and thus arose Rhino Medical Supply on Rosewood Drive in Columbia.
“When the pandemic hit, it was like a free for all. A lot of the supply chains were decimated, so if you had a pre-existing relationship and were able to get reliable PPE, then you got an opportunity,” said Brown.
How it began
The business started in Brown’s garage. After the idea arose, Brown recruited his friends and colleagues with diverse industry knowledge to make a sort of “dream team.”
Chief Operating Officer Elliott Haney brought the distribution know-how, business partner Tripp Robinson had a background in medical sales, and partners Charles Vartanian and Rashad Brown used their business backgrounds to build the company in Upstate, S.C. Brown is the CEO and pivoted from focusing on his company, Swype Fast, a credit card processing system for businesses, to building Rhino. He brought to the table 13 years of finance experience from working at Wells Fargo.
Rhino Medical Supply moved from his garage to a 12,000-square-foot warehouse, and after 10 months is almost ready to expand again. The company sells a wide range of medical supplies, such as all levels of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health- approved masks, gloves, syringes, disinfectant products and more.
Rhino Medical Supply’s first order came in April 2020 for 1.5 million masks. By August, Rhino had sold to businesses in 17 states. After a New York Times article featured the company on Feb. 10, Haney estimates they’ve sold to every state and Canada.
Most of Rhino’s manufacturers are U.S.-based medical suppliers, with another handful of manufacturers overseas. Its most recognizable U.S. mask manufacturers are Halyard Health based in Georgia and DemeTech Corp. based in Miami. Since November, Brown said he bought $2 million worth of masks just from Halyard Health to distribute. Each N95 mask sells for about $4, said Brown.
The supply-chain problem
Brown and Haney initially wanted to fix the issue of masks only being sent to major hospital systems in huge quantities.
“When we first started, you had to buy 100,000 of something and these smaller systems don’t need 100,000. They may need 100,” said Haney.
To fix this issue, Haney had to develop relationships and deals with U.S. manufacturers who would offer smaller orders, less lead times to deliver the products and who didn’t already have deals with huge hospital systems.
Some of these manufacturers, like DemeTech, had pivoted from manufacturing other items pre-pandemic to manufacturing masks during the pandemic and couldn’t find buyers without name recognition.
Rhino Medical Supply sought out these smaller manufacturers to meet the needs of smaller hospital systems and school districts for lower quantities of high-grade masks.
Another issue was that the general public could not easily buy N95 masks. Due to the shortage of masks for front-line workers and in order to prevent price gauging, websites like Google and Facebook could not market or sell N95s.
According to the Mayo Clinic, N95 masks offer “more protection than a medical mask does because it filters out both large and small particles when the wearer inhales.”
The impact of the New York Times article also drove consumers to the company’s website, which received nearly 60,000 clicks in one day and thousands of contact information requests. After that, Haney and Brown said they knew it was time to set up an e-commerce store for the general public.
Within 48 hours of the article publishing, Rhino Medical Supply had an online store for anyone to order PPE. Brown originally planned to launch the retail business in March.
“It was a call to action for us. You know what, we know there’s a capacity in the marketplace to supply hospitals AND consumers,” Haney said.
The company felt safe selling to consumers because some mask manufacturers had a large supply of masks they can’t sell. DemeTech reported that it had 30 million masks the company couldn’t find buyers for.
Through the contact information requests, Brown read stories about doctors wanting high-level protection outside of work and not being able to get N95 masks, teachers wanting protection at school and having to buy their own masks and cancer patients wanting quality masks when traveling to treatments.
“Some of it was heartbreaking because we’re thinking of it from, initially, if you listen to the experts you know, if everyone wore an N95 mask for four weeks, then the pandemic would be over,” said Brown.
While the pandemic catapulted Brown’s business, he has plans to stick around after COVID-19 case numbers fall.
Post-pandemic medical supply market
On Feb. 19, Brown and Haney donated more than 30,000 medical-grade masks to the Columbia Police Department, North Columbia Youth Empowerment Initiative and the Columbia Housing Authority.
“Right now, we’re setting up a community closet and a couple satellite locations. So each community will be able to get non-perishables and masks, and we’ll basically keep cycling them out to the neighborhoods,” said Omari Fox, a staff member with the North Columbia Youth Empowerment Initiative, who will help get masks to residents in a dozen neighborhoods in North Columbia.
Brown is in the early stages of creating a foundation called PPE For Good that will donate protective gear to under-served communities.
“It’s like a call to action for people like ourselves who, unfortunately due to COVID, had an opportunity. From a business standpoint, we’ve been blessed and we’ve been able to help a lot of people and with that we’re giving back,” Brown said.
The team at Rhino Medical Supply said it is constantly working to expand its product catalog and not just focus on masks or N95s. Though Haney said he expects masks will be worn for a while and a new normal will take shape in the U.S., the company is prepared for when mask demand simmers down.
“My vision — my goal — is for us to become the largest minority-owned health care distributor or medical supplier in the country,” said Brown.
This story was originally published February 23, 2021 at 12:16 PM.
