David Halbout, technologist in the Communication Design Pathways Department, was featured in a June 2 Wall Street Journal story, “4 Entrepreneurs Who Found Big Money in Face Masks During Covid.” The story profiled four companies that pivoted to mask-making during the pandemic.
Halbout, a furniture-maker, designed a mask with extra straps, ideal for users of medical devices like hearing aids. Even with added production costs, mask-making became more profitable than furniture for Halbout. He anticipates sales to continue even as the population becomes vaccinated: “It is quite unclear how the vaccine will slow the spread with the new variants, and I think masks will still be a part of our lives for some time,” he says.