image description
Josh Levin of LympheDivas models the cloth face mask his company is developing.

Pittsfield Firm Aiming for Lever-Led COVID-19 Intrapreneur Challenge

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
Print Story | Email Story
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Ask Josh Levin about his company's foray into producing personal protective equipment, and he will be quick to clarify what his product is and what it is not.
 
"The fabric face mask is personal protection, but it's not a medical product," the CEO of LympheDivas said recently.
 
"What we normally manufacture are true medical devices. But the masks are not something like an N95 medical mask. This is more something people can do to reduce the risk, but, at least in my personal assessment, I don't see fabric masks as a true surgical mask or a true PPE."
 
In fact, fairly early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Levin looked into whether LymphDivas, which produces high-quality compression apparel for cancer patients, could pivot to producing "true PPE" to help meet a growing demand for equipment for front-line medical workers and first responders. But he decided that the manufacturing specs for true medical grade equipment were not a good fit for his company.
 
"The more I learned, the more I doubted the things out there people were calling PPEs are true PPEs," he said. "Even little things like putting a filter in there. … That's great, but the mask is still not sealed. And air will find the easiest way to get in.
 
"I don't like living in a world of marketing language. I like living in a world of effectiveness. Putting a filter in is a marketing tool, but that doesn't jibe with my way of doing business."
 
That does not mean that the kind of cloth mask PPE LympheDivas can produce are unimportant. On the contrary, they are a critical part of the public health strategy employed by the commonwealth to reducing the spread of the novel coronavirus.
 
Levin and LympheDivas want to be part of that effort, and he is hoping the commonwealth's COVID-19 Intrapreneur Challenge can help the company develop and market its own, more comfortable take on the suddenly ubiquitous face coverings.
 
The Intrapreneur Challenge is a statewide collaboration between the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and North Adams-based Lever, a business accelerator and innovation support organization.
 
Companies from around the commonwealth will compete in the program announced on Tuesday that is intended to "activate, connect and focus companies as they pivot production capabilities to produce materials necessary to combat the pandemic," according to the MassTech Collaborative news release announcing the competition.
 
Finalists will be matched with experts and mentors to help them develop products and compete in a final "virtual pitch" event with a $25,000 prize going to the winner.
 
"We applaud Lever for demonstrating its leadership through this innovative approach to activating and focusing businesses who will be critical to increasing the supplies of necessary protective equipment," Massachusetts Housing and Economic Development Secretary Mike Kennealey said.
 
Lever CEO Jeffrey Thomas said he reached out to the MassTech Collaborative early on because the Westborough-based non-profit has enjoyed having a partner in Western Mass in the past.
 
"Patrick Larkin [at the MassTech Collaborative] had the idea of trying to activate smaller companies and entrepreneurs who want to help," Thomas said. "The original idea was, can we do a hackathon or something. … And then we realized maybe the intrapreneur challenge that we tried last year was a better fit."
 
The first round of the challenge is open to Massachusetts companies that have registered with the Manufacturing Emergency Response Team program as of May 15 with the intention of making general-use face masks. Final submissions are due June 12.
 
"Intrapreneurs," unlike the better known entrepreneurs, are innovators who develop new ideas from within a company; the term entered the lexicon in the late 1970s, according to Merriam-Webster. Lever's inaugural Intrapreneur Challenge last fall awarded $25,000 to employees at LTI Smart Glass in Pittsfield.
 
LympheDivas' Levin was a runner-up in last year's competition but benefited from the program even without taking the grand prize.
 
"It was a phenomenal experience working with Brent [Filson] and Jeffrey and the team at Lever," Levin said. "We've always been a private company. So learning a little more about the venture capitalist world and hearing feedback from venture capitalists was eye-opening for me to learn that side of entrepreneurship."
 
Levin will take some of those lessons into the COVID-19 Intrapreneurship Challenge and — win or lose — into his launch of LympheDivas' new masks.
 
"Lots of people are making masks out there," Levin said. "It's more about people finding the one they like — whether it's from a company they like or they like the way it looks or it's a little more comfortable. It's a personal choice.
 
"We want to give people another option and one that's from an American-made, American-based company."
 
And Levin said that the production of cloth masks dovetails with the mission of LympheDivas.
 
"Unfortunately, we're in this position where we'll have to wear masks for a while," Levin said. "We're trying to both help educate people and reduce the risk of transmission.
 
"With our [compression] garments we've been selling, compliance is a huge part of what our garments are. The idea fits well with our ethos and what we've been doing. Much like with compression, wearing masks has negative aspects to it that are inherent with it. It's more about what can we do to make it a little more reasonable for you to want to wear it for a short period of time."

Tags: business competition,   lever,   

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi said the walkthrough was "striking" at points, particularly at Conte, and had her thinking there was no way she would want her child educated there. She recognized that not everyone has the ability to choose where their child goes to school and "we need to do better."

"The two facilities that we are looking at I think are a great place to start," she said.

"As the Ward 6 councilor, this is where my residents and my students are going to school so selfishly yes, I want to see this project happen but looking at how we are educating Pittsfield students, this is going to give us a big bang for our buck and it's going to help improve the educational experience of a vast group of students in our city."

During the tour, Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey, saw where it could be difficult to pay attention in an open classroom with so much going on and imagined the struggle for students.

Councilor at Large Alisa Costa said, "we cannot afford not to do this" because the city needs schools that people want their children to attend.

"I know that every financial decision we make is tough but we have to figure this out. If the roof on your house were crumbling in, you'd have to figure it out and that's where we're at and we can't afford to wait any longer," she said.

"We can't afford for the sake of the children going to our schools, for the sake of our city that we want to see grow so we have to build a city where people want to go."

Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso, who served on the School Building Needs Commission for about 18 years, pointed out that the panel identified a need to address Conte in 2008.

Curtis addressed questions about the fate of Conte if the build were to happen, explaining that it could be kept as an active space for community use, house the Eagle Academy or the Adult Learning Center, or house the central offices.

School attendance zones are a point of discussion for the entire school district and for this project.

"At one time I think we had 36 school buildings and now we have essentially 12 and then it would go down again but in a thoughtful way," Curtis said.

Currently, eight attendance zones designate where a student will go to elementary school. Part of the vision is to collapse those zones into three with hopes of building a plan that incorporates partner schools in each attendance zone.

"I think that going from eight schools to three would be easier to maintain and I think it would make more sense but in order to get there we will have to build these buildings and we will have to spend money," Kavey said, hoping that the city would receive the 80 percent reimbursement it is vying for.

This plan for West Street, which is subject to change, has the potential to house grades pre-kindergarten to first grade in one school and Grades 2 to 4 in another with both having their own identities and administrations. 

The districtwide vision for middle school students is to divide all students into a grade five and six school and a grade seven and eight school to ensure equity.

"The vagueness of what that looks like is worrisome to some folks that I have talked to," Lampiasi said.

Curtis emphasized that these changes would have to be voted on by the School Committee and include public input.

"We've talked about it conceptually just to illustrate a possible grade span allocation," he said. "No decisions have been made at all by the School Committee, even the grade-span proposals."

School Committee Chair William Cameron said it is civic duty of the committee and council to move forward with the SOI.
 
He explained that when seven of the city's schools were renovated in the late 1990s, the community schools were only 25 years old and Crosby was 35 years old.  The commonwealth did not deem them to be sorely in need of renovation or replacement.
 
"Now 25 years later, Crosby is physically decrepit and an eyesore. It houses students ages three to 11 in a facility meant for use by teenagers,"
 
"Conte and Morningside opened in the mid-1970s. They were built as then state-of-the-art schools featuring large elongated rectangles of open instructional space. Over almost half a century, these physical arrangements have proven to be inadequate for teaching core academic skills effectively to students, many of whom need extra services and a distraction-free environment if they are to realize their full academic potential."
 
He said  the proposal addresses a serious problem in the "economically poorest, most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse area" of the city.
 
Cameron added that these facilities have been deemed unsatisfactory and need to be replaced as part of the project to reimagine how the city can best meet the educational needs of its students.  He said it is the local government's job to move this project forward to ensure that children learn in an environment that is conducive to their thriving academically.
 
"The process of meeting this responsibility needs to begin here tonight," he said.
 
View Full Story

More Pittsfield Stories