State officials have tapped 20 companies across Maryland — including 16 in the Baltimore region — to receive a total of $1.6 million in grants to help manufacture personal protective equipment, or PPE. Gov. Larry Hogan announced the first round of grants from the state’s COVID-19 Emergency Relief Manufacturing Fund on Tuesday afternoon.
Grantees are manufacturing PPE ranging from face shields and N-95 masks to pieces used for ventilators and respirators in medical settings — many of them by shifting from their normal production regimen. Department of Commerce spokeswoman Karen Glenn Hood said in an email that Commerce officials picked the recipients based on criteria from when the state set up the $5 million fund in March. Officials received more than 200 applications for grants, capped at $100,000 apiece. All but six companies received the maximum grant amount of $100,000.
