An Oskaloosa business is doing its part to fight the coronavirus.

“Our operation alone will help get someplace in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 20,000 ventilators to market quickly.”

Bob Wersen is the President of Interpower, an Oskaloosa company that makes electrical cords for various products.  One products is ventilators that are used in hospitals to treat patients with respiratory problems like those caused by COVID-19.  Wersen says Interpower has extra capacity to make cords and that’s a good thing, because the demand is rising.

“We have an order board that shows how many cords we are scheduled to produce in each of the next four weeks.  And we have seen that grow by about 40% just in the last two weeks.”

Wersen was asked about making a product that is needed in a critical time.

“I feel really good about manufacturing a product that is absolutely critical to saving people’s lives. That really puts meaning into the process.  Sometimes the work can become routine and not very interesting.  When you know that it’s really important, it adds meaning to what we’re doing.”

Wersen says Interpower has been a supplier for several years to major medical producers in the US and the United Kingdom.