West Haven Company Donates Face Shields To First Responders

WEST HAVEN, CT — (Contributed article): Pinpoint managing partner T.J. Andrews (pictured, front left) presents city and fire officials Thursday with a boxed donation of 75 clear plastic face shields — 25 for each of West Haven’s three fire departments — to help protect firefighters on the front lines of the war on the new coronavirus.

Receiving and wearing the shields are, from back left, West Haven Fire Department Chief James P. O’Brien, Mayor Nancy R. Rossi, acting City of West Haven Fire Department Allingtown Chief Michael T. Esposito, West Shore Fire Department Chief Stephen Scafariello and Lou Esposito, Rossi’s executive assistant.

Andrews and managing partner Steve Gentile also donated 25 protective shields to the city’s Police Department and thousands more recently to area hospitals and first responders in Ansonia, Wallingford and West Hartford.

Pinpoint and its 23 full-time employees have responded to the shortage of personal protective equipment by manufacturing the adjustable shields at the marketing company’s 45 Railroad Ave. headquarters and hopes to produce up to 50,000 a week amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The face shields can extend the lifespan of face masks crucial for protecting first responders and medical workers as they treat COVID-19 patients.

Andrews said Pinpoint, which normally produces promotional signage and display products for such clients as the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, is donating 15 percent of all face shields it produces to hospitals, municipalities and health care professionals.

The company is also making hand sanitizer, of which it will produce an additional 10 percent of sanitizer for each order placed and donate those bottles to hospitals, municipalities and health care professionals, Andrews said.

Pinpoint and other West Haven businesses have mobilized to build face shields and medical gowns to help protect people from the new coronavirus.

In late 2018, Andrews and Gentile, who is also the company’s strategy director, relocated Pinpoint’s Stratford headquarters to its new home in West Haven, a remodeled, 25,000-square-foot warehouse across the street from the Metro-North Railroad commuter station in the city’s burgeoning Transit-Oriented Development District.

The full-service marketing company, founded by Gentile in Milford 13 years ago, specializes in creative design, large-format printing, direct mail, imprinted promotional products and brand development.

Other Pinpoint clients include Live Nation, Comcast Corp., Yale University and iHeartMedia Inc.