Mask project highlights Montana’s spirit for innovation

Ingenuity and entrepreneurship go hand in hand in Montana, and that assertion has been on full display in the Flathead Valley over the past several weeks.

One of the most impressive efforts amid the coronavirus pandemic has been the local use of 3D printers to produce filtration masks needed for health-care workers. In the early weeks of the virus outbreak, a group of industrious teachers, students and professionals with access to 3D printers began cranking out masks, to the tune of 500 masks in two weeks with requests for more.

Once a design for what’s now known as the Montana Mask — created by a group in Billings to fill the shortage of N95 filtration masks — was released for public use, it has spurred local injection mold producers to get on board with the project. This could be a game-changer for local mask inventory, as the process generates 80 to 90 masks per hour.

Kalispell Regional Healthcare has ordered 20,000 of the injector mold masks with financial support from a generous $150,000 donation from Eddie and Candy DeBartolo.

The Montana Mask project is just one of many creative solutions that are helping our communities survive this pandemic. Our hats are off to all of those who made this happen.

Siblings Richard and Grace Blanchet spent their entire lives cultivating the earth on their family’s 320-acre farm south of Columbia Falls. They were passionate about the trade and preserving the local agriculture heritage.

Last week the Montana Land Reliance announced that Richard and Grace gifted their family’s farm to the conservation organization, which works to protect ag land and open spaces across the state. The gift is the largest land donation the Reliance was ever received in Flathead County.

The conservation organization provides funding to landowners who put easements on their property to protect it from future development. The Reliance recently sold the property donated by the Blanchet siblings, and will use the proceeds to pay other farmers to protect their land.

“Words can’t describe how critical this gift is and how important and how unusual it is for landowners to give up a significant portion of their estate to protect farmland,” said Mark Schiltz, the Western manager for the Reliance. “It just shows how important it was to Richard and Grace.”

Open spaces and agriculture are widely valued by Flathead Valley residents, and we are grateful for Richard and Grace’s generosity and foresight to leave a lasting legacy that will benefit the valley for generations to come.