BALTIMORE, MD — On March 16, United Safety Technology Inc. (UST) announced plans for a $350 million medical manufacturing facility at Tradepoint Atlantic in Baltimore County designed to strengthen the nation’s ability to produce critical medical supplies and create thousands of new jobs. UST plans to renovate more than 735,000 square feet of warehouse space at Tradepoint Atlantic to install and operate advanced production lines to produce medical-grade nitrile exam gloves.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O'Connell joined representatives from Maryland's hospitals and healthcare industry and numerous other federal, state, and local officials and community leaders in the announcement that celebrated the return of manufacturing to Baltimore County.
Demand for disposable synthetic nitrile gloves, used in hospitals, doctors' offices, labs, and virtually all healthcare settings to maintain hygiene and protect workers and patients, skyrocketed when the pandemic struck in 2020. However, the U.S., the world's largest market for nitrile gloves, today produces less than one percent of the world's output. UST's new production facility will produce 375 million units per month by the end of Phase 1, with initial production set to begin in the first quarter of 2023.
By the fourth quarter of 2024, UST expects to have created more than 2,000 jobs in engineering, manufacturing, operations, logistics, and other functions at the site. The Maryland area residents who fill those jobs will help the United States become less reliant on the foreign market, which currently accounts for more than 90 percent of the world's nitrile glove production.
Investment in a new nitrile glove manufacturing facility at Tradepoint Atlantic is part of UST's multiphase expansion of its production capacity to further its mission to serve the American frontline workers with American-made products. A $96.1 million Department of Defense (DOD) contract accelerated the expansion of UST's production capacity. Made last summer on behalf of and in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the grant is specifically for the domestic expansion of nitrile exam glove manufacturing.
UST's investment at Tradepoint Atlantic marks a new beginning for the former Bethlehem Steel Cold Mill building, originally a purpose-built facility for cold roll mill steel production and product storage by Bethlehem Steel in 1999. It was the last new major investment made by Bethlehem Steel to modernize steel manufacturing at Sparrows Point. The mill went idle in 2012 and was used as a temporary storage facility 2014-2019 by third-party logistics providers. The investment by UST reinvents the future of the building by creating a state-of-the-art medical manufacturing facility.
United Safety Technology Inc. was founded in June 2020 in response to the pandemic by leaders with more than 60 years of experience in the manufacturing and distribution sectors. The founders share the vision of re-shoring critical medical manufacturing to the United States for distribution to hospitals, long-term care facilities, and governments at the federal, state, and local levels. UST currently produces N95 respirators and has expanded the organization's technical production expertise to scale nitrile glove production domestically.
