PCO Metzger Shifts Focus to Mask-Making
Brian Metzger, owner of GP Home Defense, Salina, Kan., is taking a break from pest control to make and distribute masks in his community.
June 2020
SALINA, Kan. — Brian Metzger, owner of GP Home Defense, Salina, Kan., has shifted his focus from controlling pests to helping keep others safe by making face masks.
Metzger, who founded GP Home Defense in 2018, said March was off to a great start for him, but as COVID-19 turned into a pandemic and began impacting his community, he decided it was time “to put on the brakes.” So, he turned to mask-making and soon established the Gopherwood Community Foundation, a non-profit organization that makes and distributes (free of cost) personal protective equipment (PPE).
“I have underlying health issues that make me one of those high-risk people,” Metzger said. “I figured I could sit out a couple months and survive, and if someone really needed me, I’d suit up and be there. I was reading about the many facilities that couldn’t get PPE, and I started researching mask guidelines, kind of the way I did with bed bugs.”
Through the foundation, Metzger has been able to recruit volunteer seamstresses throughout Central Kansas. Metzger decided to sacrifice some of his company’s mattress encasements (used as part of its bed bug program), which he believes are excellent for stopping particulates and droplets. “They have a tight enough weave to make them water resistant without lamination or other treatment.”
The mask’s outside layer is a decorative cotton, an inner layer is material from the top of the encasement; the masks also include a pocket for replaceable filter material, and the inside layer next to the face is stretch knit material from the sides and bottom of the encasements. “One of my volunteers discovered that if she neatly cut along the seams when taking the encasements apart, those stitched seams made good material for mask ties,” he said.
In addition to the masks Metzger’s team has made, he has received donated masks from Andrea Hancock and P.E.S.T. Relief International. Thus far, Metzger said he has distributed about 2,500 masks with a goal to make and distribute 15,000 masks.
Metzger said that doing bed bug work in nursing homes and assisted living facilities has left “a special place in his heart for” these residents. “When COVID gets into these facilities it’s devastating,” he said. “I realized that I was in a position, with enough help, to do something about it.”
Metzger initially began funding the mask-making by himself. As the scope of the project grew, so too did the need for funding, so he set up the non-profit Gopherwood Community Foundation to collect donations. To donate, visit ————————– (UPDATE- No longer accepting donations)