By the end of March, Michigan had the fourth-highest COVID-19 case and fatality counts in the nation as the pandemic proliferated, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was growing increasingly concerned.
Whitmer could not get the amount of personal protection equipment and other medical supplies from the federal government that Michigan's hospitals desperately needed. So she turned to one of the state's largest corporations — General Motors — for help.
After all, GM employs people who are experts in global parts procurement. At the time, GM's North American assembly plants were idle with many states on shutdown.
So Ron Mills, an unassuming son of a farmer and a former GM factory worker himself, found himself being tapped by his boss to manage the crisis of a lifetime and get Michigan the gear doctors needed to save lives.
"The state had a plan to get supplies, but they knew the plan was not enough to help them reach that critical need," Mills, GM's director of global business solutions, told the Free Press. "I found that leveraging my network and my relationships and experiences working globally, if I could share that with the state to save lives, by all means, I’m all in."
Take note
Mills, 57, describes himself as "humble by nature." He grew up in rural Norwalk, Ohio, on a third-generation family farm. His father was a farmer and also a skilled trades worker for General Motors at its Sandusky, Ohio, component manufacturing plant.
Mills, who is married with two college-age daughters, started his career at GM in 1985 at GM's now-defunct Van Nuys Assembly factory in Van Nuys, California. He was 24 and fresh out of college working there as a manufacturing engineer and production supervisor.
But when GM closed the plant in 1992, Mills came to Detroit where he has progressed through jobs in engineering, finance and corporate management. Since 1994, he has been leading people in various roles, prompting his self-assessment, "I’ve been around a bit and I've seen the ups and downs in the industry."
Mills, who is a classic car enthusiast who has his own custom M1 Concourse garage, will tell you that he is meticulous about keeping detailed and copious daily notes to stay organized.
“When you’re in that crisis mode, you just do what you have to do," Mills said. "I take good notes on who I talk to and who I have to follow up with to stay on top of it.”
So when asked how he ended up working for the governor, Mills thumbs through his notes, pulls up March 19 and recites precisely what went down.
A certain skill set
GM executive Steve Kiefer regularly meets with state officials. Kiefer is GM's president of GM South America and International Operations, but he talks to folks in Lansing about his campaign against distracted driving. His son, Mitchel, was killed by a distracted driver in 2016.
On March 19, Michigan's newly appointed COO Tricia Foster asked Kiefer whether GM had someone, "who could help us navigate this crisis," referring to the growing coronavirus pandemic.
Kiefer called Mills' boss, who then called Mills and issued the assignment.
"I asked, 'Are you sure?' I was quite busy with my day job," Mills said, who did the work for the state pro bono. "My boss said, ‘Yeah let’s do this' because: A: Steve asked and B: there is the thought that I have the skill set that could help the state counteract this virus.”
Mills' skill set includes effectiveness at communication, managing information and delegating tasks to the appropriate people. He's done a lot of crisis management in his career, such as when the March 2011 Japanese Tsunami hit.
“We had a war room in Warren and worked from that room seven days a week, almost 20 hours a day, for two months to keep parts moving and our plants running," Mills said.
From that crisis, Mills learned that in any crisis there has to be trust that people will deliver.
"Those are critical things I’ve learned in my years of crisis management," Mills said. "I make sure to have a way to manage information, so you don’t lose sight of where you need to go. And, know what problem you are trying to solve, so you know your role."
A plan of attack
By 3:30 p.m. March 19, Mills was on the phone with nearly 20 state leaders in the Department of Health and Whitmer's staff. He was the only GM person on the call.
“It was weird because I’ve never worked in the public sector before so I did a lot of listening," Mills said. "But there’s a purchasing director for the state that I became quite close with who gave me guidance on how to work with the state."
By 5 p.m. that day, he and Michigan's leaders had a plan on how to battle the pandemic and subsequent supply shortage.
But he admits it was daunting. Initially, Michigan leaders, "Didn't really know what to ask for at the time because so much was coming at you and I don’t think the state had seen a crisis like this before.”
Mills said he saw his role as guiding the state to expand its supply base and manage the medical supplies it got so that it stayed well-stocked.
"Prior to the crisis, their supply base was Michigan or the Midwest," Mills said. "That would not meet the demand we had."
An emotional call
Michigan leaders first asked Mills to help secure critical-care ventilator machines. GM had just started working with Ventec Life Systems to build the machines at its plant in Kokomo, Indiana.
"I asked the state if they could give me a list of suppliers that they would like to work with to get ventilators," Mills said. "The list was 20 companies long."
One by one, Mills reached out to the companies on the list and eventually the state worked closely with Hamilton Medical to purchase the ventilators. Mills does not know how many ventilators the state ultimately purchased, saying he established contact with the manufacturers and then let the state do the ordering and purchasing. Michigan also bought some ventilators from Ventec, Mills said.
Along the way, the state started seeing increased need for N95 respirators, surgical face masks, gowns and face shields too, Mills said.
The situation was growing increasingly frantic at area hospitals. On the the evening of March 29, just 10 days into his mission to help the state, Mills' phone rang. It was Henry Ford Hospital's chief of surgery Dr. Scott Dulchavky.
"He wanted to tell me how desperate he is and the staff is to get ventilators, face masks, gowns...because they didn’t have them," Mills said. "It was an emotional call. I told him I was doing everything I could to help. That was the mindset we all shared as a team."
Henry Ford Hospital declined to make Dulchavsky available to the Free Press for an interview, but in a statement said, "We would like to express our gratitude to General Motors for stepping up to produce personal protective equipment during the national shortage, which posed a tremendous challenge to hospitals across the country. Dr. Dulchavsky says his conversation reflected the urgency of the situation for medical and PPE supplies."
'An ample supply'
Mills again helped state employees find and vet PPE suppliers to ensure the state purchased quality products. He said navigating the supply base was a large learning curve, but he and the team now have more confidence on where to turn if there is a second wave of the virus.
"I was very pleasantly surprised at the work ethic of the people at the state. There was never a qualm or complaint about the hours we were working," Mills said, calling it, "a very challenging and fun experience to work with them."
Today, the state has "an ample supply" in Michigan's warehouses that numbers "well into the millions of units of" N95 respirators, face masks and other PPE, Mills said. His calls with state leaders have dropped to two calls a week from the daily calls.
"I’m on those calls to make sure we have ample supplies and we're managing what we’ve built," Mills said. "Also, we discuss what we see as the state’s role in these supplies, such as, is the state a buyer of face masks or do we want to make them? It's so that we’re ready if there’s a crisis again, we have a plan."
GM also has been making flat face masks and will start making N95 respirators at its plant in Warren. It has donated millions to hospitals across Michigan.
More: GM gets OK to make N95 face masks: Where they'll be used
More: GM quietly helped company set up ventilator assembly line after a cold call
For its part, the state is grateful. In a statement to the Free Press, Gov. Whitmer's office said: "During the early stages of COVID-19 here in Michigan, the auto industry repurposed their factories to produce PPE and lifesaving ventilators for the health care heroes working on the front lines. With the lack of a national procurement strategy in place for PPE, Governor Whitmer used every resource to secure PPE and ventilators, including working closely with the big three automakers. Our administration is grateful for the ongoing dialogue and partnership with the big three automakers that continue to be the backbone of our economy.”
Mills said part of GM's culture is to support the communities in which employees' live and work. His role was an extension of that help.
"We’ve been through a lot in this company and we’ve survived and thrived through it. But we know tomorrow could put us back on the road to another challenge," Mills said. "So yeah, the pressure was there to deliver for the state, but we knew how to handle it."
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter.
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