Puerto Rico Apparel Manufacturing (PRAMA) Corp. is a Puerto Rican industry, registered in 2006 and which began operations in 2007. Its facilities are in two PRIDCO buildings in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

PRAMA’s staff has more than 27 years of experience and amounts to 285 active employees. Expansion plans include acquiring a third building to modernize a fabric cutting department and increasing the staff to 360 active employees.

The company is engaged in the manufacturing of textile products, especially military uniforms for the United States Department of Defense.

The owner is Ivette Lebrón who was certified in 2013 as “Small Business, Women Economically Disadvantaged Owned”. She had previous experience working in administrative duties in the manufacturing industry. Another key person behind the success of this company is Edwin Quiles Casimiro, who worked with his father in 1989, in his family business attending to commercial and military contracts.

During the pandemic, Ivette and her husband began to think about how they could contribute and immediately identified the need and shortage of face masks. With the greatest agility they redirected their production of military uniforms to manufacturing face masks. They began to identify non-profit institutions such as “Hands for Puerto Rico”, who distribute these masks to doctors, nurses, paramedics, police, firefighters, among other first responders.

“We feel very honored and proud to be able to collaborate for the well-being of our Puerto Rico, even more so after everything that has happened to us, Hurricane Maria, the earthquakes and now this pandemic.”

Gascó Industrial is a family-owned business created in 2003. Until 2008 it only focused on manufacturing products, such as, seasonings for wholesale. When Dan Bigman joined the company after graduate school, Gascó branched out into other chemical manufacturing and compounding. With the addition of products, such as, general purpose cleaners, Gascó successfully entered into a completely different business segment; as of date cleaning products account for 65% of company revenues.

In recent months, Gascó has developed a new product, “Natural Logic”, an all-natural non-toxic insecticide for home and industrial use. Bigman mindful of the environment and the damage caused by chemical sand pesticides, started research on natural, non-toxic insect control. After much trial and error, a formula was developed that complied with all EPA regulations, was non-toxic and had excellent performance as compared to other products in the market. Gascó partnered with Pan-American Grain, the largest distributor of agriculture chemicals in Puerto Rico, for marketing and distribution of the new product. Bigman relied on assistance provided by Business Consultant Saraí Díaz of the Caguas SBTDC with market research and the development of a business plan that included the new product. Once launched, the product was quickly picked up by major retailers and “big-box” stores across Puerto Rico.

The ASBDC recognized it as a success story of the PR SBTDC in the manufacturing area supporting the community and other businesses during the pandemic.