Manufacturers put on running shoes | Business

TRAVERSE CITY — When much of the COVID-collared country slowed to a snail’s pace last spring, or stopped altogether, one northern Michigan manufacturer broke into a sprint, while another kept a brisk pace, all its own.

“Because of the huge demand for crowd control and social distancing during the pandemic, our sales went up 35 percent, practically overnight,” said Maree Russo Mulvoy, president and CEO of M R Products, a Thompsonville-based manufacturer of plastic chains and related items.

“Until then, we’d shipped within 48 hours of getting an order. At the highest point last summer, we hired 45 more people, we had a backlog of four weeks … (with) about 115 employees, but now we have stabilized at about…