What’s it like to be operating a chip fabrication plant in these unprecedented times? I was lucky enough to sit down virtually with Tim O’Brien, vice president and site director for Micron’s factory in Manassas, Virginia, to ask him exactly that.

O’Brien explained to me how fortunate Micron Technology Virginia is to be part of a global manufacturing operation. Micron has been able to maintain quality and productivity as we’ve watched this virus “march across the globe.” We’ve replicated best practices from our fabs in Asia to provide a safe working environment for all our team members. So — even though we have more than half our team members working from home and the rest working in two carefully segregated teams — the team and the fab are working well.

O’Brien’s team’s efforts go beyond Micron. They’ve been providing protective equipment and chemicals to hospitals and Virginia’s Department of Emergency Management, helping other local companies keep their workers safe. They have even provided isopropyl alcohol to a local distillery to make hand sanitizer!

It’s an emotional time for everyone, but the world is adapting quickly to this new normal. As O’Brien put it, “Micron products are needed now, more than ever, to keep the world going.” As demand for remote technologies surges, our cloud customers (among many others) are adding capacity at full speed in order to keep the world working and more importantly, give data scientists and medical professionals the infrastructure they need to track and mitigate the effects of this virus and effect a cure.

Learn more about how Micron is supporting our worldwide communities here: www.micron.com/covid-19