Tulsa company makes HVAC units for stopgap hospital

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  • Employees at AAON in Tulsa built 44 50-ton HVAC units for a temporary hospital Stony Brook, N.Y.
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OKLAHOMA CITY – Twenty-five years ago, on April 19, 1995, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed. Thousands of volunteers from across the nation, including New York, came to Oklahoma to assist in rescue and recovery efforts.

Earlier this month an Oklahoma company got the opportunity to repay the favor.

Employees at AAON, in Tulsa, worked around-the-clock for nine days to design and manufacture 44 50-ton customized HVAC units for a temporary hospital at Stony Brook, on Long Island, New York.

“As I understand it ... this is a non-COVID facility so that the hospitals have more capacity for the COVID patients,” AAON President Gary Fields said.

Stephanie Cameron, community relations director for AAON, said Fields received a telephone call March 29 from the principal of the AAON sales representative office in New York City, inquiring about the ability of the company to build 2,200 tons of HVAC equipment for the hospital.

The 2,200 tons of equipment equate to the cooling capacity of what would be required for more than 700 single family homes, Fields said.

Two days later, On March 31, after the details were worked out, the order was placed, Fields said.

AAON “went into immediate 24-hour production of this equipment in order to ensure shipment of these critical units” so they would arrive in New York by April 7. The first truckload of the HVAC units departed from Tulsa by truck the afternoon of April 2, and the rest of the units were shipped that weekend, Ms. Cameron said.

“AAON was pleased to participate in this effort without any premium pricing for this urgent shipment,” Fields said.

AAON was founded in 1988 and today the company has more than 2,000 employees and three manufacturing plants: in Tulsa; Longview, Texas; and in Parkville, Mo.