Long Beach gets large mask donation

Donating company’s roots date back four decades to China

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Long Beach city officials, who are cautiously watching a new uptick in local Covid-19 cases, received a gift last week from a company whose roots date back 40 years, to Mainland China.

The city received 50,000 3-ply Level 2 masks and 4,000 units of hand sanitizer from Emergency Medical Solutions LLC, in Jericho. The company’s president, William Gallo, 72, of Jericho, got his start in business four decades ago, dealing in grain and soybeans with China.

He retired in 2017, but maintained his ties with Chinese business executives, and in March, as the began to spread across the U.S., Gallo established Emergency Medical Solutions, which has about 10 employees in the U.S. and four in China. The masks are manufactured in China.

“I spent four decades trading grain and grain products,” Gallo, who is originally from New York, said in a phone interview. “I moved agricultural products all over the world.” This year it occurred to him that he could use the business contacts he had made to bring much-needed masks to the U.S. “We know how to do this,” he said.

Gallo’s son, Darren, 40, is president of Long Beach Living LLC, a real estate development company, and lives in town. He knew that the financially strapped city could use the masks.

On Nov. 12, Darren Gallo, representing his father, and two executives of Emergency Medical Solutions — Michael Hughes, the company’s head of logistics, and Chief Financial Officer Andrew Staulcup — showed up at Long Beach City Hall with boxes of masks and sanitizer. “This is a company my father started because of the pandemic and what needed to be done,” Darren Gallo said. “I had expressed that it would be good for the city to make a charitable contribution.”

City Manager Donna Gayden thanked the company for the supplies. “We’re more than grateful,” she said. The supplies will be delivered to local nursing homes as well as the MLK Center, the Long Beach Soup Kitchen, the Long Beach Latino Association and other organizations, Gayden said.