Temple Golfer Anthony Barr Chips In During the Pandemic

When sports came to a sudden halt in March of 2020, it was not just the athletes this affected. All throughout the country, athletic support staff ranging from water boys, concession staff, and caddies were finding themselves without a job.

In the Philadelphia region a group of country club members saw an opportunity to provide work to those affected, while also addressing one of the largest shortcomings of the pandemic: testing supplies.

The Golf Association of Philadelphia along with the assistance and leadership of members such as Mark Bartosh and Daniel Gerrity established Dyad Enterprises, a company that over the course of the pandemic has produced over 15,000 testing kits daily.

The company would acquire supplies from various pharmaceutical and medical supply companies in order to create a testing kit and sell to states including Tennessee, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Texas.

One of their employees is none other than Temple Golf's Anthony Barr. Following the furloughing of his bag room position, he came across the job on the Golf Association of Philadelphia's website.

"I went in at 8pm that night and they were still working, so I actually started right away and worked until about 10pm, prior to starting officially the following day," said Barr.

Barr worked for Dyad from early May all the way through July. To say the least, this is an abnormal summer position, but the golfer explained that he learned a lot, "I learned how to work with a team better. You never knew who you were going to work with so you always had to adapt to a new team. Being more outgoing and learning to mold to different situations was important."

Barr and his colleagues would work in an assembly line manor with getting supplies ready, assembling them and finally packing them for shipment. "My job within the supply chain was constantly changing so I had to be adaptable," said Barr.

The company had an incredible demand to meet. Barr cited one example in saying "One week we thought we were ahead of pace by 50,000 kits but then Tennessee told us they needed an additional 100,000 by Friday so we had to work overtime in order to get those overnighted by Thursday."

"It was great to be around people that I would not have probably never been around, bus drivers, high schoolers, older retirees, it was great meeting people that I would normally not have" said Barr.

Temple University Athletics

Temple Golfer Anthony Barr Chips In During the Pandemic

Players Mentioned

Anthony Barr

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