Every week, Ritchie Bros.' GovPlanet marketplace sells thousands of items from the U.S. Department of Defense, including demilitarized vehicles, uniforms, tents, medical supplies, and more. In mid-March, when a shortage of personal protective equipment for essential workers was announced, GovPlanet and the U.S. DOD looked through all upcoming inventory, pulled items and provided them to frontline employees.

In the past month, GovPlanet has returned ventilators, masks, gloves and various other medical supplies to the U.S. DOD to be distributed to its customers. Much of this work has been coordinated by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the nation's combat logistics support agency.

"During these unprecedented times, we are all doing our best to support those battling COVID-19 on the frontlines," said Michael Cannon, Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services Director. "We are working closely with our partners to ensure items get to those that need them. GovPlanet has done an inventory of all items they have acquired from us to find anything that may be useful to the pandemic response efforts."

Ritchie Bros.' GovPlanet marketplace has been working with the U.S. DOD and DLA since 2014.

"Since mid-March, we have pulled more than 12,000 N95 medical masks from our inventory and returned them to the Defense Logistics Agency for redistribution to the frontline employees who need them," said Doug Feick, Senior Vice President, Government Services, Ritchie Bros. "We continue to monitor all incoming inventory to determine additional high-priority items that may be of use."

GovPlanet, a Ritchie Bros. solution, was launched in 2014 to address the specialized equipment disposition needs of public entities, from federal, including military, to state, local and municipal. Each week, on average, GovPlanet draws close to 90,000 attendees to its online auctions.