Virginia Brown Deb Neo never wanted to be a business owner. She just wanted to help people. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the licensed social worker was deeply disturbed by price gouging and unethical practices she witnessed in the personal protective equipment (PPE) industry. “This time last year, I was seeing reports of 700 percent price-gouging, fake masks and respirators flooding the market,” says Neo, adding that surgical mask prices jumped from roughly 70 cents to as high as $7. “People were really taking advantage of the fact that they had this product and people needed it, and that’s the opposite of what I wanted to do.”