ASHEVILLE – IFB Solutions, the largest employer of people who are blind or visually impaired in the country, has hired Alina Garcia Ravelo to oversee its Asheville operations as the nonprofit’s plant manager. The Asheville manufacturing facility, located on Sardis Road, is one of three manufacturing facilities operated by IFB Solutions, a nonprofit headquartered in Winston-Salem.

In her new role, Ravelo will lead IFB’s Asheville manufacturing team and oversee all facility operations. Ravelo, who is legally blind due to a condition called cone dystrophy, was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. In 2013, after graduating with honors from Technological University José Antonio Echeverría with a degree in industrial engineering, she emigrated to the United States, working as an industrial engineer for Georgia Industry for the Blind by day and earning a master’s degree in engineering from Florida International University at night. In 2019, she was hired at IFB Solutions’ Winston-Salem facility as the location’s production supervisor, but she left one year later due to the challenging hours-long commute from her home in Western North Carolina. Prior to rejoining the IFB team, Ravelo worked at Eaton Corporation in Arden as a senior manufacturing engineer on one of the facility’s product lines.

IFB’s Asheville plant employs more than 120 people, about half of whom are blind or visually impaired, to manufacture products such as uniforms, field equipment and office products for the U.S. government and military. The Asheville facility operates product lines that support Military Resale and the Impulse Merchandising Program for the Defense Commissary Agency. Employees who are blind assemble and package more than 400 different products, which are then shipped and sold at military installations and commissaries around the world. Asheville employees also manufacture poncho liners for the U.S. military — affectionately known as the woobie — and also sells military-grade woobies to the public through its online Pinnacle Mercantile store. 

In addition to its manufacturing facilities, IFB operates Base Supply Center retail stores in government locations and military bases. IFB also offers a growing number of work-from-home positions for blind or visually impaired individuals across the country.

Ravelo is the first person who is blind to take on the plant manager role at IFB.