By: Pete Pichaske Pete Pichaske December 21, 2020 Arnold Packaging, a Baltimore company that designs and makes packages and containers, lost a large chunk of its business – making containers to ship goods by plane — when airline flights practically disappeared. (Submitted photo) Running a business during a pandemic is not something Maryland’s manufacturers ever expected to have to do. But they did it and they continue to do it, and while local industry experts — and several of the manufacturers themselves — say it’s been a wild, bumpy ride, most are finding ways to survive. “On the whole, I think our companies are doing fairly well,” said Mike Kelleher, executive director of the Maryland Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MD MEP), a nonprofit organization that assists and advises the small and mid-sized manufacturers that make up the vast majority of the state’s manufacturers. “I can count on one hand the number that had to shut down for an extended period of time.