COVID-19 vaccines at Pantex help take stress off community
Michelle Reichert, CNS president and chief executive officer, receives her COVID‑19 vaccination from a Pantex medical provider
Michelle Reichert, CNS president and CEO, and Geoff Beausoleil, manager of the NNSA Production Office, received their vaccines on February 3.
“It went so smoothly today,” Reichert said. “We got our shot, and it didn’t hurt. The team was very well prepared.”
“It was wonderful,” Beausoleil added. “OHS and EM did an excellent job with planning and coordinating the practice, so as soon as a patient would come through [the door], it worked like clockwork.”
Reichert said that the flow went extremely well and that was in large part because the team practiced.
“This team laid it out, they walked it down, and they drilled it together so when the vaccine arrived, we were ready,” she said.
Reichert said this was an opportunity to take some of the burden off the local community.
“We applied to the state to be a POD, and given the unique work that we do and as well as the size of our workforce, it takes some of the burden off of the local community to give the vaccines,” she said. “It was a real opportunity for us to work with the State of Texas and local health providers to get us set up.”
She said having the team and staff to make it happen, and after receiving the needed equipment, we were ready to go.
“Pantex employees are always important to our national security mission and being identified as essential workers made sense, nationally and for our support of our military,” Reichert said. “So, since the beginning of this pandemic, we have found ways to keep each other safe throughout, which we have successfully done, and kept the mission going.”
Geoff Beausoleil,
NNSA Production Office manager
Beausoleil said that we are proving the controls put into place over the last 11 or so months work.
“The actions that we’ve taken to adapt and deliver, we’ll continue to refine those and be more efficient with what we do,” he said. “We’ll be more protective of our workforce, more protective of our community, and be an example for our community and our workforce for how to do it right.”
Beausoleil expressed his gratitude for those involved in getting the approvals and making this process work.
“I have a huge amount of appreciation and admiration for Drs. Sayre and Paston and their staff in OHS for taking on this challenge and performing better than anybody expected and then some,” he said. “I can’t express my appreciation any more. They were fantastic. They were given the full support of Michelle Reichert, Bill Tindal, Todd Ailes, and Gene Sievers, and they had our full support and we are fully online with what they’re doing for us. It is just heartwarming.”