Answering the Call for Pandemic Protection
Dave Wickersham, CEO Progressive Pipeline Mgt. & PPM Site Services shares his thoughts in the NASTT - Northeast Journal of Trenchless Technology. For a year, his companies have supported COVID-19 pandemic from virus decontamination to pivoting to provide much needed USA made PPE and COVID-19 testing for businesses and communities.
In Late February 2020, I was in the New York-Presbyterian Hospital emergency room in New York City. My mother-in-law was in need of an ER visit. I brought her since my wife was in Walt Disney World about to run the Princess Half-Marathon.
The waiting room and lobby were overcrowded, with doctors everywhere and people coughing. CNN was on TV in the waiting room. We saw news stories about a virus in China and a few early cases in the USA. A young intern in NY Pres scrubs tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the TV saying, "Keep your eye on this. It is going to get bad."
I will never forget that moment. How right he was. In a few days, the world had changed. It was my 50th birthday
In early March 2020, we started getting calls requesting decontamination services of the coronavirus. We deployed crews to the US Capitol and other prominent buildings in DC, and major retailers such as Whole Foods and Costco. By the end of March we had contracts with our larger clients from Florida to Boston to clean and decontaminate buildings, vehicles, offices and warehouses. Rapidly deploying resources, we researched the best products and services for decontamination, as well as how to properly protect our Haz-Mat Strike Teams.
Decontamination Solutions
We went into a deep dive to learn about the virus and find the best and safest products to combat it. As first responders, protecting our workers against the virus and keeping them safe while on the job was number one. Our research and testing also focused on the best disinfectants and solutions to deploy to clean and disinfect our client sites for protection from the virus. The full range of cleaning options are on PPMSiteServices.
TestHere.com
In our quest for test kits and best practices, I was introduced to Dennis Guadenzi, who owned and operated a successful event planning and marketing business. As his industry is one of the most severely hit during this pandemic, he looked to pivot and help provide PPE solutions in a principled way. We launched TestHere.com on Dec 1, 2020 and set up a web based model for safe, convenient and efficient drive-through test sites. We were looking at the safety of employees during testing, and had seen companies where they've had several hundred people standing in line. The six-foot spread goes away, and people are standing for a long time. Testing was becoming a spreading event.
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Dennis and I felt we each uniquely had a skill set that complimented the other and that we could provide a better testing option than what we had seen. With RVs and our drive-thru model, we've tested over 15,000 people since December with our sites in New Jersey and Virginia. We are adding more sites in these states as well as Dallas, Houston and New Orleans in March.
Our tests process is fully compliant and transparent following reporting requirements for positive and negative outcomes through State requirements. Any testing for COVID-19, has to be reported to the CDC and state according to specific guidelines. We formed relationships with national and local labs and best-in-class testers. First Call has obtained all required CLIA laboratory licensing and works directly with each state we operate in.
