#bring back Robust Staffing please

[marvinetta]

Throwing my two cents into the ring about capitalists being idiots and not remembering their past!

I keep hearing from idiots who own businesses that "payroll is the biggest expense" in a business. Which, first of all - as long as I see owners and executives taking home millions while the workers are getting poverty wages? LMAO.

Anyway.

It used to be that workers were considered an "important asset" that was vital - maybe even critical - to the welfare of the company. You invest in your people and you get returns on that two way loyalty. People used to stay at companies for 20 years, and recruit their families to work there. Multiple generations would work at a business because the company treated people well.

And I'm not talking pizza parties. I'm talking college funds. I'm talking vacations for the entire office. I'm talking help buying cars. Company pensions. Help buying houses. Businesses used to compete to get the best people. Businesses used to compete to lure in the best trained people, and then help them continue to get the best training.

Unions were a huge part of that. Not every job, but Unions were a massive part of why most jobs gave great benefits across the board. And now that unions are gone? It's a fight to treat people the worst.

My personal experience?

I got a free college degree - books and all - from one job. I still had to do the work, and it was hard. But they paid the entire bill!

One job gave me a free tank of gas every week, took us to a Broadway show twice a year (including travel, plus one), and gave us discounts on the product (including free products). And I was only PART TIME.

Another job I worked paid not only the worker's college bills, but helped pay the kids' bills too. Offered the best healthcare in the country at the time. And gave a clothing allowance because there was a dress code.

When I worked at a grocery store? They used to give us cash bonuses every month for being the fastest cashier on the front end. I would routinely get $250 extra each quarter. When a different CEO took over he stopped that program.

I worked another retail job and they would give us the most recent clothes each season. Why? Because we were the best way to advertise. Walking models on and off the clock.

I now work for myself because every job stopped giving these types of perks.

[remotecareers]

Financial Planner and Analyst – Remote

Vivo HealthStaff is recruiting a Financial Planner and Analyst for a remote position .

For more information, please apply or call (844) 540-JOBS.

As a FP&A, you will be responsible for providing in-depth financial analysis and modeling, you’ll feed these insights back to department heads and executive leadership to improve operational efficiency and support strategic decisions.

In addition to financial modeling, you will work with operations leadership to develop robust and accurate growth modeling across dozens of geographies.

Over the next 12 months our care team will multiply quickly, and you will bring thoughtful data driven decision making to these hiring decisions to ensure adequate staffing while understanding the cash flow implications of various hiring options.

This is a full-time remote position reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer.

Financial Planning and Analysis responsibilities: Provide analytical, forecasting, reporting, and project support to management and department leads.

Assist in preparation of the annual budget and monthly forecasts, including Opex, below EBITDA items, CAPEX, balance sheet, cash flow.

Work with budget holders to report, understand and analyze their monthly costs and identify opportunities for performance improvement across the organization.

Assist in fundraising activities, metric gathering, and modeling.

Produce quarterly financial reports for each lane vs budget, and review these quarterly results with each budget holder.

Develop models that help with analyzing and forecasting revenue, costs, and key metrics for the business.

Maintenance of planning software, keeping headcount and actuals from Netsuite updated on a monthly basis.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience: Excellent working knowledge of Excel and financial modeling.

Experience in financial planning & analysis, operations modeling and forecasting.

Ability to present results in a clear, well-formatted, understandable way.

Ability to organize and priorities to meet multiple deadlines.

Healthcare, NetSuite, and SQL experience are all pluses.

Worked in the Healthcare or related industry or start up, fast paced environment.

Compensation and Benefits: Unique opportunity to innovate in building a new care model to deliver behavioral health treatment for patients with addiction.

Competitive compensation.

Flexible hours.

Paid time off.

Talented and fun coworkers that are passionate about addiction treatment About Vivo HealthStaff: Since 2016, Vivo HealthStaff has been providing both temporary and permanent opportunities to clinicians across the United States.

We are dedicated to developing long-term rela

The post Financial Planner and Analyst – Remote first appeared on Remote Careers.

from Remote Careers https://ift.tt/3lzUCFq via IFTTT

[kristablogs]

How to watch live as NASA and SpaceX team up for a historic crewed launch

Update 5/27 at 4:22pm: NASA and SpaceX scrubbed the launch due to weather, and will attempt to launch again on Saturday, May 30th at 3:22pm ET.

At 4:33 p.m. ET today, a classic scene may return (weather permitting) to Cape Canaveral after a nine-year hiatus. Two astronauts will don flight suits, climb into a vehicle perched atop a powerful rocket, and blast off toward the International Space Station (ISS).

If all goes according to plan—at time of this publication, chances of favorable weather hover around 50 percent—the mission will mark two historic milestones. First, space veterans Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will become the first NASA astronauts to launch from American soil since the final Space Shuttle flight in 2011. And second, they will be the first human beings ever to fly to orbit on hardware designed, built, and operated by a private company—Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, commonly known as SpaceX. The mission represents a pivotal moment in an ongoing shift in how NASA handles crewed exploration, as well as a stepping stone toward a future where any well-heeled adventurer can purchase a ticket to space.

“In this new era, especially in low earth orbit, NASA has the ability to be a customer,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine at a recent press conference, “one customer of many customers in a very robust commercial marketplace.”

NASA’s astronaut program has continued since 2011, and the agency has kept the ISS staffed by purchasing more than 70 rides on the Soyuz spacecraft from the Russian space program—pricey tickets that have cost the agency a total of around four billion dollars. But over the last decade or so, NASA has also invested at least three billion dollars in SpaceX and worked closely with the company to help it develop a vehicle—the Crew Dragon—capable of bringing astronauts to the space station. (The NASA program that funded SpaceX and others, Commercial Crew, has also awarded around five billion dollars to Boeing to develop its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which may launch with astronauts next year.)

“NASA has been an extraordinary customer, an extraordinary partner, and a mentor for us,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president. “We’ve learned from them. We’ve obviously been pleased by their financial support, technical support, and knowledge.”

With the ability to reach orbit on their own terms restored, NASA officials hope to get more astronauts to the ISS, boosting the amount of research they can accomplish. They also look forward to having more flexibility: The cadence of available Soyuz seats has tended to set the duration of most missions at around six months in recent years, but the commercial crew vehicles may let the agency experiment with shorter and longer missions, according to Kirk Shireman, the program manager for NASA’s ISS program.

And it’s arguably an even bigger day for SpaceX. In 18 years, the rocket company has gone from startup to space heavyweight. It now carries out 70 percent of commercial launches worldwide, according to Bridenstine, and has also resupplied the ISS using its Dragon capsule 20 times. But founder Elon Musk dreams of establishing lunar bases and Martian settlements in the not-so-distant future, and building space metropolises will take more than food, tools, and materials. With today’s launch, SpaceX takes its first step toward moving people around the solar system—not just cargo.

While NASA has overseen more than 150 flights, this time will different because SpaceX will largely sit in the driver’s seat. NASA will participate in mission management, but the company will lead it, according to Steve Stich, the deputy manager of the Commercial Crew Program. That means that if the astronauts encounter a problem, they’ll be reporting it to SpaceX’s flight control team in Hawthorne, California, although NASA will be listening in.

Both organizations, however, have devoted thousands of hours of testing and training to minimize the chances of anything going wrong. NASA officials know the heartbreak of losing astronauts all too well, and SpaceX employees are keenly aware of the heavy responsibility that comes along with flying human beings. At their technicians’ own request, SpaceX started attaching photographs of Behnken and Hurley to every work order, according to Shotwell, keeping the unprecedented stakes of this mission front of mind. “There’ll be a little sense of relief when they’re in orbit,” she said, and “more when they get to the station. I’ll start sleeping again when they’re back safely on planet Earth.”

After Behnken and Hurley launch, it’ll take them about 19 hours to chase down the ISS. Crew Dragon will fly mainly on autopilot during this period, although the crew will have two brief chances to take the wheel (which, in this case, is not a “wheel” but a collection of large touch screens). They will take control first when the spacecraft reaches orbit to test the capsule’s responsiveness to twisting and rolling commands, and then again when the vehicle is few hundred feet from the ISS.

The original plan had been to bring the astronauts right back home, but about six months ago NASA decided that since Behnken and Hurley were going all the way to the ISS, they might as well stay awhile. Simulations suggest that Crew Dragon can remain in space for 119 days before the trace amounts of oxygen that persist hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface degrade its solar panels. SpaceX and NASA will keep an eye the craft’s performance, and will determine the mission’s length by weighing the tradeoff between keeping extra hands on board the ISS and completing the mission’s main goal: to demonstrate that SpaceX’s hardware, software, and mission management are ready for the big time. A successful end-to-end test will wrap up the experimental portion of the vehicle’s development, letting official operations begin with the subsequent flight, “Crew 1,” whose timeline will depend on how this flight unfolds.

“We should not lose sight of the fact that this is a test flight,” Bridenstine said. “We're doing this to learn things.”

Some people might feel nervous at the thought of being the first to hurtle through space in a relatively unproven vehicle, but Behnken and Hurley act cool as cucumbers. They’re aware of the unique positions they occupy in the history of the crewed space program—Hurley flew on the final Space Shuttle flight in 2011, and Behnken helped assemble the ISS—but they remain too focused on the task at hand to wax poetic about it.

“You have to go in knowing as much as you can about the vehicle and procedures, hyper focused on making sure all the work is successful,” Hurley said. “From the historical perspective, we'll let somebody else talk about that when we get back.”

Nevertheless, they’re honored to be breaking new ground. After the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle vehicles, Crew Dragon will become the fifth American spacecraft to carry human beings into orbit. “It's probably a dream of every test pilot school student to have the opportunity to fly on a brand-new spacecraft,” Behnken said.

Behnken and Hurley, while not tourists themselves, are also serving as pioneers for the fledgling space tourism industry. In some sense, today represents SpaceX’s debut operating the world’s first “spaceline.” NASA is currently it’s only client, but a successful demonstration of crewed spaceflight could change that quickly. In fact, the company has already announced that seats aboard Crew Dragon will be available to the general public soon, and Hurley, for his part, says that’s exactly how it should be. “Just that look out the window alone is worth going in people's minds,” he said. “Access to low earth orbit needs to get greater and less expensive, and I think this is part of that exercise.”

Crowds of hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Cape Canaveral to watch past launches, but this time around NASA is inviting all to participate in the historic moment online. The agency will host a variety of digital festivities, and the launch will be broadcast on NASA Live and SpaceX’s website. The SpaceX and NASA teams have adopted a variety of anti-COVID-19 measures, and Behnken and Hurley are well quarantined. All parties hope to keep space enthusiasts safe, too.

“We don’t want an outbreak” resulting from spectators clustering at Cape Canaveral, Bridenstine said. “We need a spectacular moment that all of America can see and all of the world can see, to inspire not just us who have been waiting for years for this but to inspire the generations that are coming.”

[scootoaster]

Watch live as NASA and SpaceX team up for a historic crewed launch

At 4:33 p.m. ET today, a classic scene may return (weather permitting) to Cape Canaveral after a nine-year hiatus. Two astronauts will don flight suits, climb into a vehicle perched atop a powerful rocket, and blast off toward the International Space Station (ISS).

If all goes according to plan—at time of this publication, chances of favorable weather hover around 50 percent—the mission will mark two historic milestones. First, space veterans Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will become the first NASA astronauts to launch from American soil since the final Space Shuttle flight in 2011. And second, they will be the first human beings ever to fly to orbit on hardware designed, built, and operated by a private company—Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, commonly known as SpaceX. The mission represents a pivotal moment in an ongoing shift in how NASA handles crewed exploration, as well as a stepping stone toward a future where any well-heeled adventurer can purchase a ticket to space.

“In this new era, especially in low earth orbit, NASA has the ability to be a customer,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine at a recent press conference, “one customer of many customers in a very robust commercial marketplace.”

NASA’s astronaut program has continued since 2011, and the agency has kept the ISS staffed by purchasing more than 70 rides on the Soyuz spacecraft from the Russian space program—pricey tickets that have cost the agency a total of around four billion dollars. But over the last decade or so, NASA has also invested at least three billion dollars in SpaceX and worked closely with the company to help it develop a vehicle—the Crew Dragon—capable of bringing astronauts to the space station. (The NASA program that funded SpaceX and others, Commercial Crew, has also awarded around five billion dollars to Boeing to develop its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which may launch with astronauts next year.)

“NASA has been an extraordinary customer, an extraordinary partner, and a mentor for us,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president. “We’ve learned from them. We’ve obviously been pleased by their financial support, technical support, and knowledge.”

With the ability to reach orbit on their own terms restored, NASA officials hope to get more astronauts to the ISS, boosting the amount of research they can accomplish. They also look forward to having more flexibility: The cadence of available Soyuz seats has tended to set the duration of most missions at around six months in recent years, but the commercial crew vehicles may let the agency experiment with shorter and longer missions, according to Kirk Shireman, the program manager for NASA’s ISS program.

And it’s arguably an even bigger day for SpaceX. In 18 years, the rocket company has gone from startup to space heavyweight. It now carries out 70 percent of commercial launches worldwide, according to Bridenstine, and has also resupplied the ISS using its Dragon capsule 20 times. But founder Elon Musk dreams of establishing lunar bases and Martian settlements in the not-so-distant future, and building space metropolises will take more than food, tools, and materials. With today’s launch, SpaceX takes its first step toward moving people around the solar system—not just cargo.

While NASA has overseen more than 150 flights, this time will different because SpaceX will largely sit in the driver’s seat. NASA will participate in mission management, but the company will lead it, according to Steve Stich, the deputy manager of the Commercial Crew Program. That means that if the astronauts encounter a problem, they’ll be reporting it to SpaceX’s flight control team in Hawthorne, California, although NASA will be listening in.

Both organizations, however, have devoted thousands of hours of testing and training to minimize the chances of anything going wrong. NASA officials know the heartbreak of losing astronauts all too well, and SpaceX employees are keenly aware of the heavy responsibility that comes along with flying human beings. At their technicians’ own request, SpaceX started attaching photographs of Behnken and Hurley to every work order, according to Shotwell, keeping the unprecedented stakes of this mission front of mind. “There’ll be a little sense of relief when they’re in orbit,” she said, and “more when they get to the station. I’ll start sleeping again when they’re back safely on planet Earth.”

After Behnken and Hurley launch, it’ll take them about 19 hours to chase down the ISS. Crew Dragon will fly mainly on autopilot during this period, although the crew will have two brief chances to take the wheel (which, in this case, is not a “wheel” but a collection of large touch screens). They will take control first when the spacecraft reaches orbit to test the capsule’s responsiveness to twisting and rolling commands, and then again when the vehicle is few hundred feet from the ISS.

The original plan had been to bring the astronauts right back home, but about six months ago NASA decided that since Behnken and Hurley were going all the way to the ISS, they might as well stay awhile. Simulations suggest that Crew Dragon can remain in space for 119 days before the trace amounts of oxygen that persist hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface degrade its solar panels. SpaceX and NASA will keep an eye the craft’s performance, and will determine the mission’s length by weighing the tradeoff between keeping extra hands on board the ISS and completing the mission’s main goal: to demonstrate that SpaceX’s hardware, software, and mission management are ready for the big time. A successful end-to-end test will wrap up the experimental portion of the vehicle’s development, letting official operations begin with the subsequent flight, “Crew 1,” whose timeline will depend on how this flight unfolds.

“We should not lose sight of the fact that this is a test flight,” Bridenstine said. “We're doing this to learn things.”

Some people might feel nervous at the thought of being the first to hurtle through space in a relatively unproven vehicle, but Behnken and Hurley act cool as cucumbers. They’re aware of the unique positions they occupy in the history of the crewed space program—Hurley flew on the final Space Shuttle flight in 2011, and Behnken helped assemble the ISS—but they remain too focused on the task at hand to wax poetic about it.

“You have to go in knowing as much as you can about the vehicle and procedures, hyper focused on making sure all the work is successful,” Hurley said. “From the historical perspective, we'll let somebody else talk about that when we get back.”

Nevertheless, they’re honored to be breaking new ground. After the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle vehicles, Crew Dragon will become the fifth American spacecraft to carry human beings into orbit. “It's probably a dream of every test pilot school student to have the opportunity to fly on a brand-new spacecraft,” Behnken said.

Behnken and Hurley, while not tourists themselves, are also serving as pioneers for the fledgling space tourism industry. In some sense, today represents SpaceX’s debut operating the world’s first “spaceline.” NASA is currently it’s only client, but a successful demonstration of crewed spaceflight could change that quickly. In fact, the company has already announced that seats aboard Crew Dragon will be available to the general public soon, and Hurley, for his part, says that’s exactly how it should be. “Just that look out the window alone is worth going in people's minds,” he said. “Access to low earth orbit needs to get greater and less expensive, and I think this is part of that exercise.”

Crowds of hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Cape Canaveral to watch past launches, but this time around NASA is inviting all to participate in the historic moment online. The agency will host a variety of digital festivities, and the launch will be broadcast on NASA Live and SpaceX’s website. The SpaceX and NASA teams have adopted a variety of anti-COVID-19 measures, and Behnken and Hurley are well quarantined. All parties hope to keep space enthusiasts safe, too.

“We don’t want an outbreak” resulting from spectators clustering at Cape Canaveral, Bridenstine said. “We need a spectacular moment that all of America can see and all of the world can see, to inspire not just us who have been waiting for years for this but to inspire the generations that are coming.”

[stephenmccull]

Massachusetts Recruits 1,000 ‘Contact Tracers’ To Battle COVID-19

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Massachusetts is launching an effort to reach everyone in the state who may have the coronavirus and get them tested and into isolation or treatment if needed. The ambitious goal is to stop — not just slow — the destructive power of COVID-19 through the tedious, yet powerful public health tool called contact tracing.

Contact tracing starts with a call to someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus, and then follow-up with everyone that person was in close contact with — family, friends, colleagues or others they got closer than 6 feet from for more than a brief encounter. Everyone on that list is interviewed about their contacts and symptoms.

This is a routine, resource-intensive public health strategy that’s been successfully used in the U.S. and around the world to contain infectious disease outbreaks — from measles to smallpox to tuberculosis to Ebola and more.

Read More

How Do We Exit The Shutdown? Hire An Army Of Public Health Workers Apr 13

Local public health workers across the U.S. are already using this strategy with COVID-19 — a few cases at a time. Last week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told NPR that “very aggressive” contact tracing would be necessary before the country could start to return to any sort of pre-pandemic normalcy. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker had already begun a statewide effort.

“We need to get out ahead of this and do everything we possibly can here in Massachusetts, through and in the aftermath of the surge,” Baker said during a briefing about the project on April 3.

The state is partnering with the Boston-based nonprofit Partners in Health, and has begun hiring and training some of the 1,000, or so, people who will call everyone who tests positive.

Many of the thousands of Massachusetts residents who will receive calls won’t know that they may have been exposed to the virus. Callers will keep the name of the infected person private, although organizers acknowledge it may not be difficult for the call recipients to determine the source of their COVID-19 exposure.

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In an ideal scenario, everyone who’s been in close contact with someone who is positive would be tested, even if the person receiving the call does not have symptoms. But Massachusetts, like most states, still doesn’t have the capacity to do that. As of Sunday, at least 25,475 people had tested positive. There were 6,499 tests conducted daily, on average, in Massachusetts last week.

Anyone who has had close contact with someone who is positive will be asked to quarantine for 14 days, even if they get tested and are negative. That’s because the incubation period for the coronavirus is believed to be up to two weeks. Close contact here is defined as spending 15 minutes or more within 6 feet of someone who is positive.

Public health experts say many more tests for the coronavirus are needed to cover everyone who will be identified by this project. And waiting up to five days for test results, as some people still do, is a problem.

“The delay in how long it takes to get the results remains too long to make contact tracing very effective,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the School of Public Health at Boston University.

But Galea noted that testing capability could change anytime.

“Yesterday, we probably did not have the tools,” he said. “Whether we’ll have the tools tomorrow remains to be seen.”

And then there’s the question of how to assist people who are not sick and need to be quarantined so they don’t spread the virus, or for those who are sick and need care in isolation. Some people will have enough space at home to stay relatively isolated from other members of their household. But many others — those who share bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms, or who live with someone at increased risk for a severe case of COVID-19 — will be given options.

The Baker administration, which says it plans to spend $44 million on the contact-tracing project, is looking at setting up isolation units in dormitories and hotels. People in quarantine as well as those in isolation will need food delivery, possibly child care, and lots of additional help so that they don’t interact with others and spread the virus.

“It’s going to be a huge job,” said Dr. Joia Mukherjee, the chief medical officer at Partners in Health. “I know we will succeed somewhat and we will fail somewhat — we won’t be able to find every single person — but we will hopefully prevent a lot of deaths.”

Mukherjee said even if contact tracing can’t “stamp out” the coronavirus, it can “not only flatten but shrink the curve so that fewer people will get infected.”

Mukherjee, who has helped organize similar projects to fight Ebola in West Africa, calls contact tracing “going on the offensive” against the coronavirus. She argues a defensive strategy alone isn’t good enough.

“Let’s just spell out what the ‘defensive’ [strategy] is. The defensive is, ‘We’re going to get creamed, and let’s just make sure our hospitals are staffed,'” she said. “What we’re saying is, ‘Let’s use tools that can reach into that silent epidemic and start to cut that off.'”

Some public health leaders and infectious disease doctors are questioning the timing of this launch in Massachusetts. Galea said contact tracing is usually more effective at the beginning of an epidemic, before a disease like COVID-19 has spread.

“I don’t know that it’s too late — it’s certainly late,” he said. “Had we had the tests and were we organized enough to do contact tracing right upfront, it would have potentially taken us down a very different path in this epidemic.”

Baker said contract tracing is a “powerful tool” the state must try to prevent more infections. Galea said it might help Massachusetts control a second wave of infections that could come when stay-at-home orders and advisories are lifted.

Massachusetts may be rolling out the most robust expansion of contact tracing so far, but Utah, North Dakota and other states are also launching projects. The CDC’s Redfield said his agency has 600 staffers doing this work and plans to add more.

But it’s still not clear how much financial assistance states can expect from the federal government.

Partners in Health is collaborating with 36 community health centers in Massachusetts to conduct the tracing. Health centers say the deal means they can bring back employees who were furloughed recently when elective medical care stopped; Partners in Health is connecting the tracing project to clinics where people could be tested and speak to a nurse or doctor.

Neither making nor receiving these calls will be easy, and cultural sensitivity is important too, according to a task force from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security that recently looked at what “case finding and contact tracing” might entail across the United States.

The contact tracer may be the first person to alert someone they may be infected with the coronavirus. Stacey King, director of practice at Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health, has been working with student volunteers who’ve teamed up with local boards of health in Massachusetts to assist with contact tracing. King said building trust while asking about symptoms, contacts, recent activities and the health of family members will be challenging.

“Especially when people are under so much stress right now,” she said, “I think it will be one of the hardest things that we experience.”

Even if your state isn’t ramping up contact tracing efforts, you might still get a call from a local public health official if you’ve been exposed to someone with a confirmed coronavirus test result. In the event you get a call someday soon and are asked to trace your contacts, it might help to start keeping notes now, say public health workers: Who have you recently spent more than a few minutes with — and been within 6 feet of?

The Partners in Health project is set to continue through October and wind down in January 2021.

This story is part of a partnership that includes WBUR, NPR and Kaiser Health News.

Massachusetts Recruits 1,000 ‘Contact Tracers’ To Battle COVID-19 published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Massachusetts Recruits 1,000 ‘Contact Tracers’ To Battle COVID-19

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Massachusetts is launching an effort to reach everyone in the state who may have the coronavirus and get them tested and into isolation or treatment if needed. The ambitious goal is to stop — not just slow — the destructive power of COVID-19 through the tedious, yet powerful public health tool called contact tracing.

Contact tracing starts with a call to someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus, and then follow-up with everyone that person was in close contact with — family, friends, colleagues or others they got closer than 6 feet from for more than a brief encounter. Everyone on that list is interviewed about their contacts and symptoms.

This is a routine, resource-intensive public health strategy that’s been successfully used in the U.S. and around the world to contain infectious disease outbreaks — from measles to smallpox to tuberculosis to Ebola and more.

Read More

How Do We Exit The Shutdown? Hire An Army Of Public Health Workers Apr 13

Local public health workers across the U.S. are already using this strategy with COVID-19 — a few cases at a time. Last week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told NPR that “very aggressive” contact tracing would be necessary before the country could start to return to any sort of pre-pandemic normalcy. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker had already begun a statewide effort.

“We need to get out ahead of this and do everything we possibly can here in Massachusetts, through and in the aftermath of the surge,” Baker said during a briefing about the project on April 3.

The state is partnering with the Boston-based nonprofit Partners in Health, and has begun hiring and training some of the 1,000, or so, people who will call everyone who tests positive.

Many of the thousands of Massachusetts residents who will receive calls won’t know that they may have been exposed to the virus. Callers will keep the name of the infected person private, although organizers acknowledge it may not be difficult for the call recipients to determine the source of their COVID-19 exposure.

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In an ideal scenario, everyone who’s been in close contact with someone who is positive would be tested, even if the person receiving the call does not have symptoms. But Massachusetts, like most states, still doesn’t have the capacity to do that. As of Sunday, at least 25,475 people had tested positive. There were 6,499 tests conducted daily, on average, in Massachusetts last week.

Anyone who has had close contact with someone who is positive will be asked to quarantine for 14 days, even if they get tested and are negative. That’s because the incubation period for the coronavirus is believed to be up to two weeks. Close contact here is defined as spending 15 minutes or more within 6 feet of someone who is positive.

Public health experts say many more tests for the coronavirus are needed to cover everyone who will be identified by this project. And waiting up to five days for test results, as some people still do, is a problem.

“The delay in how long it takes to get the results remains too long to make contact tracing very effective,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the School of Public Health at Boston University.

But Galea noted that testing capability could change anytime.

“Yesterday, we probably did not have the tools,” he said. “Whether we’ll have the tools tomorrow remains to be seen.”

And then there’s the question of how to assist people who are not sick and need to be quarantined so they don’t spread the virus, or for those who are sick and need care in isolation. Some people will have enough space at home to stay relatively isolated from other members of their household. But many others — those who share bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms, or who live with someone at increased risk for a severe case of COVID-19 — will be given options.

The Baker administration, which says it plans to spend $44 million on the contact-tracing project, is looking at setting up isolation units in dormitories and hotels. People in quarantine as well as those in isolation will need food delivery, possibly child care, and lots of additional help so that they don’t interact with others and spread the virus.

“It’s going to be a huge job,” said Dr. Joia Mukherjee, the chief medical officer at Partners in Health. “I know we will succeed somewhat and we will fail somewhat — we won’t be able to find every single person — but we will hopefully prevent a lot of deaths.”

Mukherjee said even if contact tracing can’t “stamp out” the coronavirus, it can “not only flatten but shrink the curve so that fewer people will get infected.”

Mukherjee, who has helped organize similar projects to fight Ebola in West Africa, calls contact tracing “going on the offensive” against the coronavirus. She argues a defensive strategy alone isn’t good enough.

“Let’s just spell out what the ‘defensive’ [strategy] is. The defensive is, ‘We’re going to get creamed, and let’s just make sure our hospitals are staffed,'” she said. “What we’re saying is, ‘Let’s use tools that can reach into that silent epidemic and start to cut that off.'”

Some public health leaders and infectious disease doctors are questioning the timing of this launch in Massachusetts. Galea said contact tracing is usually more effective at the beginning of an epidemic, before a disease like COVID-19 has spread.

“I don’t know that it’s too late — it’s certainly late,” he said. “Had we had the tests and were we organized enough to do contact tracing right upfront, it would have potentially taken us down a very different path in this epidemic.”

Baker said contract tracing is a “powerful tool” the state must try to prevent more infections. Galea said it might help Massachusetts control a second wave of infections that could come when stay-at-home orders and advisories are lifted.

Massachusetts may be rolling out the most robust expansion of contact tracing so far, but Utah, North Dakota and other states are also launching projects. The CDC’s Redfield said his agency has 600 staffers doing this work and plans to add more.

But it’s still not clear how much financial assistance states can expect from the federal government.

Partners in Health is collaborating with 36 community health centers in Massachusetts to conduct the tracing. Health centers say the deal means they can bring back employees who were furloughed recently when elective medical care stopped; Partners in Health is connecting the tracing project to clinics where people could be tested and speak to a nurse or doctor.

Neither making nor receiving these calls will be easy, and cultural sensitivity is important too, according to a task force from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security that recently looked at what “case finding and contact tracing” might entail across the United States.

The contact tracer may be the first person to alert someone they may be infected with the coronavirus. Stacey King, director of practice at Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health, has been working with student volunteers who’ve teamed up with local boards of health in Massachusetts to assist with contact tracing. King said building trust while asking about symptoms, contacts, recent activities and the health of family members will be challenging.

“Especially when people are under so much stress right now,” she said, “I think it will be one of the hardest things that we experience.”

Even if your state isn’t ramping up contact tracing efforts, you might still get a call from a local public health official if you’ve been exposed to someone with a confirmed coronavirus test result. In the event you get a call someday soon and are asked to trace your contacts, it might help to start keeping notes now, say public health workers: Who have you recently spent more than a few minutes with — and been within 6 feet of?

The Partners in Health project is set to continue through October and wind down in January 2021.

This story is part of a partnership that includes WBUR, NPR and Kaiser Health News.

Massachusetts Recruits 1,000 ‘Contact Tracers’ To Battle COVID-19 published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[dinafbrownil]

Massachusetts Recruits 1,000 ‘Contact Tracers’ To Battle COVID-19

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Massachusetts is launching an effort to reach everyone in the state who may have the coronavirus and get them tested and into isolation or treatment if needed. The ambitious goal is to stop — not just slow — the destructive power of COVID-19 through the tedious, yet powerful public health tool called contact tracing.

Contact tracing starts with a call to someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus, and then follow-up with everyone that person was in close contact with — family, friends, colleagues or others they got closer than 6 feet from for more than a brief encounter. Everyone on that list is interviewed about their contacts and symptoms.

This is a routine, resource-intensive public health strategy that’s been successfully used in the U.S. and around the world to contain infectious disease outbreaks — from measles to smallpox to tuberculosis to Ebola and more.

Read More

How Do We Exit The Shutdown? Hire An Army Of Public Health Workers Apr 13

Local public health workers across the U.S. are already using this strategy with COVID-19 — a few cases at a time. Last week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told NPR that “very aggressive” contact tracing would be necessary before the country could start to return to any sort of pre-pandemic normalcy. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker had already begun a statewide effort.

“We need to get out ahead of this and do everything we possibly can here in Massachusetts, through and in the aftermath of the surge,” Baker said during a briefing about the project on April 3.

The state is partnering with the Boston-based nonprofit Partners in Health, and has begun hiring and training some of the 1,000, or so, people who will call everyone who tests positive.

Many of the thousands of Massachusetts residents who will receive calls won’t know that they may have been exposed to the virus. Callers will keep the name of the infected person private, although organizers acknowledge it may not be difficult for the call recipients to determine the source of their COVID-19 exposure.

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In an ideal scenario, everyone who’s been in close contact with someone who is positive would be tested, even if the person receiving the call does not have symptoms. But Massachusetts, like most states, still doesn’t have the capacity to do that. As of Sunday, at least 25,475 people had tested positive. There were 6,499 tests conducted daily, on average, in Massachusetts last week.

Anyone who has had close contact with someone who is positive will be asked to quarantine for 14 days, even if they get tested and are negative. That’s because the incubation period for the coronavirus is believed to be up to two weeks. Close contact here is defined as spending 15 minutes or more within 6 feet of someone who is positive.

Public health experts say many more tests for the coronavirus are needed to cover everyone who will be identified by this project. And waiting up to five days for test results, as some people still do, is a problem.

“The delay in how long it takes to get the results remains too long to make contact tracing very effective,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the School of Public Health at Boston University.

But Galea noted that testing capability could change anytime.

“Yesterday, we probably did not have the tools,” he said. “Whether we’ll have the tools tomorrow remains to be seen.”

And then there’s the question of how to assist people who are not sick and need to be quarantined so they don’t spread the virus, or for those who are sick and need care in isolation. Some people will have enough space at home to stay relatively isolated from other members of their household. But many others — those who share bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms, or who live with someone at increased risk for a severe case of COVID-19 — will be given options.

The Baker administration, which says it plans to spend $44 million on the contact-tracing project, is looking at setting up isolation units in dormitories and hotels. People in quarantine as well as those in isolation will need food delivery, possibly child care, and lots of additional help so that they don’t interact with others and spread the virus.

“It’s going to be a huge job,” said Dr. Joia Mukherjee, the chief medical officer at Partners in Health. “I know we will succeed somewhat and we will fail somewhat — we won’t be able to find every single person — but we will hopefully prevent a lot of deaths.”

Mukherjee said even if contact tracing can’t “stamp out” the coronavirus, it can “not only flatten but shrink the curve so that fewer people will get infected.”

Mukherjee, who has helped organize similar projects to fight Ebola in West Africa, calls contact tracing “going on the offensive” against the coronavirus. She argues a defensive strategy alone isn’t good enough.

“Let’s just spell out what the ‘defensive’ [strategy] is. The defensive is, ‘We’re going to get creamed, and let’s just make sure our hospitals are staffed,'” she said. “What we’re saying is, ‘Let’s use tools that can reach into that silent epidemic and start to cut that off.'”

Some public health leaders and infectious disease doctors are questioning the timing of this launch in Massachusetts. Galea said contact tracing is usually more effective at the beginning of an epidemic, before a disease like COVID-19 has spread.

“I don’t know that it’s too late — it’s certainly late,” he said. “Had we had the tests and were we organized enough to do contact tracing right upfront, it would have potentially taken us down a very different path in this epidemic.”

Baker said contract tracing is a “powerful tool” the state must try to prevent more infections. Galea said it might help Massachusetts control a second wave of infections that could come when stay-at-home orders and advisories are lifted.

Massachusetts may be rolling out the most robust expansion of contact tracing so far, but Utah, North Dakota and other states are also launching projects. The CDC’s Redfield said his agency has 600 staffers doing this work and plans to add more.

But it’s still not clear how much financial assistance states can expect from the federal government.

Partners in Health is collaborating with 36 community health centers in Massachusetts to conduct the tracing. Health centers say the deal means they can bring back employees who were furloughed recently when elective medical care stopped; Partners in Health is connecting the tracing project to clinics where people could be tested and speak to a nurse or doctor.

Neither making nor receiving these calls will be easy, and cultural sensitivity is important too, according to a task force from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security that recently looked at what “case finding and contact tracing” might entail across the United States.

The contact tracer may be the first person to alert someone they may be infected with the coronavirus. Stacey King, director of practice at Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health, has been working with student volunteers who’ve teamed up with local boards of health in Massachusetts to assist with contact tracing. King said building trust while asking about symptoms, contacts, recent activities and the health of family members will be challenging.

“Especially when people are under so much stress right now,” she said, “I think it will be one of the hardest things that we experience.”

Even if your state isn’t ramping up contact tracing efforts, you might still get a call from a local public health official if you’ve been exposed to someone with a confirmed coronavirus test result. In the event you get a call someday soon and are asked to trace your contacts, it might help to start keeping notes now, say public health workers: Who have you recently spent more than a few minutes with — and been within 6 feet of?

The Partners in Health project is set to continue through October and wind down in January 2021.

This story is part of a partnership that includes WBUR, NPR and Kaiser Health News.

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/massachusetts-recruits-1000-contact-tracers-to-battle-covid-19/

[beastsofbeyond]

A message from our host considering the outage.

“While I was hoping to save some of this for the official RFO [Reason For Outage] - enough people are getting tremendously upset over this that I'm going to spell out what I can now - keeping in mind that I will provide more details when I can. **What happened?** First and foremost - this failure is not something that we planned on or expected.  A server administrator, the most experienced administrator we have, made a big mistake.  During some routine maintenance where they were supposed to perform a _file system trim_ they mistakenly performed a _block discard_. **What does this mean?** The server administrator essentially told our storage platform to drop all data rather than simply dropping data that had been marked as _deleted_ by our servers. **Why is restoration taking so long?** Initially we believed that only the primary operating system partition of the servers was damaged - so we worked to bring new machines online to connect to our storage to bring accounts back online.  Had our initial belief been correct - we'd have been back online in a few hours at most. As it turns out our local data was corrupted beyond repair - to the point that we could not even mount the file systems to attempt data recovery. Normally we would rely on snapshots in our storage platform - simply mounting a snapshot from prior to the incident and booting servers back up.  It would have taken minutes - if maybe an hour.  We are not sure as of yet, and will need to investigate, but snapshots were disabled.  I wish I could tell you why - and I wish I knew why - but we don't know yet and will have to look into it. We are working to restore cPanel backups from our off-site backup server in Phoenix Arizona.  While you would think the distance and connectivity was the issue - the real issue is the amount of I/O that backup server has available to it.  While it is a robust server with 24 drives - it can only read so much data so fast.  As these are high capacity spinning drives - they have limits on speed. Our disaster recovery server is our **last resort** to restore client data and, as it stands, is the _only_ copy we have remaining of all client data - except that which has already been restored which is back to being stored in triplicate. **What will you do to prevent this in the future?** We have, as we've been working on this and running into issues getting things back online quickly, discussing what changes we need to make to ensure that this both doesn't happen again as well as that we can restore quicker in the future should the need arise.  I will go into more detail about this once we are back online. **We are sorry - we don't want you to be offline any more than you do.** Personally I'm not going to be getting any sleep until every customer affected by this is back online.  I wish I could snap my fingers and have everybody back online or that I could go into the past and make a couple of _minor_ changes that would have prevented this.  I do wish, now that this has happened, that there was a quick and easy solution. I understand you're upset / mad / angry / frustrated.  Believe me - I am sitting here listening to each and every one of you about how upset you are - I know you're upset and I am sorry.  We're human - and we make mistakes.  In this case **thankfully** we do have a last resort disaster recovery that we can pull data from.  There are _many_ providers that, having faced this many failures - a perfect storm so to speak - would have simply lost your data entirely. This is the **first** major outage we've had in over a decade and while this is definitely major - our servers are online and we are actively working as quickly as possible to get all accounts restored and back online.  For clarity - the bottleneck here is not a staffing issue.  We evaluated numerous options to speed up the process and unfortunately short of copying the data off to faster disks - which we did try - there's nothing we can do to speed this up.  The process of copying the data off to faster disks was going to take just as long, if not longer, than the restoration process is taking on it's own. Once everybody is back online - and there are accounts coming online every minute - we will be performing a complete post-mortem on this and will be writing a clear and transparent Reason For Outage [RFO] which we will be making available to all clients. I hope that you understand that while this restoration process is ongoing there really isn't much to report beyond, "Accounts are still being restored as quickly as possible."  I wish there was some interesting update I could provide you like, "Suddenly things have sped up 100x!" but that's not the case. I am personally doing my best to reach out to clients that have opened tickets are updated as to when their accounts are in the active restoration queue.  While we do have thousands of accounts to restore - our disaster recovery system actually transfers data substantially faster with fewer simultaneous transfers.  While it sounds counter-intuitive - we're actively watching the restoration processes and balancing the number of accounts being restored at once against the performance of the disaster recovery system to get as many people back online as quickly as possible. Most sites are coming back online after restoration without issues, however, if once your account is restored you are still having issues - we are here to help.  While we are quite overwhelmed by tickets like, "WHY IS THIS NOT UP YET!?!?!"  "WHY ARE YOU DOWN SO LONG!?!??!!"  "FIX THIS NOWWWW!" - we are still trying to wade through all of that to help those that have come back online and are having issues - as few and far between as it has been. If you have any questions - we will definitely answer them - but please understand that while we're restoring accounts we're really trying to focus on the restoration of services as well as resolving issues for those that are already resolved. Again - I am sorry for the trouble this is causing you - we definitely don't want you offline any more than you do and will have all services restored as quickly as we can.” You may also keep up with their twitter. Again we are sorry about this and if this continues, we may need to look into other options.

[earlrmerrill]

VICE PRESIDENT & CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

New York City Center is seeking a dynamic, forward-thinking and entrepreneurial leader to join its executive staff as the Vice President & Chief Operating Officer. This person will be a critical member of City Center’s executive team, reporting directly to the President & CEO.

About City Center (NYCC) New York City Center has played a defining role in the cultural life of the City since 1943 when it was founded by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia with the civic mission to make the best in the performing arts accessible to all audiences, and it continues to honor its founding mission today. Its distinctive neo-Moorish theater welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors to experience internationally acclaimed artists on the same stage that legends like George Balanchine, Leonard Bernstein, and Barbara Cook made their mark. For 25 years, the treasured Tony-honored Encores! series has given new life to the American musical theater canon, complemented by the Encores! Off-Center series, which features seminal Off-Broadway musicals filtered through the lens of today’s innovative artists. Dance continues to be an integral part of the theater’s mission with programs like the annual Fall for Dance Festival, which exposes a new audience to an international array of artists by offering highly subsidized ticket prices.

City Center is also the home to a roster of renowned national and international companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, City Center’s Principal Dance Company, and Manhattan Theatre Club. Through its robust education and community engagement programs, City Center brings the performing arts to over 9,000 New York City students each year and activates all areas of the building with talks, master classes, art exhibitions, and intimate performances that provide audiences an up-close look at the work of the great theater and dance artists of our time.

NYCC has an annual operating budget in excess of $25M. It has a full-time administrative staff of 55, with part-time/seasonal employees of over 400 annually. Its mainstage theater welcomes more than 250,000 patrons per year, and the institution has enjoyed balanced financial operations for more than 20 consecutive years.

The Position New York City Center is seeking a dynamic, forward-thinking and entrepreneurial leader to join its executive staff as the Vice President & Chief Operating Officer. This person will be a critical member of City Center’s executive team, reporting directly to the President & CEO. He/she will oversee all live productions and presentations at NYCC from inception to completion, provide managerial oversight of various departments and operations, and, in partnership with the President and the executive team, provide strategic insight in charting the ongoing and future direction of the institution and the fulfillment of its mission. The VP & COO should be a critical thinker, creative problem solver, and an effective collaborator. He/she will identify management challenges and issues, and analyze new initiatives for the President and the institution as a whole.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities will include:

Developing and creating accurate and appropriate budgets and staffing plans for all City Center productions and presentations.

Overseeing all aspects of City Center productions and presentations to ensure optimal budget compliance, highest artistic results, and the smoothest front and back of the house operations.

Ensuring the necessary organizational structure, policies, system controls, and procedures are in place and regularly reviewed for effectiveness.

Leading, managing, engaging, and motivating direct reports in the production, operations, and facilities departments and fostering a collaborative work environment among various departments and stakeholders.

In partnership with the President, fostering and leading an internal culture that maintains fiscal, operational, and organizational integrity that contributes and supports transparent and dependable communications across the institution.

Functioning as key member of the senior executive leadership team, providing strategic insight on operating initiatives and challenges in the context of collegial cooperation.

Negotiating on behalf of the institution in all collective bargaining agreements, individual contracts covered under union agreements, presentation agreements, licensing agreements, NYC agency permits and licenses filings, intellectual and property rights, etc.

Partnering with the CFO in creating the annual operating budget.

Supervising and providing oversight of all City Center capital projects.

Acting as direct institutional liaison with counsel on all legal matters.

Developing creative, comprehensive, and successful strategies to expand earned revenue opportunities.

Acting as signatory in legally binding contracts and, along with CFO and President, functioning as a co-signer on checking and banking instruments.

Experience and Qualifications:

Ten years plus of senior management experience with a track record of progressive responsibility in theatrical producing and theater operations.

An experienced multi-tasker, managing numerous, complex projects through periods of growth and change, with expert organizational and project management skills.

Ability to be a calm decision-maker and problem-solver in stressful production circumstances, effectively dealing with artistic temperaments.

Experience in supervising collectively-bargained personnel and negotiating union contracts.

A skillful and sensitive manager of a diverse and varied staff.

Financial acumen with executive level knowledge of legal requirements and contractual concepts.

Demonstrated skills in budgeting and administration of budgets.

Demonstrated skills in writing and vetting contracts.

Keen negotiating skills and a persuasive spokesperson representing the institution.

Excellent oral and written communication skills.

Entrepreneurial in spirit with demonstrated interest and ability to find innovative ways to sustain and expand the institution and its undertakings.

A collaborative nature, secure in his/her ability to successfully coalesce multiple strong personalities and opinions.

A fundamentally strategic thinker with strong attention to detail.

A passion for the mission and goals of City Center and a love of the performing arts.

Experience in the not-for-profit arts sector preferred, although not required.

Bachelor’s degree is required; graduate degree preferred.

To Apply: Please submit your resume and a letter of interest that includes salary requirements. City Center offers a comprehensive benefits package and is an equal opportunity employer. Please submit by email only to jobs@nycitycenter.org.

Article source here:Arts Journal

[gbenro]

Roving Supply Chain Coordinator #vacancy

International Medical Corps is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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17-312: Roving Supply Chain Coordinator

Country:Nigeria

Department:Logistics

Essential Job Duties/Scope of Work:

International Medical Corps is a global, humanitarian, nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training and relief and development programs.

Established in 1984 by volunteer doctors and nurses, International Medical Corps is a private, voluntary, nonpolitical, nonsectarian organization. Its mission is to improve the quality of life through health interventions and related activities that build local capacity in underserved communities worldwide. By offering training and health care to local populations and medical assistance to people at highest risk, and with the flexibility to respond rapidly to emergency situations, International Medical Corps rehabilitates devastated health care systems and helps bring them back to self-reliance.

PROGRAM BACKGROUND International Medical Corps is a global humanitarian, non-profit organization dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering worldwide through healthcare training, relief and development programs. International Medical Corps (“IMC”) is a non-profit, non-political international organization that provides medical relief, nutrition, health care training, and development programs. IMC has been present in Nigeria since 2013 and is currently active in Sokoto and Kano States in North-West and in Borno State in the North-East with a Country Office in Abuja. International Medical Corps has received funding from the European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO) for a nutrition project in Sokoto State aiming at reducing the burden of malnutrition in children under five and pregnant and lactating women in Binji and Wamakko LGAs. There is also an ECHO, OFDA and WFP funding in Borno for Emergency WASH, Food Security, Nutrition Health and Gender Based Violence Interventions for Conflict Affected populations in Maiduguri. In Kano and Borno, the Core Group Polio Project (CGPP) is a multi-partner initiative that coordinates NGO activities to strengthen national and state immunization system to eradicate polio. IMC is an implementing partner under CGPP polio eradication project in six LGAs through the local partner in Kano and eleven LGAs in Borno. This project contributes to eradicate polio by increasing immunization rate and improving acute flaccid paralysis surveillance in the project population. The project is supporting MOH and LGA efforts to strengthen immunization systems, building effective partnership with the state officials as well as local partners.

JOB SUMMARY The Supply Chain Coordinator will lead IMC Logistics Department operational support structure, committed to provide reliable and timely program activities support in order to achieve efficient services to our beneficiaries. The jobholder will ensure in strategically steering the country office logs leadership by effective ensuring SCM standards are practiced, manage LC, ensure proper planning is conducted, proper coordination and compliance are met according to Donor/IMC procedures for the country mission in Nigeria (Abuja, Maiduguri, Damboa and field sites Borno state. ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential function with or without reasonable accommodation.   Leadership and Representation

Ensure new staff receive appropriate inductions on logistics issues.

Aid all filing and document management within the logistics department in a systematic, coherent and transparent way as per IMC needs and obligations and donor requirements.

Establish and maintain good contacts with suppliers, government offices, UN agencies and other NGOs with regards to logistical matters.

Ensured the implementation of actions in support of Oxfam values and policy, including gender and diversity mainstreaming.

Planning & learning

Maintained an overview of the logistics needs of the Emergency programme.

Worked with programme managers/coordinators to identify logistics needs and developed strategies to meet them

Supported managers and proactively was involved in other aspects of programme planning, such as proposal writing, budgeting and procurement planning and staffing needs.

Compiled the programme logistics plans in a comprehensive country logistics plan for management team, at Abuja/Maidugri and International procurement team

Undertook short periods of research or project work to document experience and build up institutional learning on logistical aspects of IMC work.

Assisted and facilitated in any new programme set-up by providing support to the relevant field base.

Make regular support visits and recommendations to project offices.

Provide to supervisor the technical oversight, and input to manage staff support to, delivery of, and implementation of, all logistics support systems according to International Medical Corps Logistics policies and procedures.

Work with supervisor to provide planning support and advice to those making a procurement request, then process and manage the procurement process (either locally or internationally) in accordance with IMC policies and procedures, in a transparent, accountable, efficient and cost effective manner.

Work with procurement team to ensure that local market surveys are regularly carried out, to ensure a full knowledge of the availability and price of local items. Ensure that all procurements are managed, tracked and recorded. Identify, and suggest items that should be part of a pre-approved tender process, and ensure that open and free competition for procurements is adhered too. BPA processes are done according to IMC.

Work with supervisor to actively engage with freight forwarding agencies, freight handling/clearance agents, and local Customs, to ensure that cargo is managed at all points of the supply chain, and that all tracking and reporting deadlines are met.

Proactively ensure the tracking of all medical supplies, equipment, materiel and WFP food, through its receipt, storage, and onward distribution to include providing input on the location and negotiation of contracting for storage/warehousing that is secure, well-maintained, and meets health and safe working practice requirements by the team.

Manage the capture of pipeline information, and the supply chain ensuring that Program staff are well-informed and well-prepared for incoming goods and materiel. Ensure timely reporting on stock status, to help Program staff with planning of stock replenishment and that tracking through to the end-user has occurred. And/or advise and support Program staff to verify that distribution has occurred according to the intentions and plans of supervisor, donors, IMC, and project partners.

Ensureproper fleet management is practiced relating to transport and fuel management, to ensure that vehicles are insured, asset managed correctly, being driven safely, maintained appropriately, damages are reported, and ensure that vehicles internal equipment (tools, comms etc) are complete and serviceable; and that usage of fuel is correctly managed, and logged and recorded. Liaise with security personnel on security-related transport issues, such as booking in/out, satcomms, radios etc.

Support supervisor to manage all matters logistics regarding satellite communications and radio communications to ensure that equipment’s are insured, asset managed diligently, operated in the most cost efficient manner, and maintained appropriately.

Work with supervisor to capture, plan and regularly update preparedness reporting for the logistic systems in place at the mission. Work to ensure that logistic systems are robust and flexible enough to cope if a crisis occurs to include assessments of airports, transport available, warehousing, access routes, fuel availability, field comms issues, staffing challenges, training required etc.

Contribute weekly and monthly, Quarterly logistics reports to the in-country management team, and Global logistics pursuant with IMC policies and procedures.

Compliance:

Ensure compliance with IMC policies and procedures, donor regulations and local laws

Ensure that the procurement and disposal of commodities, especially those subject to USExport Compliance regulations, are in line with applicable licenses and are properly documented.

Ensure that vendor eligibility screening is carried out in a timely fashion, updated regularly, and, recorded appropriately.

Human Resources

Ensure all staff are following HR procedures and policies to ensure that they maintain the highest standards of accountability and professionalism.

Make frequent site visits to where staff you are working with, to ensure that the appropriate care and support is being offered.

Ensure are evaluated regularly, trained and/or mentored in a structured accountable manner, and written records of such are retained.

Provide input to the recruitment, selection and performance of logistics staff, as required.

Training/ Capacity Building

Advocate and plan for professional development for expat and national staff determine training needs.

Provide input, and deliver where applicable, training for national staff to increase their responsibilities in order to build capacity, and ensure sustainability of programs.

Working Relationships  

Proactively engage with supervisor, and key staff (CD, Program, Finance, Medical Coordinator) on all matters logistic to assist with ensuring that programmatic and project planning incorporates sufficient funding for logistical staff and logistical support mechanisms

Proactively engage on a regular basis with regional IMC logistics teams and logistics manager colleagues, and logistics managers from other organizations to ensure appropriate links for interagency logistics coordination.

Where directed, proactively engage with donors, Logistics Clusters, local government, project partners, UN agencies and other non-governmental organizations in order to manage the distribution of goods and materiel as, well as to ensure adequate information sharing, address common concerns/problems and seek solutions.

Compliance & Ethics Promotes and encourages a culture of compliance and ethics throughout International Medical Corps. As applicable to the position, maintains a clear understanding of International Medical Corps’ and donor compliance and ethics standards and adheres to those standards.  Conducts work with the highest level of integrity. Communicates these values to staff and to partners and requires them to adhere to these values.

International Medical Corps is proud to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, age, disability or status as a veteran.

Qualifications:

Degree in Supply Chain Management or relevant field of work.

Evidence of practical experience in logistics within the field of supply chain management (procurement, tendering, contracting, clearance, transport, warehousing, asset management, etc.)

Evidence of management of logistics systems. Evidence of 3 to 4 field deployments; 2 to 3 humanitarian emergency deployments and 3 to 4 international deployments; minimum 6 weeks in length.

Evidence of the ability to plan for, and conduct training in all areas of logistics for national and international staff (suitable to staff knowledge level). Some record of experience with donor specific procedures.

It is desirable that experience is supported by study by academic study, such as completion of the Certification in Humanitarian Logistics.

Experience of the provision of support to the management of budgets and the ability to provide input to the timely, complete and accurate reports.

The commitment and some demonstrated training skills to build national staff capacity, in the areas of supply chain management.

Good organizational and problem-solving skills, with an analytical approach

Good interpersonal, management and leadership skills Evidence of ability to work in a participatory manner with staff to assess needs, implement and monitor activities.

Ability to integrate and work well within multi-ethnic and multicultural teams

Ability to work in harsh conditions, often in remote areas.

Negotiation, interpersonal and organization skills

Proficiency with MS Word and Excel (minimum requirement). Language Skills:

© 2017 International Medical Corps

[skrisiloff]

What CEOs said on this week’s earnings calls

Each week we read dozens of transcripts from earnings calls and presentations as part of our investment process. Below is a weekly post which contains some of the most important quotes about the economy and industry trends from those transcripts. Click here to receive these posts weekly via email.

Although sentiment has been very positive this year, the hard data hasn't tracked the optimism, at least not yet.  Some of the comments on this week's earnings calls seemed to reflect the fact that this still isn't a robust environment.  Weakness in auto manufacturing is particularly concerning since auto production is typically a late cycle indicator.  It's also disappointing that two consumer products companies called the quarter "challenging."  Consumer weakness is another leading indicator of broader weakness.

Still, there's no sign of a significant change in the economy and optimism usually leads to stronger hard data.  The Fed has been tightening though and that can also portend a shift.  This also could just have been an off week.

The Macro Outlook:

This quarter may have been more challenging than advertised

"this indeed was another challenging quarter and as I think we all know, the industry continues to face global market volatility and we have seen a further slowdown in consumer demand in several key markets, most especially the U.S. Southeast Asia and South Pacific." --Colgate CEO Ian Cook (Packaged Goods)

"while I remain optimistic about our long-term future, the near-term environment has become more challenging than maybe we saw at the beginning of the year. So category growth has slowed broadly in lots of places over the last year or so, and we expect that growth will pick back up over time, but that pickup may not happen quickly." --Kimberly Clark CEO Thomas Falk (Packaged Goods)

Manufacturing has been slow to recover

"I think the outlook is actually stable...in the U.S. and the progress is directionally good, but the speed is not that what we would like of course." --Manpower CEO Jonas Prising (Temp Staffing)

Auto production is weakening

"auto weakening is taking place. There’s no doubt that it’s plateaued...There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s some weakening going to be occurring. It’s only to the effect." --Nucor CEO John Ferriola (Steel)

But companies are sticking to their guidance

"The improvement has been a bit uneven, it’s not happening in a straight line. That said...everybody is standing by their guidance for the third quarter. Where generally speaking the United States included, things are getting a little better." --Robert Half CEO Harold Messmer (Temp Staffing)

Union Pacific is expecting improvement in 3Q

"volume, we think is going to be our friend certainly in the third quarter improving from the second quarter. And we’ll just have to see how the numbers play out." --Union Pacific CFO Rob Knight (Railroad)

There's no sign of a significant change

"however you wanted to describe it, an eroding plateau...we don’t see anything in terms of the economy, the health of the consumer, housing, oil...that would suggest that over the next two...years, that there’s any kind of significant collapse or dramatic change. We do think it’s going to decline. We think it will be a soft gradual decline" --Ford CEO James Hackett (Autos)

But could there be a shift "relatively soon"?

"The Committee expects to begin implementing its balance sheet normalization program relatively soon, provided that the economy evolves broadly as anticipated" --FOMC Statement

International:

There's optimism in Europe, particularly France

"While we continue to be cautious on the UK and as they prepare to exit the EU, we are optimistic about the overall outlook for Europe...We also see...a great deal of optimism in France, as President Macron has a clear mandate for reforms including labor market reform which should benefit that economy and stimulate better employment growth." --Manpower CEO Jonas Prising (Temp Staffing)

Germany is also very strong

"Germany, by definition, which is a big engine in Europe is doing well in the manufacturing side. And our business in Europe, if you look upon the portfolio, Industrial business is very strong." --3M CEO Inge Thulin (Industrials)

There may even be signs of inflation in Europe

"Europe service, inflation is starting to at least be talked a little bit, even though at very small levels. But for many years, there was no discussion of inflation at all. And now at least there is some talk about potentially a little bit of inflation coming through" --United Technologies CFO Akhil Jori (Elevators)

Caterpillar was positive on construction in China

"Construction in China and gas compression in North America were highlights." --Caterpillar CEO James Umpleby (Construction Equipment)

Financials:

Industries are changing faster than banks can keep up

"one of the things that I don’t think banks do that well...on things like Uber story is pull way up across all of our lending businesses and ask what is the impact given that industry after industry is being revolutionized...if we just go and make one loan at a time...we could wake up and have a lot of rude surprises like we did in the taxi kind of business." --Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank (Bank)

Consumer:

The Whole Foods purchase validated omni-channel

"you think about omni-channel and the advantages that brings, and you look at the recent purchase of Whole Foods, and you scratch your head and say why did that happen, I think if you start to envision how omni-channel could play an important role in e-commerce. You could see an unfolding scenario that says there can be successful pure players and successful omni-channel players. And maybe it all gravitates towards omni-channel at some point." --Stanley, Black and Decker CEO James Loree (Tools)

The retail industry still needs to restructure

"I think there’s a fundamental need to rationalize. People want to get larger to fight online and to fight Amazon and retail specifically. And there’ll be restructurings as well. Now the last time I was asked this, this would retail step in for energy? And the answer is I don’t believe it’s going to be as big an opportunity as energy. Energy was a very, very large user of capital in the leverage world...but a lot of those are smaller companies who are just kind of closing stores and shutting down" --Moelis & Co CEO Ken Moelis (Investment Bank)

Consumers buy more premium brands online

"What we observe on eCommerce thus far is that the consumer is actually — tends to buy more premium and even if they’re not buying the premium brands, they tend to buy in multiples. So, in fact the eCommerce behavior is favorable to us from a consumption point of view" --Colgate CEO Ian Cook (Packaged Goods)

Technology:

Data and AI are now the core currency of businesses

"The core currency of any business going forward will be the ability to convert their data into AI that drives competitive advantage." --Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Enterprise Tech)

Technology is ultimately just a tool

"Ensure Tech has become sort of the flavor of the day to a certain extent. Having said this...when the day is all done these are just tools and ultimately how effective they are, how helpful they are will be determined by the people who are using them and the expertise that they have" --WR Berkley CEO Robert Berkley (Insurance)

The average Youtube viewer watches for 60 minutes per day

"YouTube now has 1.5 billion monthly viewers and people watch on average 60 minutes a day on their phones and tablets." --Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai (Internet)

Facebook has 2 billion monthly users (there are 3.7 billion internet users)

"This quarter we reached an important milestone for our community. 2 billion people now use Facebook every month, and more than 1.3 billion people use it daily." --Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Social Network)

Comcast says there's still room for growth in broadband

" growth…there is significant runway ahead of broadband. And the key to me when you look at this is the upside of the opportunity. We’re sitting at 45% penetration right now. So there’s growth just there. The overall market is growing with only 75% of households subscribing to Internet access" --Comcast EVP David Watson (Cable)

Healthcare:

Birthrates around the world have been disappointing

"So we had kind of projected 2016 was going to be a flat birthrate year. In the second quarter, we got the final fourth quarter numbers that showed it down 2% for the fourth quarter, which brought the full year down 1%...Korea’s birthrate...was down 7%, which is a pretty big, big drop...we don’t really understand it at a deep enough consumer insight level...But a broad trend is that Millennials are having their children a little later." --Kimberly Clark CEO Thomas Falk (Packaged Goods)

Small hospitals need to get bigger by selling into health systems

"We’re seeing more opportunities in the marketplace now. I think as many health systems, again, went through the positive environment from 2015 and early 2016, and now we’re seeing some volume pressures. They're looking, I think, to be part of the bigger system....we’re pleased to see the pipeline more robust than it has been in recent years" --HCA CEO Milton Johnson (Hospitals)

Scale is an advantage in most industries

"The broad story remains the same that it has been domestically, which is larger players taking share from smaller players...I still believe that the longer-term story is the competitive advantage that scale brings to the larger players versus the smaller players." --Dominos CEO J. Patrick Doyle (Pizza)

Industrials:

Construction activity is still well below its prior peak

"if we use 2007 as kind of the peak market, I would say we’re somewhere around 65% of where we were back in 2007. So it’s getting better. It’s continuing to improve… we are still hoping for some news on our infrastructure build, which would prolong the cycle." --Nucor CEO John Ferriola (Steel)

Infrastructure spend is missing

"what has, I’d say, disappointed for the last several years has been a lack of growth in infrastructure investment, which is really, I think, the area that looks prime to need some more investment and some more growth." --Caterpillar CEO James Umpleby (Construction Equipment)

Waxy corn will be DuPont's first CRISPR-developed product

"our CRISPR strategy, I would say, is something that is still emerging. We’ve clearly identified a few early targets. We talked about our waxy corn program....So it will be our first commercial product. We’d expect that by the end of the decade. We’re beginning to work on a few other diseases that we think CRISPR could help us control." --DuPont EVP James Collins (Chemicals)

Materials, Energy:

OPEC is trying to rein in supply

"The OPEC Gulf countries and Russia...remain fully committed to sound and consistent stewardship of their resource base...These countries are...actively supporting the rebalancing of the global oil market by taking a procative role in moderating the current production levels" --Schlumberger CEO Paul Kibsgaard (Oil Service)

But US equity investors are preventing recovery

"U.S. equity investors...are encouraging, enabling and rewarding short term production growth in spite of marginal project economics...In this market the pursuit of equity appreciation outweighs the lack of free cash flow, net income and return on capital employed for both E&P companies and the service industry...their pursuit of short term equity returns from the U.S...is actually preventing the recovery of the oil market" --Schlumberger CEO Paul Kibsgaard (Oil Service)

This wont last forever

"I think if we stay in a $45 to $50 environment. You are going to have a number of the private operators probably lay down some rigs. So we wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a contraction in the rig count by maybe 50 to 100 rigs by the end of the year...They can’t continue to outspend their free cash flow because in our view the equity markets and the debt markets will be much tighter this time around than maybe year or year and half ago" --Core Labs CEO Dave Demshur (Oil Service)

But don't bet against wildcatters' animal spirits

"I said several quarters ago the customer and animal spirits back and they are with a vengeance and they are now running free to North America. Here is my last piece of wisdom for you. Do not bet against the animal spirits that our North America customers embody. I never have and I never will because that is the bet that you will lose." --Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar (Oil Service)

There's a lot of capital sloshing around the world

"there is a lot of capital that’s being raised and has been raised. And in general, there is just a whole lot capital sloshing around the world, looking for returns. " --Blackstone COO Tony James (Private Equity)

Full transcripts can be found at www.seekingalpha.com

[kristablogs]

Watch live as NASA and SpaceX team up for a historic crewed launch

At 4:33 p.m. ET today, a classic scene may return (weather permitting) to Cape Canaveral after a nine-year hiatus. Two astronauts will don flight suits, climb into a vehicle perched atop a powerful rocket, and blast off toward the International Space Station (ISS).

If all goes according to plan—at time of this publication, chances of favorable weather hover around 50 percent—the mission will mark two historic milestones. First, space veterans Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will become the first NASA astronauts to launch from American soil since the final Space Shuttle flight in 2011. And second, they will be the first human beings ever to fly to orbit on hardware designed, built, and operated by a private company—Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, commonly known as SpaceX. The mission represents a pivotal moment in an ongoing shift in how NASA handles crewed exploration, as well as a stepping stone toward a future where any well-heeled adventurer can purchase a ticket to space.

“In this new era, especially in low earth orbit, NASA has the ability to be a customer,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine at a recent press conference, “one customer of many customers in a very robust commercial marketplace.”

NASA’s astronaut program has continued since 2011, and the agency has kept the ISS staffed by purchasing more than 70 rides on the Soyuz spacecraft from the Russian space program—pricey tickets that have cost the agency a total of around four billion dollars. But over the last decade or so, NASA has also invested at least three billion dollars in SpaceX and worked closely with the company to help it develop a vehicle—the Crew Dragon—capable of bringing astronauts to the space station. (The NASA program that funded SpaceX and others, Commercial Crew, has also awarded around five billion dollars to Boeing to develop its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which may launch with astronauts next year.)

“NASA has been an extraordinary customer, an extraordinary partner, and a mentor for us,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president. “We’ve learned from them. We’ve obviously been pleased by their financial support, technical support, and knowledge.”

With the ability to reach orbit on their own terms restored, NASA officials hope to get more astronauts to the ISS, boosting the amount of research they can accomplish. They also look forward to having more flexibility: The cadence of available Soyuz seats has tended to set the duration of most missions at around six months in recent years, but the commercial crew vehicles may let the agency experiment with shorter and longer missions, according to Kirk Shireman, the program manager for NASA’s ISS program.

And it’s arguably an even bigger day for SpaceX. In 18 years, the rocket company has gone from startup to space heavyweight. It now carries out 70 percent of commercial launches worldwide, according to Bridenstine, and has also resupplied the ISS using its Dragon capsule 20 times. But founder Elon Musk dreams of establishing lunar bases and Martian settlements in the not-so-distant future, and building space metropolises will take more than food, tools, and materials. With today’s launch, SpaceX takes its first step toward moving people around the solar system—not just cargo.

While NASA has overseen more than 150 flights, this time will different because SpaceX will largely sit in the driver’s seat. NASA will participate in mission management, but the company will lead it, according to Steve Stich, the deputy manager of the Commercial Crew Program. That means that if the astronauts encounter a problem, they’ll be reporting it to SpaceX’s flight control team in Hawthorne, California, although NASA will be listening in.

Both organizations, however, have devoted thousands of hours of testing and training to minimize the chances of anything going wrong. NASA officials know the heartbreak of losing astronauts all too well, and SpaceX employees are keenly aware of the heavy responsibility that comes along with flying human beings. At their technicians’ own request, SpaceX started attaching photographs of Behnken and Hurley to every work order, according to Shotwell, keeping the unprecedented stakes of this mission front of mind. “There’ll be a little sense of relief when they’re in orbit,” she said, and “more when they get to the station. I’ll start sleeping again when they’re back safely on planet Earth.”

After Behnken and Hurley launch, it’ll take them about 19 hours to chase down the ISS. Crew Dragon will fly mainly on autopilot during this period, although the crew will have two brief chances to take the wheel (which, in this case, is not a “wheel” but a collection of large touch screens). They will take control first when the spacecraft reaches orbit to test the capsule’s responsiveness to twisting and rolling commands, and then again when the vehicle is few hundred feet from the ISS.

The original plan had been to bring the astronauts right back home, but about six months ago NASA decided that since Behnken and Hurley were going all the way to the ISS, they might as well stay awhile. Simulations suggest that Crew Dragon can remain in space for 119 days before the trace amounts of oxygen that persist hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface degrade its solar panels. SpaceX and NASA will keep an eye the craft’s performance, and will determine the mission’s length by weighing the tradeoff between keeping extra hands on board the ISS and completing the mission’s main goal: to demonstrate that SpaceX’s hardware, software, and mission management are ready for the big time. A successful end-to-end test will wrap up the experimental portion of the vehicle’s development, letting official operations begin with the subsequent flight, “Crew 1,” whose timeline will depend on how this flight unfolds.

“We should not lose sight of the fact that this is a test flight,” Bridenstine said. “We're doing this to learn things.”

Some people might feel nervous at the thought of being the first to hurtle through space in a relatively unproven vehicle, but Behnken and Hurley act cool as cucumbers. They’re aware of the unique positions they occupy in the history of the crewed space program—Hurley flew on the final Space Shuttle flight in 2011, and Behnken helped assemble the ISS—but they remain too focused on the task at hand to wax poetic about it.

“You have to go in knowing as much as you can about the vehicle and procedures, hyper focused on making sure all the work is successful,” Hurley said. “From the historical perspective, we'll let somebody else talk about that when we get back.”

Nevertheless, they’re honored to be breaking new ground. After the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle vehicles, Crew Dragon will become the fifth American spacecraft to carry human beings into orbit. “It's probably a dream of every test pilot school student to have the opportunity to fly on a brand-new spacecraft,” Behnken said.

Behnken and Hurley, while not tourists themselves, are also serving as pioneers for the fledgling space tourism industry. In some sense, today represents SpaceX’s debut operating the world’s first “spaceline.” NASA is currently it’s only client, but a successful demonstration of crewed spaceflight could change that quickly. In fact, the company has already announced that seats aboard Crew Dragon will be available to the general public soon, and Hurley, for his part, says that’s exactly how it should be. “Just that look out the window alone is worth going in people's minds,” he said. “Access to low earth orbit needs to get greater and less expensive, and I think this is part of that exercise.”

Crowds of hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Cape Canaveral to watch past launches, but this time around NASA is inviting all to participate in the historic moment online. The agency will host a variety of digital festivities, and the launch will be broadcast on NASA Live and SpaceX’s website. The SpaceX and NASA teams have adopted a variety of anti-COVID-19 measures, and Behnken and Hurley are well quarantined. All parties hope to keep space enthusiasts safe, too.

“We don’t want an outbreak” resulting from spectators clustering at Cape Canaveral, Bridenstine said. “We need a spectacular moment that all of America can see and all of the world can see, to inspire not just us who have been waiting for years for this but to inspire the generations that are coming.”

[gbenro]

Logistics Consultant #Vacancy

International Medical Corps is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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17-039: Logistics Consultant

Country:Nigeria

Department:Logistics

Essential Job Duties/Scope of Work:

International Medical Corps is a global, humanitarian, non-profit organization dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training and relief and development programs. Established in 1984 by volunteer doctors and nurses, International Medical Corps is a private, voluntary, non-political, non-sectarian organization. Its mission is to improve the quality of life through health interventions and related activities that build local capacity in underserved communities worldwide. By offering training and health care to local populations and medical assistance to people at highest risk, and with the flexibility to respond rapidly to emergency situations, International Medical Corps rehabilitates devastated health care systems and helps bring them back to self-reliance.

PROGRAM BACKGROUND

International Medical Corps has been working in Nigeria since 2013 and it has on-going programmes in three states: Sokoto and Kano in the north-west and Borno in the north-east. Active in Sokoto since 2013, IMC has on-going nutrition and WASH programming designed to support improved public health as well as provide curative care for children with SAM. Since January 2015 IMC has been an implementing partner of the Core Group Partner (Polio) Project in 13 LGAs in Borno and Kano. CGPP is designed to contribute to the eradication of polio by increasing immunization rates and improving acute flaccid paralysis surveillance. Working in six LGAs in Kano and seven LGAs in Borno through local partners, IMC and its partners support the State and National Ministry of Health (S/NMOH) and LGA efforts to strengthen immunization systems. In 2015, IMC expanded its work in Borno to support Health, WASH, GBV, and Nutrition needs.

As the security situation evolves and access has slowly been restored throughout the State, IMC has adapted its programming to address the needs of IDPs and returnees. IMC's work in Borno includes: preventive and curative nutrition programming; general food distributions; GBV prevention and response, including case management services; support for community and health facility WASH; and enhancement of household access to food through food vouchers.

SCOPE OF WORK

The Country Logistics Consultant will be based in Borno state and will be the senior logistics support in the mission and is responsible for, and accountable for, the delivery of all logistics and supply chain related activities in accordance with International Medical Corps logistics policies and procedures. Fundamental to this consultancy role is the ability to manage and motivate the country national logisticians, the external contractors and organizations therefore s/he is required to have the skills to communicate clearly verbally and in writing, plan for and deliver quality presentations and training, and produce timely written reports.

Task Description: Consultant will serve as the Country Logistics Consultant on  the International Medical Corps in Nigeria. Specifically, Consultant will complete the following tasks:

Logistics Operations

Provide the technical oversight, input and supervision to coordinate the staff support to, delivery of, and implementation of, all logistics support systems according to IMC Logistics policies and procedures.

Pro-actively engage in project planning and ensure that proposal documents and on-going projects are fitted with relevant and updated procurement plans. Coordinate development of procurement plans with project managers, select most appropriate/cost-effective procurement location, contractual arrangements and ensure respect of the internal and donor procurement regulations.

Provide support and advice to those making a procurement request, then process and manage the procurement process (either locally or internationally) in accordance with IMC policies and procedures, in a transparent, accountable, efficient and cost effective manner.

Ensure that local market surveys are regularly carried out, to ensure a full knowledge of the availability and price of local items. Ensure that all procurements are tracked and recorded to identify items that should be part of a pre-approved tender process, and ensure that open and free competition for procurements is adhered too.

Actively engage with freight forwarding agencies, freight handling/clearance agents, and local Customs, to ensure that cargo is managed at all points of the supply chain, and that all tracking and reporting deadlines are met.

Proactively coordinate and direct the management and tracking of all medical supplies, equipment, materiel and food in transit, through its receipt, storage, and onward distribution to include the locating and negotiating contracting for storage/warehousing that is secure, well-maintained, and meets health and safe working practice requirements.

Management of Assets List related to newly received, donated, disposed or transferred assets and making sure all HQ and donor approvals are obtained prior to any kind of disposition. To ensure that all assets’ assigned users have signed off the asset handover form and that the form is properly filed.

To ensure that all Gift in kinds (donations) received in country are timely reported to HQ, properly tracked and distribution evidences provided to HQ on regular monthly bases.

Capture pipeline information, and coordinate the management of the supply chain ensuring that Program staff are well-informed and well-prepared for incoming goods and materiel. Ensure timely reporting on stock status, to help Program staff with planning of stock replenishment and that tracking through to end-user has occurred. And/or advise and support Program staff to verify that distribution has occurred according to the intentions and plans of the donors, IMC, and project partners

Supervise and coordinate all matters logistics relating to transport and fuel management, to ensure that vehicles are insured, asset managed correctly, being driven safely, maintained appropriately, damages are reported, and ensure that vehicles internal equipment (tools, comms etc) are complete and serviceable; and that usage of fuel is correctly supervised, and logged and recorded. Liaise with security personnel on security-related transport issues, such as booking in/out, satcomms, radios etc.

Supervise and coordinate all matters logistics regarding satellite communications and radio communications to ensure that equipments are insured, asset managed diligently, operated in the most cost efficient manner, and maintained appropriately.

Capture, plan and regularly update preparedness reporting for the logistic systems in place at your mission to include a current Logistic Concept of Operations. Plan to ensure that logistic systems are robust and flexible enough to cope if a crisis occurs by making thorough assessments of airports, transport available, warehousing, access routes, fuel availability, field comms issues, staffing challenges, training required etc. Raising issues though senior management as required.

Maintain accurate filing systems, with documented and supported records of action for audit purposes, and submit weekly and monthly logistics reports to the in-country management team, and Global logistics pursuant with IMC policies and procedures.

Be flexible and manage your time accordingly, to be prepared to tackle other tasks commensurate with your role, and level of experience, at short notice.

Compliance

Ensure compliance with IMC policies and procedures, donor regulations and local laws.

Ensure that the procurement and disposal of commodities, especially those subject to US Export Compliance regulations, are in line with applicable licenses and are properly documented.

Ensure that vendor eligibility screening is carried out in a timely fashion, updated regularly, and, recorded appropriately.

Human Resources

Make frequent site visits to where staff supervised by you are working, to ensure that the appropriate care and support is being offered. Ensure that staff supervised by you are evaluated regularly, trained and/or mentored in a structured accountable manner, and written records of such are retained.

Oversee the recruitment, selection and performance of logistics staff, as required.

Advocate and plan for professional development for expat and national staff

Determine training needs for staff supervised by you.

Coordinate the delivery of training for national staff to increase their responsibilities in order to build capacity, and ensure sustainability of programs

Proactively engage with the Country Director and key staff (Program, Finance, Medical) on all matters logistic to ensure that programmatic and project planning incorporates sufficient funding for logistical staff and logistical support mechanisms.

Proactively engage on a regular basis with regional IMC logistics teams, and logistics coordinators from other organizations to ensure appropriate links for interagency logistics coordination.

Proactively engage with donors, local government, project partners, UN agencies and other non-governmental organizations in order to plan, organize, and schedule distribution of goods and materiel as, well as to ensure adequate information sharing, address common concerns/problems and seek solutions.

Deliverables/Due Dates/Payment Schedule:

Deliverable

Due Date

Payment

Monthly updated procurement plans per grant.

Monthly updated most appropriate/cost-effective procurement location maps

Quarterly updated local market surveys results.

Monthly updated supplier lists and price lists.

Monthly updated major procurement tracking tool per grant

Monthly updated International cargo shipment tracker

Monthly updated all stock reports and inspection reports (medical and non-medical stocks)

Monthly updated Asset follow up report

Monthly updated Gift in kinds reports

Monthly Pipelines and Back orders reports

Monthly updated fleet performance and fuel consumption report

Staff coaching/training/capacity building reports

Field visits reports for Borno Sokoto and Abuja

Regular coordination meeting reports (with other agencies and Government agencies)

Any other relevant logistics and procurement related report to country management.

Monthly basis x 12 months

Compliance & Ethics:  Promotes and encourages a culture of compliance and ethics throughout International Medical Corps. As applicable to the position, maintains aclear understanding of International Medical Corps’ and donor compliance and ethics standards and adheres to those standards.  Conducts work with the highest levelof integrity.

Qualifications:

Evidence of practical experience in logistics management within the field of supply chain management (procurement, tendering, contracting, clearance, transport, warehousing, etc.) fleet management and asset management, distribution support.

Proven record of experience of the management of logistics at a coordination level.

Evidence of 5 to 6 field deployments; 3 to 4 humanitarian emergency deployments and 4 to 5 international deployments; minimum 6 months in length.

Experience with donor specific procedures.

It is desirable that experience is supported by academic study, such as completion of the Certification in Humanitarian Logistics; a Master in Logistics will be a plus.

Prior experience of logistics software solutions (desired).

Experience of the management of budgets and the ability to prepare timely, complete and accurate reports.

Evidence of the ability to plan for, and conduct training in all areas of logistics for national and international staff (suitable to staff knowledge level).

The commitment and demonstrated skills to build national staff capacity in the areas of logistics management, supervision and monitoring

Strong organizational and problem-solving skills with analytic approach

Strong interpersonal, management and leadership skills

Ability to work in participatory manner with staff to assess needs, implement and monitor activities

Ability to integrate and work well within multi-ethnic and multicultural teams

Ability to work in harsh conditions, often in remote areas

Strong negotiation, interpersonal and organization skills

Valid driving license

Proficiency with MS Word and Excel (minimum requirement).

Language Skills

Ability to read, write, analyse and interpret, technical and non-technical in the English language

Ability to effectively present information and respond appropriately to questions.

Ability to speak French is required

Conditions

Must be able to travel and leave in

Must be able to work in austere environments and lift, minimum, 45 pounds.

In addition

Experience high volatile security context would be an added advantage

Previous IMC experience

Previous experience in food commodities distribution

Previous experience in similar positions

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