MartinOperational Strategy
Prior Leadership Experience

Coordinating laboratory supplies and contracts during COVID-19

Public health and laboratory operations

Organization / Context

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Challenge

Multiple laboratory teams needed timely access to supplies and equipment during the COVID-19 response. Backorders, large orders, and multiple procurement channels required clear purchasing and inventory visibility, alongside coordination across laboratory staff, administrative teams, purchasing teams, and vendors.

My Role

From 2020–2022, I was a federal employee working as a Microbiologist. My primary responsibilities included laboratory purchasing, supply coordination, and contract management for contracts valued up to $250,000. I worked with multiple laboratory teams, including a CLIA-certified team conducting COVID testing, and held COR Level I certification. By 2022, my responsibilities had expanded to spend-plan management, budget and spending tracking, funding-source selection, and support for budget planning.

What I Changed

  • Designed and maintained a shared purchasing tracker so staff could submit requests, see order and receipt status, identify who received an item, and search recent purchases to help avoid duplicate orders.
  • Connected purchasing records with inventory information and maintained a live inventory intended to prevent interruptions in laboratory work.
  • Coordinated with laboratory, administrative, and purchasing teams, and worked directly with vendors to navigate backorders and large supply and equipment orders.
  • Updated purchasing, receiving, labeling, and equipment-maintenance and inspection processes and forms.
  • Connected purchasing decisions with spend-plan and budget tracking, including COVID-19 serology spending and funding-source selection.

Results / Evidence

  • Documented 185 order submissions across five procurement channels in FY21, demonstrating the scale of purchasing coordination.
  • The 2022 performance review reported that orders were generally placed within 1–2 days of a request, unless the requester indicated they could wait.
  • The shared purchasing workflow gave laboratory staff visibility into requests, orders, and receipts, with recent-purchase search and links to inventory records.
  • Received the NCIRD COVID-19 Honor Award for Excellence in Laboratory Research on February 22, 2022, recognizing work in CLIA certification and implementation of a SARS-CoV-2 multi-antigen assay in critical COVID-19 studies.

View the 2022 COVID-19 honor award (PDF)

Timeframe

2020–2022. Honor award presented February 22, 2022.

Tools / Frameworks

  • Shared purchasing and inventory tracking
  • Federal procurement processes
  • Spend-plan and budget management
  • Contract management
  • Vendor and supply coordination
  • COR Level I certification

Work performed in a prior leadership role before the formation of Martin Operational Strategy.