Laura Guio & Chris Akey: Donating masks to hospitals in need

IBM is used to dealing with large-scale projects and right now, there is no project larger than public health. So when the city of San Jose – the tenth largest city in the U.S. — reached out to local businesses looking for supplies, IBM was ready to step in.
 
IBM Senior Location Manager Laura Guio learned that San Jose’s mayor Sam Liccardo had an urgent need for real estate, testing facilities, face masks and other resources for the city.

The need for masks immediately stood out Laura and her colleague Chris Akey, a program director who oversees operations in the area including site crisis management. Akey had purchased several thousand face masks to keep employees safe from smoke during the 2019 California wildfires. And he knew that thousands of those surplus masks – so-called “procedure masks” used by doctors and nurses – were still sitting unused.

In less than 24 hours from the call with the mayor, Guio and Chris orchestrated a donation of 15,000 face masks to the Santa Clara County hospital system, to protect staff from Covid-19.  

“Our county hospital system here, like most major affected areas, is running out of supplies to keep their doctors and nurses safe,” said Guio. “We take our role as a member of this community seriously, and realized that there was something we could do to help.”

The masks are being used by medical staff at three hospitals operated by Santa Clara Country: O'Connor Hospital, St. Louise Regional Hospital and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. On average, just one of those hospitals uses 400 masks per day during the pandemic.

Carl Guardino, President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said that the entire organization deeply appreciated Guio and Akey’s support. “Thank you for stepping up so generously, in true IBM fashion,” he said.

This is not the first disaster that IBM has had to weather in California. Guio led the crisis management team during the 2019 regional wildfires with Akey’s help, and while none of IBMs buildings were affected, many clients were, and everyone was impacted by the smoke.

“The important part of the story is that, given all the tragedies we’ve had with the fires and now this: it takes a community spirit to protect our citizens combined with trust and personal responsibility in all relationships,” said Guio.

Most IBM employees in the San Jose area are currently working from home and IBM has retained enough masks for those employees that might need them in the future. Thankfully, thus far, there have been no reported cases of coronavirus among IBM professionals in this area.

→ Visit the IBM News Room's complete coverage of IBM's response to the coronavirus pandemic