New Orleans Customer Info
Update on New Orleans - Pace Analytical
Minneapolis, MN, August 31, 2005 (Pace Analytical Services, Inc.)
Hurricane Katrina has dealt a surprising and devastating blow to the City of New Orleans, surrounding suburbs and the Mississippi and Alabama coastal areas. Pace Analytical has operated its laboratory near the New Orleans airport since 1995 and has a dedicated staff of around 60 professionals who serve you from that location. We are still waiting to hear from a number of our staff who were evacuated from the area over the weekend. So far, we have only been able to reach about one third of our staff, but we are happy to say that those we have heard from are safe.
The evacuation notice for this storm came later than most notices in the past. Our staff took time to complete some short hold time analysis, secure and transfer our database, seal our coolers and board up the windows. Unfortunately, the power has been off since late Sunday night. We were not able to go to the lab and transfer samples before the temperature in the coolers rose above the regulatory limits. We have relocated our data base and a number of our project managers to our Houston facility. They are beginning today to study the status of our customer’s projects and to contact them to create a plan to resolve any problems with their samples.
Because of the mandatory evacuation order for the city of New Orleans, law enforcement officers set up blockades on all roads leading to our laboratory. One of our employees from the Baton Rouge area was able to talk his way through the road block and visit our laboratory. The lab was not flooded or damaged significantly from the hurricane. The largest damage has been due to the loss of temperature management on those samples that did not have all of the testing completed.
Unfortunately, many of our employees have not faired as well. Many have lost their homes and others have serious damage. They are dealing with the uncertainty of when the power will be restored, when the waters will recede and when they will be able to return to work.
I am writing to tell you that we have developed a plan to manage your work during the period that our employees and the city are recovering from this disaster. We have moved our client communications center to our Pace operation in Houston. We have our staff in Baton Rouge with bottle shipment and courier services available. We also have our Shreveport, LA service center in operation. It was not damaged. Our other labs in Pace have stepped forward to help support our customers in this region. With your approval, samples will be analyzed in our Kansas City or Charlotte/Asheville, NC laboratories, which have the required certifications. Our New Orleans project managers will continue to manage the work.
We have developed programs to help all of our employees. We have established a program that allows all Pace employees to share vacation time with, or make cash contributions to our New Orleans employees. We will match any donations of time or cash from our employees. We are also setting up an emergency loan program for our employees. Our objective is to help our employees manage through this most difficult situation and return to a productive job in the near future.
With that in mind, I would like to ask for your support. It would be very easy for you at this time, to move your work to another laboratory organization that was not impacted by this storm. We are doing everything that we can to restore reliable service using our New Orleans project managers and other laboratories in Pace to do your work. We have a strong national network of laboratories to support our Gulf Coast customers and our New Orleans operation. We believe that we can continue to meet your needs and we are dedicated to honoring our commitments to you. I ask you to please give our staff an opportunity to continue to perform or manage your work. If we do not have this opportunity, our staff could lose their jobs in addition to all of their other losses.
We are committed to having our New Orleans laboratory back in operation as soon as the power is restored. If you have questions, please feel free to contact:
Debra Burney
Houston Facility: 281-488-1810Email: Debra.Burney@pacelabs.com
Houston Project Manager
Dennis Leeke
Cell: 281-850-8791Houston Facility: 281-488-1810
Email: Dennis.Leeke@pacelabs.com
Gulf Coast General Manager
Russell McNiece
Cell: 225-266-4216Email: Russell.McNiece@pacelabs.com
Gulf Coast Quality Manager
Steve Vanderboom
Minneapolis Office: 612-607-6409Email: steve.vanderboom@pacelabs.com
CEO (Minneapolis / Corporate Offices)
Thank you for your continued support.