A team effort brings Comfort to New Yorkers.
NYC V Teamers go above and beyond to connect a U.S. Navy hospital ship.
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Anything having to do with a big ship is a big job. Especially when time is of the essence.
Over the weekend, our Network Engineering and Operations and Business Customer Operations teams established connectivity for the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, a treatment facility that includes 1,000 hospital beds, 12 operating rooms, radiology capabilities and a pharmacy. They used a secure, dedicated circuit to support critical IT capabilities to staff, allowing the medical community and patients to remain in sync and in touch. f.
The USNS Comfort is currently deployed to New York City and will serve as a referral hospital for non-COVID-19 patients to relieve stress on hospitals. But getting the ship wired up and ready for patients was no small task.
“Essentially, they needed to support onboard comms,” explained Carole Byers, Managing Director of Defense and National Security Programs. “We understood the importance of the mission both for our direct customer, the U.S. Navy, but also for New York City.”
According to Marline Grant, Engineering Director, New York Metro, “We needed to ensure we had fiber and copper facilities at the port. Overnight, we were able to assemble a team that was able to do what normally takes 30 days and get it done in a day or two.”
“The PMO, order management, engineering and field tech teams literally worked through the night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday,” said Carole. “By Sunday mid-afternoon, we had completed the objective and we were ready to receive the Comfort on Monday.”
“This was a massive team effort involving 50 plus people in multiple organizations inside Verizon,” said David Rouse, Managing Client Partner. “Everybody rallied around the moment. It was just amazing to watch everyone come together.”
“Enabling the U.S. Navy to deliver on its mission is at the core of what we do at Verizon: We are here to serve wherever and whenever we’re needed,” said Andrés Irlando, president of Public Sector and Verizon Connect.
“We’re always there at crunch time,” reflected Joseph Migliano, Network Engineer. “I was there for 9/11. I was there for coronavirus. I’ll be there for the next one. Hopefully there isn’t a next one, but when duty calls, I’ll be there.”
