Frontline perspectives: Mariah Dixon coordinated procurement of COVID-19 commodities. Now she is sharing the lessons learned.

Mariah Dixon is one of the hundreds of people worldwide helping to support COVID-19 response. A former staff sergeant and paralegal in the US Army, she joined the GHSC-PSM COVID-19 response team in August 2021 to coordinate integrating all pandemic-related procurement, which until then had been done separately.?

“Everything was urgent and we did our best to triage needs as they came our way. There was a lot of communication with suppliers and country offices so that everyone was on the same page and we were moving as expeditiously as possible.”

“Our procurement team is not responsible for all of the work and tasks that need to be completed, so we rely on a lot of people, including other staff, our suppliers, our logistics providers, and our country offices.”

“A key challenge in procurement was to make sure that everyone shared our sense of urgency. In every step of the process there are nuances that people may not think about. A delay in something as simple as the ‘consignee’ and ‘ship to’ address means we can't place the order with the supplier. But it can be hard for our country offices to get that information from local governments, so we and they were always communicating how urgently we need information and how the lack of it impacts people.”

Mariah later oversaw setting up a virtual stockpile for COVID-19 rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) with the manufacturer so that countries could get them more quickly. “The idea was to cut off the manufacturer lead time so that we would only have to deal with the lead time associated with pickup and delivery.”?

Mariah and her team used this experience to later set up a virtual stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE). “We had to modify contracts and set up a separate arrangement with two of our suppliers so that they were essentially purchasing the goods on behalf of GHSC-PSM and keeping them at their warehouse. We tapped into those goods when countries requested them. I'm proud of all of our work for the RDT stockpile.”

COVID-19 was a public health challenge that perhaps none of us was prepared for, but we asked Mariah how she applied her experience in the Army to lead a high-performing team.?

“It? was all that leadership that I learned in the army… of taking care of your people and helping staff and keeping everything organized. Getting critical supplies to people around the world who need it most is definitely rewarding. I would say I have probably grown more as a professional and as a leader in these two years of COVID than I have at any other point in my life. If you can get through COVID, you can get through anything. I at least had the confidence that I could, and that's half the battle.”

Mariah will soon transfer within the project to support our work on malaria. We wish her well!