Connie Oakes Email and Phone Number

Responsibilities included providing project support to the Safety and Quality Assurance group, as needed.

Coordinated day, night, and weekend donor referrals in a professional and efficient manner.Approached donor families in a professional and sensitive manner, balancing the interests of the donor, recipient, family, and SightLife interests.Utilized and applied precision, accuracy, and quality assurance in all manners of referral coordination in an environment governed by HIPPA regulations and family bereavement considerations.Performed sensitive and thorough donor medical/social history interviews in an accurate and timely manner.Advocated donation during communication with other organizations and with donor families.Communicated with Distribution staff to meet distribution needs for research tissue.Performed routine coordinator functions to monitor all referral coordinator activity (including other employee referrals) including timely follow-up on early/pending death referrals, updating referrals in database, filing referrals, etc.Performed routine statistical reporting of referral and approach/consent activity.Assisted with gathering and reporting of referral/donation statistics to Hospital Services.Routinely provided feedback to Donor Services Director regarding hospital education issues.Routinely provided feedback to Referral Services Manager regarding medical review and logistics of coordinating.Performed all aspects of referral triage, recovery, processing, and distribution, as needed.

Contributed to a Six Sigma Black Belt site process improvement by leading all Supplier Qualification implementation activities as the designated Yellow Belt. The cross-functional process improvement reduced the number of supplier QA manuals submitted to the site project and resulted in an estimated cost savings of over $1.6M. Developed and managed the domestic and international deployment schedule of Supplier Qualification Senior QA Engineers. Deployment schedule emphasized subject matter expertise and proximity of qualifiers to suppliers. This effort resulted in improved supplier relations and control of supplier performance, as well as decreased supplier correction action reports. Developed and implemented a graded approach process to refine supplier inspection intervals. Travel budgets were reduced, suppliers were rewarded for previous positive performances, and metrics revealed no increase in supplier corrective action reports. Managed the database of qualified site suppliers, which included supplier performance progress; status updates; inspection intervals and results; and itemized supplies. Recommended management utilize the database as a tool to communicate supplier performance metrics. Completed database modifications, which resulted in a more efficient and effective means to compile metric information.

Demonstrated leadership by spearheading and establishing an effective security-related information retrieval system for use by Laboratory staff. Led and managed a cross-organizational team consisting of IT and several focus groups to automate a lengthy and time-consuming security process. The retrieval system not only resulted in improved staff satisfaction, but also reduced cycle time, staff involvement, paperwork, and administrative errors.Selected by upper management to lead and provide oversight for a Congress-mandated physical security enhancement. The activity was highly visible and completion activities were closely followed. The enhancement was accomplished via exceptional attention to detail, effective project management, deployment of team resources, and encouraging full participation from all team members. The security enhancement was completed ahead of schedule and approval was granted without caveats or operating limitations. Volunteered to translate new technical federal government requirements into operating procedures for use by 3500+ Laboratory employees. Procedures were rolled out to staff in an online format over the previous hardcopy format. Solicited feedback to facilitate continuous improvement initiatives and promote the employee "voice," which contributed greatly to the department's implementing success by instilling greater trust and confidence in staff. Operations Security Specialist duties included liaison activities with Human Resources, law enforcement, and other protective force teams in relation to the protection of visiting VIPs, Laboratory personnel, as well as a wide range of physical and intellectual properties. Other duties included assisting and providing feedback for the professional development of junior staff; conducting incident and infraction investigations; and developing and implementing secure operating measures for unique Laboratory programs.