FY 2025 Employee Of The Year

Stephanie Caler - Occupational Hygiene & Safety

Stephanie was nominated for her heroic efforts responding to the Duke North Hospital’s catastrophic flooding that occurred beginning late on Thursday, December 26, 2024. She was woken up in the early morning hours of Friday, December 27th and responded to the flooding despite being on PTO. While she was helped by several individuals at OESO during this ongoing event, she was the primary OESO contact and, as Mary Martin pointed out on the December 31st, 8am flood HICS call, Stephanie was the one who had repeatedly been woken up in the middle of the night when after-hours OESO response was needed. Mary also gave her a shout out in the morning's briefing, as did Robin Thomas from Engineering & Operations. 
 

Stephanie worked tirelessly on site each day to address the priority areas for moisture that still need to be addressed and reviewing/approving what is ready to be reopened for use. As we have been on EMS divert sending patients to other EDs for days, OESO's response has been an integral part of getting our patient care areas back open as quickly and safely as possible. Stephanie also received positive feedback from Marie Stone, Chief Technologist/Manager in Radiology, on the time she took to speak with her about concerns from contracted radiologic technologists with the exposure they had to the water that doused them in the room that was the hardest hit when the event began. Such praise by DUH leadership for Stephanie’s efforts and for bringing positive recognition to OESO during this critical incident made her well deserving of being Employee of the Year!