From Bob Erb, President & CEO, Colony Brands 

Monroe

To the Editor:

Since February, Colony Brands has taken numerous steps to respond to the pandemic and help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus while maintaining essential operations for our business. Our primary concern is the health and safety of our employees and our communities. Like many organizations, we are closely monitoring our operations and adjusting our response plans daily. Strong planning and acting early has allowed us to greatly mitigate the risk to our employees. 

Initially, operations were scaled back as our teams worked swiftly to develop aggressive safety controls. We immediately sent employees home who could perform their jobs remotely. They will continue to work from home until sometime next year. We also implemented aggressive quarantine and contact tracing efforts that go beyond the public health guidelines. 

Our facilities have undergone significant transformations including modified traffic patterns, workstation design changes, barriers, temperature scanners, and enhanced cleaning schedules. We implemented strict policies related to social distancing and face coverings. These actions allowed us to bring our operations back to full capacity of 4,000 active employees in early summer. Our team has worked relentlessly to keep our people safe and our operations running since the start of the pandemic. 

Despite these efforts, we face ongoing challenges with employees contracting COVID-19 outside the work environment. We continue to see the number of positive cases and total active cases grow at an alarming rate in Green County and beyond. When best practices intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our communities are ignored or not enforced, this places the health of our residents and businesses at risk. 

We know our ability to deliver on our promises to our customers is dependent on our ability to keep our employees safe as we enter our peak season. We will add over 1,000 employees to our workforce over the next eight weeks during a time when the spread of COVID-19 has never been more rapid. The health of our organization depends on the health of our communities, and vice versa. We urge the leaders of our local County and City government, community organizations, and local businesses to work together to contain this devastating pandemic and protect the health and safety of our broader community. 

Thank you to all our community partners for doing your part to prevent further spread of COVID-19. We look forward to better days ahead for Monroe and Green County.