On August 3, 2020, the White House issued a Presidential Memorandum extending “the use of the (Florida) National Guard to respond to COVID-19 and to facilitate economic recovery.” Following direct gubernatorial appeals in the wake of rising coronavirus cases, only Florida and Texas received such extensions at that time. The August memorandum extended the federal government’s 100% cost-sharing through the end of the calendar year, a significant financial benefit. Throughout the pandemic, the Guard’s coronavirus response work in Florida has been conducted under Title 32 status in which the governor remains in command while the federal government bears the full costs. The Florida Guard has been deployed in a number of roles, including assembling testing kits, setting up and manning community-based testing facilities, distributing PPE and constructing field hospitals. In May 2020, DOD recognized the 256th Medical Company Area Support (MCAS) arm of the Florida National Guard for its COVID-19 response efforts. The soldiers of the 256th MCAS were involved in a number of tasks supporting civilian hospitals: collecting specimens, conducting quality assurance, and training other health professionals. Soldiers also served as liaisons among hospital administrative personnel, nursing facilities, the Health Department, and other military units, and others provided assistance to mobile units around the state of Florida and trained non-medical personnel (truck drivers and military intelligence members). According to the governor’s office, by early August approximately 1,400 guardsmen and women were engaged statewide in pandemic response efforts, about 5% of the nationwide total.
Pamela Berkowsky serves as a Senior Executive Defense Consultant to the South Florida Defense Alliance (SFDA), a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization that seeks to unite, support and grow the defense community and DOD investments and infrastructure in South Florida – to include the quad-county areas of Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties (see https://www.southfloridadefensealliance.org/about-us-1). Prior to her defense-related economic development and resiliency work in Florida, Pamela Berkowsky had a distinguished career in the Pentagon. Spanning three Presidential administrations, her DOD tenure culminated with an appointment to serve as Assistant Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense, a position in which she focused on defense support to civil authorities, among other issues.
On August 3, 2020, the White House issued a Presidential Memorandum extending “the use of the (Florida) National Guard to respond to COVID-19 and to facilitate economic recovery.” Following direct gubernatorial appeals in the wake of rising coronavirus cases, only Florida and Texas received such extensions at that time. The August memorandum extended the federal government’s 100% cost-sharing through the end of the calendar year, a significant financial benefit. Throughout the pandemic, the Guard’s coronavirus response work in Florida has been conducted under Title 32 status in which the governor remains in command while the federal government bears the full costs. The Florida Guard has been deployed in a number of roles, including assembling testing kits, setting up and manning community-based testing facilities, distributing PPE and constructing field hospitals. In May 2020, DOD recognized the 256th Medical Company Area Support (MCAS) arm of the Florida National Guard for its COVID-19 response efforts. The soldiers of the 256th MCAS were involved in a number of tasks supporting civilian hospitals: collecting specimens, conducting quality assurance, and training other health professionals. Soldiers also served as liaisons among hospital administrative personnel, nursing facilities, the Health Department, and other military units, and others provided assistance to mobile units around the state of Florida and trained non-medical personnel (truck drivers and military intelligence members). According to the governor’s office, by early August approximately 1,400 guardsmen and women were engaged statewide in pandemic response efforts, about 5% of the nationwide total. Comments are closed.
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AuthorA resident of the U.S. Virgin Islands since 2002, Pamela B. Berkowsky took her most recent governmental management role in 2007, becoming Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. John de Jongh Jr. Thriving in this position, in which she managed daily Government House and Cabinet operations and policy development and implementation, she was promoted to Chief of Staff in 2011. Archives
September 2020
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