‘The Fort Knox of supplies’
Maryland woman making sure hospitals stay stocked during pandemic
M“I’d love to be able to open our doors and say, ‘Come and get it,’” says Duerr, director of customer satisfaction for Acme Paper & Supply Co., a wholesale packaging distributor. Instead, she arrives at work at 7 a.m. and mulls precious inventories before shipping essentials to area hospitals, nursing homes, schools and restaurants that trust her to fill some of their most critical needs.
The pandemic has turned Duerr’s job into frenetic seat-of-the-pants commerce where stuff like nonsurgical masks and antibacterial wipes are known to arrive at Acme’s warehouse from manufacturers one minute and head out to anxious customers the next. All at her behest. Johns Hopkins Hospital needs this … University of Maryland Medical Center needs that …
“The pace is so fast and fluid that I call myself the air traffic controller,” says Duerr, 55, of Woodbine. Through it all, she watches over her stock like a lioness protecting her cubs.
“When trucks roll in with only 50% of our order, because suppliers can’t keep up with demand, we allocate products to appropriate customers first — and our health care accounts are absolutely at the forefront,” she says.
While much of Acme’s staff works from home, Duerr is its lone onsite office manager. She rises at 5 a.m., checks her emails and drives 30 miles to the job where she works with a staff of four, “an amazing team” brought closer together, Duerr says, despite
Maggie Duerr, director of customer satisfaction for Acme Paper & Supply Co. aggie Duerr helps run a cavernous warehouse in Savage that is chock-full of everything missing from grocery shelves, from hand sanitizer to toilet paper to disinfectant wipes. It’s the Fort Knox of pandemic supplies, a hangar-sized stockpile of goods once considered humdrum but now sought by millions.
And Duerr has charge of their final destination. social distancing.
“There are so many physical things for us to do there,” she says. Like distributing face masks, “probably millions,” since the outbreak began.
“There is one word to describe Maggie’s performance not only through this period but throughout her [25 years] at Acme Paper. That word is exemplary,” says company CEO Ron Attman. “All of us ... are inspired by her commitment to our clients.”
Duerr shrugs off the plaudits. “Dealing with these dynamic changes has been good for me, though I’d never want to go through this again,” she says.
“I am so proud to be in a different form of front line during this pandemic. But above all, we really want business to be back to normal.”
“I call myself the air traffic controller.”