Lookin’ at U – Leslee Paquette

Each Thursday, we meet a medical center employee. This week, we learn more about:

Leslee Paquette

• Name: Leslee Paquette
• Hometown: Omaha
• Number of years at UNMC: One-and-a-half years

Tell us about what you do here at UNMC.
As part of an 11-person communications department, I answer phone calls from anyone on campus needing assistance. It may involve something simple, like unlocking an office door, or complex, life-threatening medical emergencies. Depending on the request, I dispatch security officers wherever they are needed.

Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, communications monitors alarms in all buildings, including fire, temperature, freezer, intrusion and panic alarms. Pages such as NICU, stat intubation, trauma, and stroke also originate from communications.

If your vehicle needs a jump start while parked on campus, or your car is in valet after hours, you’ve probably already contacted communications. A visit to security dispatch can be overwhelming, hearing multiple phones ringing, as well as buzzers, beeps, and sirens each indicating an alarm needing attention.

Communications also is responsible for notifying the campus of severe weather or threats, such as tornado warnings, by way of a scrolling message across computer screens and a public address announcement.

Working together is one of UNMC’s brand values. Tell us of a time you witnessed a person or group act work together at UNMC.
Security dispatch cannot function without working as a team 24 hours a day. Each eight-hour shift, there are two or three dispatchers acting in tandem to contact officers in the field as well as answer phones quickly and respond to alarms, making necessary notifications, alerting maintenance or calling 911.

Periodic emergency drills throughout campus help maintain a heightened level of readiness should the worse happen. Each of us knows our individual roles, and we cooperate to make sure staff, patients, students, and guests are as safe as possible.

What is your favorite winter activity?
Oil painting and crafting. I have a room in my home dedicated to sewing, drawing, and scrapbooking where I watch the snow falling outside and enjoy the warmth inside.

List three things people may not know about you.

• I was raised as an Air Force brat, living all over the country.
• I graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle with a BFA in graphic design.
• I am a collector of antique glass milk bottles — I have approximately 250 in my collection, one dating to 1910!