Richard L. Jackson recalls the decision he was weighing as he sat on an airplane traveling from Tri-Cities Airport back to Atlanta.
Jackson, chairman and CEO of Jackson Healthcare, had spent part of his weekend taking a whirlwind tour of an antibiotics factory in Bristol, Tennessee, after being urged to do so by a trustee he knew. When he arrived at the facility, Jackson was greeted by a handful of workers, whom he described as “salt of the earth, hard-working and very passionate about what they do and how they save lives.”
The previous company had walked away from the facility after filing for bankruptcy, leaving a group of dedicated employees to wrap things up and maintain the plant in hopes somebody would come in and save it. They wrapped machines in plastic and made sure everything was sealed. They constantly monitored samples that needed to be tested for stability and made sure the air conditioning and electricity were on.
Those things were important since the facility needed to be kept at an appropriate level of temperature and humidity in order to remain in compliance. What is more amazing is the workers stayed the course even though they knew they’d be doing so without being paid for several weeks of work.
The reason they did so is simple. They knew that if the plant fell out of compliance, the odds of it ever restarting production would grow much longer. In short, they were the last line of defense between us and a world where the United States would not have the capability of producing its own antibiotics.