Customer service is a way of life for Jeff Klubert, the new director of VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital’s Environmental Services Department (EVS). His work life experiences have all held a high degree of customer service.

He has history with retail and food service, but his journey into the medical environment came out of a pair of life-altering experiences.

“My dad was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and was taken care of at Duke,” he said. “Then my son had a craniosynostosis, (an infant’s skull prematurely fuses by turning into bone), which also happened at Duke and once you get a connection like that, you’re drawn into wanting to help.”

So, an eight-year veteran mail carrier and former manager at Walmart took a job with Duke North’s EVS Department as operations manager five years ago. He was most recently the assistant director at Duke North when the opportunity at VCU Health CMH appeared on his radar.

“My whole career has been based on customer service and this is just another example of how everything I did prepared me for this position,” he said.

“While VCU Health CMH is much smaller than Duke, the challenges are the same.  We want these new beautiful buildings to be as clean as possible and we want to strive to always get it right. We (all employees at VCU Health CMH) are a big family. I’m a people person and I want to build the trust of all I come into contact with here,” he added.

Jeff has a big family of his own, six children, five boys and a girl, and he looks at VCU Health CMH as an extension of that family. He’s a native of Pittsburgh, PA, but he calls the Oxford, NC area home now.

“I’m not going anywhere, I’m here for the long run,” he said. “My family is close to here and I want to be involved with them and I have found that the employees in the (EVS) department take pride in their work and look at these buildings like they do their houses. We want to make sure everyone on our team is the most friendly person patients and families come into contact with. We go into a patient’s room to do a service and part of that service is to be friendly.”

Jeff works at VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital, but he actually works for Crothall, the company the hospital contracts with to keep the buildings clean.

Jeff takes pride in being a person who gets things done.

“I want people to know they can call me about an issue and I will make sure that issue gets resolved,” he said. “It may not be my job, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find the person whose job it is and let them know about the issue. We are all here to do things right, I just want to get these buildings as clean as I can and get it right.”

Jeff Klubert, EVS Director