I've worked in a number of roles where I've been responsible for inventory management. More recently my focus has been in supply chain management and contract management. For a number of years, I worked at Windham Hospital in several capacities, most recently in materials management, where first I was responsible for the perioperative areas, and then more recently based on my success in the surgical suite, I was promoted to Director of Materials Management. I did a great deal of work there, from contracting and policy-writing to better organizing and making more user-friendly the supplies available on the nursing units, to organizing and creating a better approach to managing and tracking print jobs, to managing to completion numerous assorted major projects, all in addition to saving my hospital quite a bit of money.
The hospital entered a larger healthcare system and we managers there worked ourselves out of jobs, converting everything to the system's way of doing things and undermining most of the "good work" we had done during our tenure, some of us seeing the writing on the wall as we did so. Others were not so prepared. I was unemployed for a period of time during the "great recession" like a lot of other folks.
Now I am working in the municipal world as a buyer for the City of Hartford. The role itself is certainly less challenging, as my responsibilities are fewer and smaller in scope, but the work is enjoyable and the environment is supportive and empowering.