Last year, Lennar became one of the first companies outside of the health care industry to hire a chief medical officer. Dr. Pascal Goldschmidt, the former dean of the University of Miami’s medical school, came on as a consultant in March 2020. We talked to Goldschmidt about how he has been helping one of the home building industry’s largest companies and its nearly 9,500 employees during the pandemic.
BUILDER: What inspired you to take on this role?
Goldschmidt: The first six people who died [from COVID-19] in the U.S. were from Seattle, and one of them was a Lennar associate. The leadership was flying there to help the division that had lost a key employee, and they asked me, “Can you come with us?” They wanted somebody with a lot of experience in health care. And I had been through another pandemic. I came from Belgium to San Francisco in 1983, during the AIDS epidemic, when the numbers were going up exponentially. Pretty much everyone who was infected was dying, and I thought, “Oh my God, it’s the end of the world.”
BUILDER: What were some of your first steps?
Goldschmidt: My role was to provide guidance—consultations with each individual that was either experiencing symptoms or had been through an exposure. Early on, in March, we implemented a [daily] questionnaire; every associate had to respond and take their temperature before leaving for work. We rapidly built a sophisticated database of understanding and could tell which market was a hot spot. That was helpful in managing our employees and keeping them safe. The maximum we had was five associates who were infected at the workplace at one particular time. The other thing I do is inform the company: provide numbers on new cases, and help people understand where we are relative to the rest of the United States. I do quite a bit of education as well.
BUILDER: So you’re like Dr. Fauci for Lennar?
Goldschmidt: Tony is a very good friend. He is a national treasure—I would never compare myself to him. But yes, in terms of the role, it was akin to what he was providing nationally.
BUILDER: What were some of the challenges facing the home building industry?
Goldschmidt: Home building was not allowed to lock down, because it is an essential function in the U.S., so we had to maintain activity. We had hand-sanitizing and hand-washing stations everywhere. All the meetings had to be outside, and there were signs reminding everyone to be 6 feet apart. Each jobsite had someone designated to be in charge of safety and make sure that everyone was following the guidelines. We were figuring out how to modify behavior to keep exposure to a minimum. If you are putting a cabinet in a house and it’s heavy, you have to work with someone else—so try to face away from the other person. We explained that you always have to think about saliva particles and how they will fly. If you talk to someone, make sure the wind is coming from the side because then the chance for the saliva particle to go to another person is practically zero.
BUILDER: Is there a role for you at Lennar post-pandemic?
Goldschmidt: I would love the opportunity to talk about how you build your innate immunity. This is the one we have even in the absence of being infected or vaccinated, which is at least as important as acquired immunity in order to prevent infection every day of our lives. You boost it with sleep hygiene, daily exercise, an anti-inflammatory diet, stress management, and avoidance of risky behavior. Lennar has initiated a program, Well-Being Max, and it’s really about these five pillars.
I see home building as an ever-changing business, so it’s important that the workforce is as physically and mentally fit as possible for adaptability. The companies that will be the most successful will be the ones that are the most adaptable.
