Working from home, Rochester man coordinates mammoth vaccine effort

FEMA Region One Defense Coordinating Officer Col. David A. Yasenchock, left, with two of his colleagues and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. (Courtesy photo)

ROCHESTER - A national survey published in The Rochester Voice on Monday found that New Hampshire is the 4^th best state to work from home.

The jobs done so remotely are many and varied, and believe it or not, actually include a Rochester man who is a National Guard colonel serving as the Defense Coordinating Officer in charge of managing the disbursal of all FEMA funds for COVID-19 vaccinations at venues throughout New England.

FEMA Region One Defense Coordinating Officer Col. David A. Yasenchock was first mobilized last spring as part of the Department of Defense support effort to assist with the setup and operation of four DOD Urban Area Medical Treatment Facilities in the New England area, to support critically ill patients suffering from the COVID-19.

Col. David A. Yasenchock

His current assignment is as the DOD Defense Coordination Officer who works with FEMA Region One, which covers all of New England as they coordinate disbursal of money to fund the mammoth vaccination effort.

The New England center for FEMA Region One is in Massachusetts, but Yasenchock said he does the bulk of his work from his Rochester home, using sophisticated online and satellite capability to process orders and disburse funding to various federal agencies like the National Guard.

"I work to determine venues and work with the states to coordinate their use of the National Guard and make sure everyone gets paid," he said.

He also has direct oversight of some New England mega sites for vaccinations like the Hynes Convention Center in Boston's Back Bay, where he said they have vaccinated some 77,049 people since March 31.

He said 220 Navy personnel are on the frontlines at the Hynes processing intake and inoculations.

In New Hampshire he said about 700 National Guardsmen are doing the job at mega sites like New England Speedway in Loudon.

He said there are some 2,000 National Guard members deployed throughout New England working at multiple tiered venues from mega sites like the Hynes and New England Speedway to mobile vaccination units deployed in rural Maine.

Yasenchock describes his job as someone who "connects the dots between DOD, FEMA and the National Guard."

"I make sure working assignments are being coordinated properly so that FEMA can disburse funds as necessary to various federal agencies throughout New England," he said.

Yasenchock first moved to Rochester in 1995 to work for former networking computer equipment giant Cabletron.

After Cabletron went out of business, he worked for Rochester Schools for 23 years as their IT administrator.

Now he works as the Director of Information Technology at Great Bay Community College, while also serving as an adjunct professor of Cyber security at the University of Southern Maine.

His wife, Colleen, formerly worked for Rochester Schools, too, and his daughter, Amanda, a Spaulding High graduate, works as a librarian at the Maple Magnet School.

Col. Yasenchock has more than 33 years of service in the military with a deployment to Iraq as an adviser to the Iraqi military and a deployment to Afghanistan as commander of a logistics unit. In addition he was a DOD liaison officer during the Boston Marathon Bombings in 2013 and supported recovery operations in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria.