Roots That Run Deep
As our clinic’s superintendent, Randy Govantes and the housekeeping staff he supervises are integral to the day-to-day operation of our facilities. He opens up the clinic, shuts it down for the night and sets the stage for every event at every location.
He sees it as the fulfillment of a generations’ long career path—starting with his grandmother and continuing with his parents—of working in hospital settings. “My grandmother, mother and father all worked and retired from Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island,” before it closed in 2013.
The Queens resident recalled feeling as if “it was only a matter of time” before he entered the field. Still, it took some time to find the right fit. “I feel blessed to have found The Floating Hospital.” Previously, he worked for a food delivery program for seniors and also with the Police Athletic League as a mentor and coach for young teens in multiple sports.
Sreeta Quintana, the director of clinic operations, is his supervisor and “the backbone, eyes and ears of the facility. She’s a great leader and the best supervisor to have,” he said. His job responsibilities include overseeing “five great housekeeping employees, working on minor IT issues, and fixing and maintaining our main Long Island City clinic, four offsite clinics and the administrative offices.” But his colleagues say it’s much more, and he says he’s always learning “new trades and skills that benefit me on and off the job.” He also likes the flexibility and problem solving that regularly come into play.
Sometimes, there is even humor. A recent story he shared involved Vice President of Finance Gloria Carney-Jackson and her office mate, Controller Moustafa Ibrahim in our administrative office. Carney-Jackson had asked that her desk be lowered. “I usually work on the admin space when nobody is present, so the next morning I went in and lowed the desk two inches.” A day later, he received a second email stating that the desk was still too high. “I went back and lowed it two more inches. At this point, the chair could barely fit underneath the desk, let alone a body. Two days later, my supervisor gets a call from Ibrahim. He tells her ‘The Floating Hospital doesn't like me, because every time I come in my desk gets lower and lower!’ I didn't know Gloria moved her desk to the opposite side. It must have looked like someone was punishing him.”
“We celebrate, eat, cry and laugh together. The Floating Hospital makes you feel like you’re in a big family.”
In addition to the housekeeping staff, he has “a lot of help and support from the transportation department, who do an excellent job providing a safe and comfortable ride transporting patients and employees to their destinations.” He added that the community outreach program staff, who have a street front office and meeting room at the Long Island City clinic, are also part of his core work family. “They always put smiles on the faces in the community, especially during Candy Cane Lane.”
He finds the clinic as a whole is like a second home. “We celebrate, eat, cry and laugh together. The Floating Hospital makes you feel like you’re in a big family.” He said leaving the old clinic in 2021, when the new facility was completed, was hard at first: “so much blood, sweat and tears in the old space. But it was great to have a fresh start.”
He shares his real home with his wife, three children and two dogs (“can’t forget about the fish,” he noted). He grew up in Flushing, “Home of the Mets” (a fan). His father’s parents were born in Cuba and his mother’s family is from the South. Continuing the family tradition of finding meaningful work in a hospital setting, his son Tai is a patient navigator in our main clinic,
When he has downtime, he likes to relax, but he also enjoys working out, playing video games and going the beach or water parks with his family when the weather is warm.