As a former CVS executive, I took great pleasure in reading about Katie Pouliot, pharmacy manager of CVS Store 212 in Cranston, R.I. Pouliot received the 2022 Paragon Award from CVS Health. The annual Paragon Awards recognize the best of the best among CVS Health’s colleagues and are among the highest honors awarded by the company.

Katie Pouliot

With the dramatic expansion of pharmacy’s role since the pandemic began, Pouliot has been instrumental in her role in moving CVS Pharmacy to a new level of growth and well-being.

It is heartwarming for me to realize that the store that Pouliot is managing in pharmacy is a store that I opened around the year 1975. It was the first CVS freestanding pharmacy in the country. My role in joining CVS at the time was to move the chain into the format of drug stores. And in this first freestanding store, it offered products and services that none of the other stores had up to that time.

This store was the No. 1 store at CVS at the time, and it appears it has remained high on the list. It is very exciting for me to congratulate Pouliot for receiving the Paragon Award. I wish her much continued success, and I look forward to seeing more innovative and new things from CVS pharmacy.

Bob Kwait is chairman of Kwait & Associates/Bob Kwait Consulting Group.