![](\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/LlKq_LJ-Pv-x9g5mBXFRBpKHMrDl9L0rwQXfh8tn43c7DBJg0GJyc9YFLai6f9Dk1Q-BpTdULNYEPGnI15rpIdjfdXq7ZdwuH5ihn-u-w0Cc1_lPVfwbtPIRU9e5s5V2IdyBUIM5\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nThroughout his professional life, Matt Evans has found significance in a particular quote: \u201cPeople make a business. Not chickens, not numbers, not anything else. People make a business.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The words are those of the late Don Tyson, former CEO of Tyson Foods, America\u2019s largest meat producer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Evans, 44, works as the complex manager at Tyson\u2019s Berry Street poultry facility in Springdale, Arkansas. As meat plant workers continue their labor to feed Americans while the rest of the country presses pause, Don Tyson\u2019s quote rings truer than ever to him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe spend all our time really taking care of our team members,\u201d Evans said in a recent interview with the Fieldston News. \u201cWe value our team members and that\u2019s where we spend our time. We know that if we help them understand that we care about them \u2026 our company wins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since much of the United States went into a coronavirus lockdown in mid-to-late March, threatening the economy along with it, essential workers have kept the wheels of society moving. These include health care workers, first responders, grocery workers, postal workers and many others. Meat plant workers have also fallen under this umbrella, with President Donald Trump invoking the Defense Production Act in late April to include meat processing plants in the nation\u2019s critical infrastructure. After all, meat plant workers provide much of the country\u2019s protein supply \u2013\u2013 Tyson alone accounts for more than 20 percent of all the beef, pork and poultry Americans eat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s been the job of people like Evans to keep that food supply coming. This hasn\u2019t been an easy task by any means. Meat processing has become one of the industries hit hardest by the virus. Employees in these facilities often work in close proximity with one another, and several meat processing plants have had to close temporarily for deep cleaning due to high rates of infection among workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tyson is testing all of its employees at Berry Street and other locations in northwest Arkansas for the coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company announced that of the 1,102 team members who work at Evans\u2019 sites, 199 tested positive, but only one showed symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tyson has heavily modified the workplace to combat the spread of the virus. At Berry Street, safety measures have been taken in nearly all areas of work. Temperatures are taken as employees enter the facility at the start of every shift, face masks and in some cases visors are required, and dividers have been installed in break rooms and on production lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/UydM1oRhOFWzoNVklxm0WAulNe3pwLSjcE7jLhhh-5iinZQ7zV6O6hlUxoz9Bz9jCa1rhgZzXill5aia2KjfGf5qtd603H0hv1Yi5k8ZUgMmRsmk-bJ6wpMPZkcN-cQKszqscYna\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve worked with safety around mechanical issues and things like that, and a lot of that is very visual,\u201d Evans said. \u201cSo now, we\u2019re having to tackle a virus that\u2019s not. And we\u2019ve spent an enormous amount of time as a company trying to be extremely proactive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe changed our attendance program where workers weren\u2019t penalized if they had to stay home \u2026 if they weren\u2019t feeling well, Covid or not, we\u2019re going to pay them.\u201d Evans said. \u201cWhen this all started, a lot of our team members said, \u2018Hey, it\u2019d be nice to have masks,\u2019 and masks weren\u2019t necessarily available. So a lot of our locations went out and hired small businesses in our areas to make cloth masks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Evans certainly never imagined he\u2019d be thinking about facemasks or plastic dividers at Tyson when he joined the company as an intern, 21 years ago. He\u2019s held many titles in his journey to being a complex manager. As an assistant plant manager, a corporate role as an operations specialist, a subject matter expert, and plant manager, Evans has been a valuable and versatile employee for Tyson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His favorite part of his career? Seeing and helping those around him thrive. \u201cIt is a lot of fun coaching and teaching and watching our team members grow,\u201d he said in his distinctive Arkansas lilt. \u201cBoth at work and in their personal life.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although many people in the country have opted to stay at home in these turbulent times, Evans is working as hard as ever. \u201cI get here very early in the morning and stay late to make sure I\u2019m available,\u201d he said. \u201c90 percent of my day for the last three months has been making sure that what we\u2019re doing around safety is working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for Evans, work-life shows no signs of changing any time soon. In fact, what seemed like an emergency scenario a few short weeks ago has become the new normal. \u201cFrom where I\u2019m sitting, I think that the safety measures we\u2019ve put in place will be around for a while,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Images courtesy of Tyson Foods<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Throughout his professional life, Matt Evans has found significance in a particular quote: \u201cPeople make a business. Not chickens, not numbers, not anything else. People make a business.\u201d\u00a0 The words are those of the late Don Tyson, former CEO of Tyson Foods, America\u2019s largest meat producer. Evans, 44, works as the complex manager at Tyson\u2019s Berry Street poultry facility in Springdale, Arkansas. As meat plant workers continue their labor to feed Americans while the rest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[318,58],"tags":[],"coauthors":[373],"class_list":["post-4753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-slider"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4754,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4753\/revisions\/4754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4753"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}