After Hurricane Ida, Boutte’s Shawnya Williams was looking for a change in her career path. What she came up with adds up to the town’s newest business.
Last week, Williams celebrated the grand opening of Accuity5 Solutions, located at 13128 Hwy 90 Unit 1 in Boutte. Accuity5 Solutions provides DOT/Non-DOT drug screening, rapid drug screening, breath alcohol testing, paternity DNA testing and gender reveals.
For Williams, Accuity5 Solutions is the result of her brainstorming ways to mesh the skills she’s gained throughout her different occupations over the years, including many years spent in the medical field since her young adulthood. She’s worked as a phlebotomist and courier for Quest Diagnostics among her jobs in the field. She is additionally no stranger to running a business, overseeing a Jani-King franchise years ago.
“I’ve worked in the medical field for some time and I’ve always enjoyed the work,” Williams said. “I’ve always kind of stayed in that realm, and I’m also kind of familiar with being an independent contractor. That’s something I like and that’s worked for me. So, after the storm, I had to ask myself what I was going to do, since I knew I didn’t want to drive for a living anymore.”
She began to put the pieces together.
“What is my background? What do I want and who am I?” Williams said. “And I determined I need to be out there working on my own. So, if I put all of my skills together, what might that look like and how does that work?”
She started her research and began forming the partnerships she needed to in order to turn her vision into a reality. Williams felt it was important that she be able to make key decisions herself, and did not want to go the franchise route.
“A lot of the time, I’d be going to people’s homes for my work, and that’s where they’re more comfortable,” Williams said. “More than going into a lab. I want to make it comfortable for people to come in and I want to bring that same energy I did when I was on the road, so that when someone does come into the lab it’s a positive experience.
“I didn’t want to run a franchise … I want to be able to adjust things and work with people to find what works for them, be able to set those things myself for people and make them comfortable. I like working in health care, I love my patients and have a passion for it. So, this is very exciting.”
And the opening was an exciting day as well.
“That morning I felt like, ‘Oh my gosh it’s here,’” Williams said. “You remind yourself, ‘Well here we are, no backing out now!’ I had plenty of butterflies. It was pretty cool … that was my first time experiencing something like that.”
Accuity5 Solutions is open Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The lab breaks for lunch from 11 a.m. to noon. Sunday visits can be made by appointment. All results are confidential. Appointments may be scheduled through accuity5solutions.com or by calling (985) 331-5071.
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