Audrey Lawrence, MPH, serves as the Director of Safety, Health, and Wellness at the San Francisco International Airport, where she has worked for 30+ years.
Become an Ergonomist:
Paige Callaghan, BMSc, discusses the field of occupational safety, health, and wellness with Audrey Lawrence, MPH.
Return to 'Do the Change: Reimagining OEHS'
About Audrey Lawrence, MPH
Audrey Lawrence, MPH, serves as the Director of Safety, Health, and Wellness at the San Francisco International Airport, where she has worked for 30+ years. She manages comprehensive occupational health, industrial hygiene, and wellness programs for more than 1,500 employees at the airport, including the workers compensation program and return to work.
She graduated from the Industrial Hygiene Program at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health as a NIOSH Trainee in 1991.
Audio Transcript
Paige Callaghan: So good afternoon, everyone and welcome back to our show "So you want to work in Occupational Health!" Today in our day in the life series I am very excited to welcome Audrey Lawrence the Director of Safety, Health and Wellness at San Francisco International Airport. Audrey I'm so excited as I'm sure our listeners are as well to learn more about your role and how it came to be. We are all about increasing awareness of cool jobs in the industry and yours certainly makes the top of the list welcome Audrey to this episode on “,So you want to be a health and safety pro." Thank you so much for joining us and how are you today?
Audrey Lawrence: I'm good, thank you so much for inviting me. It's really a pleasure to talk to you and your listeners.
Paige Callaghan: Yes awesome, well we will get right into it so to start could you tell me a little bit about how you came into your role as director of safety health and wellness at SFO?
Audrey Lawrence: Sure well to be honest I started at the bottom, as I'm sure most people should start because that's how you learn everything but I literally graduated from School Public Health and went to a job fair at the Student Center within that week and you know I thought for sure I was going to work for Cal/OSHA that's where I did my internship during the summer but someone talked to me from the City and County of San Francisco and I filled out an application and I haven't looked back since. I've really enjoyed my time here working for the City and County of San Francisco and the airport is part of that that organization so that's how I ended up here.
Paige Callaghan: Well and that's amazing and I know that you did your MPH at Cal so it's great to chat with an alumni of the program. So other than that, the career fair that helped you find your way into working with the City and County of San Francisco in what other ways would you say that your MPH helped kind of inspire you to take this role or was it truly just for the moment and this was not something on your career radar at all beforehand?
Audrey Lawrence: A little bit of both I actually started Public Health with environmental science emphasis that's what I was going to study but I had my all my classes were with all these industrial hygiene students and at the time the NIOSHNIOSH, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, had a training grant to attract people to the profession and so they all went off to get their stipend and I was like hmm I think I should be part of that group I'm taking all the same classes and I really like hanging out with these folks and studying with them so I switched majors actually and that was my first foray into occupational health and safety I really envisioned myself working for the CDC and doing International work which I'm sure would have been fine as well but by happenstance I ended up in industrial hygiene and that was my the start of my safety and health education
Paige Callaghan: Awesome well that's super exciting and I mean that's what this show is all about, we when we think Public Health I think a lot of people think CDC especially after the Covid-19 pandemic and just how much they are in the they're in the news but there are still so many other exciting jobs so like the one that you found. So, I can imagine that Comprehensive Health and Wellness at SFO covers a lot of ground and so could you tell me a little bit about your experience in managing such diverse needs across different roles at the airport?
Audrey Lawrence: Sure it is challenging the work the people the airport. It's true I don't know if you've heard this before but the airport's like a little city it's got office staff, it's got maintenance folks, all the trades you can think of. We have 400 custodians, we have a certified Museum and Museum staff here and artwork, we have a treatment plant, so we have a it's a comprehensive health and safety program, we do Ergo, we do fall protection. confined spaces, uh you know every health and safety Hazmat asbestos silica. We monitor for all those industrial exposures along with of course being at the airport and having noise exposures, so we have a very comprehensive hearing conservation program, respiratory Protection Program. All I can say is it's always exciting no day is the same. Everything changes. We've got construction going on here constantly, so we get to help through the design process, we get to help with the maintenance part of it uh we get to see a lot of projects through full circle which I personally enjoy
Paige Callaghan: Yeah, I definitely I think I would enjoy that too especially being able to see that full circle but for so many different things I can imagine how that keeps you on your toes and keeps you busy. I’m curious if you could tell us a little bit more about the comprehensive noise safety? When I was think when I first learned I was going to be able to interview you when I think health and safety at the airport I think noise and back problems from loading all of the luggage so I'm I mean there's so many more than that so I'm wondering if you could tell me about the programs you have in place and which other key occupational health programs you’d like to share with us.
Audrey Lawrence: So noise is just one of many and to be honest we actually don't do the luggage that belongs to the airlines or they sometimes they parcel that out to other companies to come out and do that type of work so and I do know that within those fields it's very arduous they oftentimes the employees don't get the requisite training that they need and support so I'm glad that I don't have to do with that but we do have some influence with those folks and we do help them whenever we can especially when it comes to designing things at the airport to make that a lot easier for folks and take the burden off of the workers to do all of those heavy projects yeah no we have so many different programs.
As I mentioned before like once some of my pet projects are just working with the museum staff which I don't know if you know about much about museums but they do welding, they do painting, they do braising, they do every occupation that you would see in a you know a multi-use shop uh just within that small group so their exposures are very interesting they often get exhibits from other countries some of them have been fumigated with lots of pesticides you have to figure out what they are what their exposures are, so PPE and training that they need to handle those exhibits so that's just one interesting aspect of the work and then we've got the more traditional ones we've got a fleet services that work on hundreds of different types of not just vehicles but everything from lawn mowers to the fire departments their big rig trucks and the fire boats for doing planning exercises we work closely with all the Departments here at the airport.
And what most folks don't realize is that safety is actually replicated in many different departments here at the airport I'm just over the occupational health and safety but we have passenger safety, we have public safety, we have a police department, a fire department, we have Airfield safety, we have Safety and Security so we all work together very closely we're all in sort of the same umbrella of what we do here at the airport so I talked to my co-workers all the time and mostly it's collaboration just to make sure everything's covered and that we all understand and respect what everyone's different roles are here at the airport
Paige Callaghan: Yeah that's awesome and I mean you mentioned that the airport feels like a small City and I after that description think it would be a bigger city than where I'm from so it's quite it's quite impressive that the just the collaboration that goes on across so many different fields as you mentioned. So, within that though I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your day-to-day tasks as the Director?
Audrey Lawrence: So day to day like any manager probably get hundreds of emails every day so I start my day just sort of organizing that with a big cup of coffee and prioritize the work of my staff uh really my job as a manager is to make everybody else excel in what they're doing so that's my focus is okay everyone's doing these jobs how do I help them excel so that it reflects really well on our department. Yeah, that's a big part of my day and whatever time I have left over I have my own personal pet projects that I'm working on uh.
The airport recently developed a Racial Equity Program or plan so I'm part of that group and trying to promote racial equity and just having people even understand what that means. We also have employee resource groups here at the airport and I'm one of the leadership folks for the BIPOC group that's the Black and Indigenous people of color group uh and then my other Pet Project is the NIOSH total worker health been working hard on trying to convince uh management staff here how important it is to have all those components working together to provide a comprehensive health and safety program that goes well beyond the definition of what we think of as sort of conventional health and safety
Paige Callaghan: Yeah I love that that's I mean it sounds like every day is very busy and full of exciting new things, but one thing that you mentioned I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the racial Equity program that you were you're working on at SFO.in the field of occupational health and safety professionals we're working to create a healthier more inclusive and equitable workforce and I'm wondering if you could share some strategies that you've employed or have seen successful at the airport and any other recommendations you can have.
Audrey Lawrence: Yeah there are definitely some small initiatives and then there's some quite large very expansive initiatives within our racial Equity plan. The plan itself is over 100 pages long so it does delve into many aspects of providing racial equity throughout the entire airport campus um. My part in it is just you know my little, small part that I can do and that is one of the things I'm looking at is just making sure that PPE is fairly distributed throughout the airport. So oftentimes people who work the night schedule, so the swing and the night shift folks, don't have the access to the same tools and equipment and education that people on the day shift have so just trying to flip the switch on that one and provide you know satellite computer centers and training and lockers where people can just put in a code like an Amazon Locker and get the PPE that they need so you know even something that small can provide a lot of equity and a lot of yeah goodwill and trust is really what you're building with all of this. And then in terms of bringing more people into the fold I think the answer to that is all around us you can just take motivated people performing difficult and dangerous jobs and train them to be safety professionals I know that sounds a little bit simplistic but they're the ones who understand what all those hazards are. They've been in the trenches, they've done the jobs, and there are you know certainly more than a few folks who are motivated to leave those jobs because they know that they'll come out of them broken you can't do physical labor for 40 years and not come out with a number of type of just injuries that will affect you for the rest of your life so at any rate I'm really working hard with our HR folks to see if we can lower some of the you know some of the educational requirements for the minimum qual- and I know I'm shooting myself in the foot for the Masters in Public Health but uh it's not always necessary to have a master's degree you know I think that they should place as much emphasis on the job training as well as conventional education so certainly looking at that trying to reduce the level of formal education that's required and maximize uh emphasis on the job training.
Paige Callaghan: That's amazing that's really incredible work that you're doing and though I am in the Masters of Public Health program I recognize that historically and currently today it's a largely inaccessible program to many marginalized groups as is higher education as a whole and so I think to be able to reduce those barriers so individuals can get a very rewarding and important job that they are well trained on is so important and really a tangible way to help increase equity in the campus that you work on so that that's just amazing thank you so much for sharing that. I'm wondering now if you could tell me one thing that surprised you since starting your job, and it can be in a good or bad way what is one thing that you really didn't expect when you joined SFO as the Director of Health and Safety?
Audrey Lawrence: So again I joined as just a lowly industrial hygiene intern you know in intro, so I worked my way up to this position so the surprises have been less and less but the thing that always amazes me honestly is just how interesting this job is and there are times when it's very stressful I won't minimize that but mostly you just feel like the good guy you're helping others return home safely every day and they're appreciative and you just go home with a lot of good feelings that hey today I think I convinced someone to you know look at their health you know not wear their respirator correctly put in I got them the well-fitted earplugs I did some training you make an impact every day.
Paige Callaghan: Yeah I love that that's definitely that's so true and I think that will inspire a lot of our listeners and our viewers to can maybe consider it because I think you know public health is definitely there's so many different options but one that you can feel good and really have an impact and is one that a lot of us are searching for both in public health and people that are coming from other backgrounds. So I'm wondering now if you could share three pieces of advice that you would give to someone who's maybe considering this role or just for an industrial hygiene role or a director role but three pieces of advice that you think are useful to help thrive in a role such as yourself.
Audrey Lawrence: So I think that if you're interested you really don't know anything about it shadow someone in the profession I feel like people everyone inside health and safety to me tend to be ambassadors for the profession they're happy to talk about it and share their experiences so shadow someone schedule a 30-minute informational interview with someone, be an intern you know if you cannot afford to do it uh interns come in all ages so and all most businesses especially within the City and County we all have internships that go throughout the year for people in any stage of their career in life you know I that would be my three pieces of advice. I spend a lot of time talking to high school students, I have interns all the time, I have mentees talking about and just talking at the profession and letting people know okay you studied human factors, did you know you could take that and move it into an ergonomic type of profession and here are all the different places here even at the airport where you could be an ergonomist there's so many examples
Paige Callaghan: Yeah, and those are great examples and most of those are ones that I haven't even thought of so I again it's this is this has been so informative. So, within your job this is kind of a curveball question it was not on the list but within your job that is so diverse you're working on so many different things I want to know something that stays consistent throughout. So when in your morning email read through what is your go-to coffee order at Starbucks
Audrey Lawrence: Oh okay so I don't do this every day but my special treat is a dirty chai, so a chai latte with a shot of espresso.
Paige Callaghan: That is a good choice that is that is definitely a good thing to good thing to start your day off. awesome well that is all of the questions that I had for you and just again thank you for taking the time to meet with me and to share some of your work and what you do and I'm so grateful for you to be here especially for our listeners and our viewers to learn a little bit more about the industry and hopefully after this they will be uh more interested in looking at a role in the field
Audrey Lawrence: Well they're welcome to give me a call come over and shadow ask questions I'm I almost always say yes and uh again thank you for setting up this interview and putting it out there for folks to hear or listen to or watch again I'm a great or I just I really enjoy the profession I've really enjoyed my time in it so thank you
Paige Callaghan: Yeah thank you and to our listeners tune in next time to hear from other industry experts giving you the inside scoop on their roles tips and tricks to navigate the industry and so much more get the info right here on "So you want to work in occupational health and so much more." Thank you so much to Audrey and we'll see all of our listeners again next time!