 | | Todd Leasia, director, Office of research safety |
How long have you been at Northwestern University?
Since September,1978. My first job was health physicist, followed by a series of promotions to radiation safety supervisor, assistant radiation safety officer, interim radiation safety officer, and manager of the Chicago office. In 1989 I became director of ORS and Radiation Safety Officer (until 2004). I also served as interim associate vice president for research integrity in 2003 and 2004, and I am the Responsible Official for select agent compliance. Where are you from?
My family roots are in Minnesota but I’ve always called Colorado home. When we moved there in the late ‘50s the air was still clean and Denver smelled like a cow town. We owned horses and I learned how to ski. What is your education background?
A combination of formal education and school of hard knocks. I got my bachelors degree in biological sciences at Colorado State University, then I enlisted in the Army. Some important education took place at Ft. Lewis, Washington, military posts in Texas, and Vietnam. While in Vietnam I was a medic in a small detachment at Bearcat, which was base camp for the Royal Thai Army. I had lots of, well, interesting adventures there. After I got out of the army I drove a truck, travelled, and audited a lot of courses, finally ending up back at Colorado State in the graduate school. They had a top program in environmental radionuclide kinetics and the nuclear power industry was in full swing. For a year I milked cows, scythed alfalfa, fished, shoveled silage, and tried to avoid farm dogs while doing environmental sampling and analysis for the Fort St. Vrain nuclear generating station. After graduate school I interviewed with Los Alamos National Laboratory, Babcock and Wilcox (a nuclear fuel fabricator), and Northwestern. Northwestern clearly offered the most potential. What is your role at the department?
In addition to dealing with all the usual stuff of every department head’s life, I “own” some of the centralized functions such as compliance with the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards and the select agents regulations. I currently am a member of the 4 central safety committees. What’s a typical day like for you?
There is no such thing as a typical day. ORS provides services to 440 PIs and 2,900 workers in 1,200 laboratories plus dozens of non-laboratory workplaces. We are the interface with a dozen federal, state, and local regulatory agencies, and we are subject to inspection by 8 of them. There is always a new regulation, a new deadline, another service to provide, a new management challenge. Our program managers and employees are split evenly between campuses, meaning I take lots of trips on the intercampus shuttle. What do you like/dislike about your job?
The continually evolving variety and challenges have a way of just propelling me forward. We have a real team approach in ORS and sometimes I’m a leader and sometimes I’m just a team member. At one time or another I have performed just about every one of our jobs. The constant challenges related to safety, compliance, and management require creative and critical thinking and interpersonal skills, and it is very satisfying to find solutions that work for our customers. ORS employees are a terrific group and ORS is a congenial workplace; a lot of people want to come and work for us. What are your hobbies or favorite books/movies?
Close to home, my wife, Melissa, and I complement one another’s kitchen skills. I continue to develop the urban shade garden that our backyard has become. We love taking to the woods and fields with our two English Setters, Tucker (age 12) and Skipper (age 6). Birdwatching is a family tradition and last time I looked I had about 170 birds on my very casual list. I fly fish and we’ve had great camping trips to Colorado and Montana. We have a summer place on a beautiful lake in far northern Wisconsin where we fish, swim, explore the woods, and practice north woods arts and crafts. My reading and musical tastes are eclectic. I’m currently reading The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz. I have modest “Victorian naturalist” collections of rocks and minerals, ancient pottery and artifacts, fossils, and other curiosities. Then there are bicycling, physical fitness, photography archery, shooting, astronomy…clearly there isn’t enough time for it all.
|
