Meet Sandy Lawrence, GGWash’s newest team member

Hello everyone! I’m Sandy Lawrence, and I’m so proud to join Greater Greater Washington as Operations and Administration Manager.

People often ask me: what does an Operations and Administration Manager do? I tell them, “Oh a little bit of everything – finance, HR, IT, facilities, compliance,” and as their eyes start to glaze over, I shift over to why I do it. “I get to help a really fantastic organization achieve its mission more effectively and efficiently.”

I am so happy to be doing this at GGWash for a variety of reasons, but perhaps the most compelling for me is that I get to work in both the fields I have been so passionate (and nerdy) about throughout my life.

There’s a favorite question that adults like to ask kids: what do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I didn’t know what I was passionate about until I was 23. Or, at least, that was the first time I figured out the answer to that question. Since then, I’ve figured out the answer at least one other time in my life. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if I have another five answers later on in life.)

At 23, I was having a conversation with one of my high school friends about how bleak our hometown was after a base realignment and seemingly only Woodstock 99 as its claim to fame (can you guess the place?). I love my hometown and the people and my friends who are still there, so I won’t dwell on the challenges. If you think of any ‘80s movie where the teenagers were bored and hanging out in parking lots or malls, you’ll get the idea.

After some mutual lamenting, my friend asked me, “Wait, have you ever considered urban planning?” My response in the moment was, “Huh?” but just two years later I had my masters in urban planning.

The second time I “figured it out” was after working at a few different organizations and companies, looking around and thinking, “Oh, I could help cities and towns with form and structure, and have this far-off tangible reward of helping people and communities, or I could help the organizations where I work with their form and systems, so that my colleagues could be more effective at their jobs, and everyone is able to have a much more immediate impact in their work!”

I was fortunate enough to be able to test this theory at an environmental nonprofit organization, and I was right. I loved it. I was a little sad to be moving away from urban planning, but the fight for sustainability and fight against climate change was (and is!) important enough for me to spend the next 15 or so years honing my skills and expertise in maintaining, improving, and building nonprofits.

Meanwhile, during those 15-ish years, I fell in love with DC and my neighborhood. Every day my kids, husband, and I bike or walk to work or school. We also bike, walk, or take transit to run errands, and while we’re on those small-scale errand runs, we run into friends and neighbors, find an alleyway we haven’t seen before, stop by a park to get some excess kid energy out, or get a little treat to satisfy some hangry kiddos (and adults). Then there are the day outings that take us, still by foot, bike, or transit, to more urban activities and events (museums, movies, parades), as well as more “natural” places – a favorite being Kingman Island – and all still within the Washington region. I didn’t have access to this culture, diversity, urban, and rural fabric when I was growing up, and I know that my family is so lucky and privileged to have so much opportunity just at our front door, living where we do.

And at some point during those 15 years, a friend, who I need to thank again, said to me, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you ended up doing operations at an urban planning outfit someday?” Guess what, friend – it is pretty cool. And I get to help the region I call home, to boot.