On the eve of his retirement, Earle Lawrence, Project Director for K4Health, reflects on a career that spanned 40 years, dozens of countries and scores of projects.
Q: Describe the arc of your career.
A: I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to be part of the public service for my entire career. I started in the Peace Corps over four decades ago as an Agricultural Instructor in Paraguay where I taught at a rural technical school. After working for a couple of years in India as an Information Officer at ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics), I joined USAID where I spent almost three decades. I served as Deputy Division Chief in the Office of Population and then moved overseas, working as Deputy Director of the Office of Health in Bolivia, Director of the Health Results Team in Nicaragua, and finally Director of the Office of Social Sector Restructuring in Russia. From USAID, I moved to Chemonics International where I served as a Senior Manager in their Office of International Health, and finally to JHU∙CCP where I have had the opportunity to work as the Director of the Information for Health (INFO) and the Knowledge for Health (K4Health) projects.
Q: As you look back at your many varied experiences, what highlights stand out?
A: I studied communication in graduate school and I’ve always tried to work in this field. My association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was especially exciting for me as I served as the CTO (Cognizant Technical Officer) for CCP when I worked in USAID’s Office of Population many years ago and so I have had the chance to see the development of an established, scientific approach to communication.
In addition, my work in Nicaragua, Bolivia and Russia assisted in the achievement of some very impressive public health accomplishments. I served in Nicaragua during Hurricane Mitch which was stressful and challenging, though as a result we were given an additional $30 million to run our health program. We were able to double our efforts, launch a water supply and sanitation project and thereby have a huge impact on child survival. We cut infant mortality rates by half! And in Bolivia, over a six-year period we managed to double contraceptive prevalence. In Russia, we worked to match the health program goals to the country’s disease burden and created the Healthy Russia Foundation.
Q: How has the field of health communications evolved over the course of your career?
A: The biggest change I have seen is in communications technology; it has changed the way we think about program design. Technology offers tremendous opportunities to reach isolated people and has increased our capacity to scale up interpersonal and community-level communication and improve the effectiveness and sustainability of our mass media campaigns.
Q: Do you have any advice to offer to newcomers?
A: I feel that every new cohort of development specialists comes with so many skills and greater knowledge than us old-timers had at the beginning. I have always tried to embrace new professionals and I hope that others create opportunities for young professionals.
Q: What are your plans for retirement?
A: I am looking forward to spending time at my beach house in Costa Rica! Yes, it does have internet access but I will appreciate the chance to be off the grid for a while. I have had a wonderful career and it is time to move on.
