Welcome to the Pioneers in Health podcast. In this podcast, we share inspiring stories of pioneering leaders from our nation and from your backyard who are working to improve health.
In episode 21, we interview Julie Lorenz, principal consultant at 1898 & Co., the business and technology consulting arm of Burns & McDonnell. Burns & McDonnell provides solutions in architectural design, all engineering disciplines, project management and consulting. Julie is known as a national leader in policy development, collaboration and implementing vision initiatives. She also served as Kansas Department of Transportation secretary for four years before joining 1898 & Co.
In this episode, Julie discusses what led to her pursuing a career path in public service and transportation. She also shares an early lesson that set the stage for a lifetime of looking for solutions when challenges arise.
She discusses the role transportation plays in health. Transportation plays a significant role in the ability to transport medical supplies, for emergency vehicles to serve residents, and the ability for people to use bike trails and walking paths, which provide both physical and mental health benefits.
She also discussed how KDOT focuses a lot of effort on ensuring roads are safe for travelers so that they can continue living healthy lives.
Julie shares her experiences working in both the private and public sectors, and how her approach to problem solving has been beneficial in both.
While working for the state, they developed a process to better involve communities in decision making about transportation in their communities. They traveled the state listening to what needs communities voiced, as well as shared the needs of other communities. That process created more collaboration and understanding between communities to prioritize what would be best for a region or area — instead of everyone’s immediate individual requests.
This approach of collaboration to find solutions to challenges has carried with her throughout her career — both in the public and private sectors.
“It’s hard to solve problems if people don’t have a shared understanding of what the problem is, and they don’t understand their stake in the problem — and in the solution,” Julie said.
In this episode, she also discusses:
- Legislative and state successes that have helped improve health, such as investments in broadband
- Challenges the state faces with access to and storage of water
- Her approach to problem solving
- How the public and private sector can work together to plan for the future
- The importance of using data in addition to empathy to help fuel conversations on issues
- Kansas’ changing demographics and planning ahead for the future of the state’s service and infrastructure needs
And much more! Listen now, and learn more about how Julie is an innovative leader helping improve the health of Kansans.
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