The last time the Spy talked to Lisa Harrington was when the Oxford Community Center had just opened an art exhibition of her father Norman’s WW II photography some years ago. While Norman had become highly regarded on the Mid-Shore as the thoughtful and groundbreaking editor of the Star-Democrat for decades, very few realized, until well after his death, the extraordinary images he took as the United States Army began occupying Germany in 1945.
Perhaps as a result of this remarkable story, whatever Lisa might have said about her own professional life was not retained. And so when the OCC announced that Lisa Harrington would be part of the community center’s “Trailblazer” series of speakers this month, we had an instinctive impulse to talk to her again.
And it was in this interview that the Spy learned how much Lisa has indeed been a trailblazer. After a false start in newspaper journalism after she earned her degree from Brown University, Lisa found herself as one of the very few women at the time in the male-dominated field of supply chain economics.
More often than not, Lisa would attend trade conventions where she realized that she was the only woman in the room of the six hundred attendees. But in due time, Harrington would push past the obvious glass ceiling that existed to become a leading expert, author, professor, and sought out authority on all things related to delivery goods to markets, including working with the U.S. Agency for International Development these days COVID-19 vaccines.
Given all she’s accomplished, it might be surprising to hear her reason that she reached this significant point in her career.
This video is approximately four minutes in length. To join Lisa Harrington’s Oxford Community Center presentation of March 25, please go here to sign up.
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