Lisa Brown is managing a crisis.
It involves thousands of people, lots of uncertainty and justifiable fear.
As New Hanover County’s public health preparedness coordinator, Brown, 43, develops preparedness plans to respond to and recover from incidents that may put the region’s residents at risk.
Front and center on her desk now for months has been, unequivocally, the COVID-19, or novel coronavirus, plan.
As of May 4, New Hanover County had 91 positive cases of the novel coronavirus in the county, with three deaths attributed to the virus, according to the county’s coronavirus information web page.
“Overall, we are in a good place in New Hanover County,” says the Missouri native. “I began monitoring what was then called the novel coronavirus upon it first being identified in China in December.
“Our public health epidemiology team began monitoring in January, and then we began our countywide, multi-agency response in February.”
Over the phone, Brown is affable, almost neighborly, with a voice that rings of advocacy. No surprise considering Brown practiced law before making the move to municipal service.
“I am drawn to doing work I feel is meaningful and can help improve my little corner of the world,” she said.
Brown’s world back in Missouri showed her a lot about people and life, she said, especially against the backdrop of family.
“Both my maternal grandparents had cerebral palsy,” said Brown. “It taught me a lot about putting myself in other people’s shoes.”
And also about attitude in the face of adversity.
“My grandmother, who just celebrated her 90th birthday, is the happiest person I know,” she said.
Brown’s leap from law to public service included various positions in health and human services along the way, until she, her husband and two school-aged children decided to leave the Show-Me state, trading a “landlocked” existence for one filled with sun, surf and sand.
“We moved to Wilmington in early fall 2017, and it turned out New Hanover County Public Health was looking for a preparedness coordinator,” she said. “When I read the job description, I remember telling my husband, ‘Um, that is me.’”
And it was, including her skills as a lawyer.
“A really good lawyer is able to take in a lot of information and various perspectives and cultivate solutions,” she said. “Public health preparedness is multi-faceted and deals with a lot of information and partners, so remaining solution-focused, I believe, serves this role well.”
At New Hanover County’s Health and Human Services building on Greenfield Street where Brown works, there’s one constant no matter what the threat.
“Planning. We do lots of planning,” she said. “You have plans in the all-hazards model that outline roles and responsibilities of planning and response partners. Then you have more specific frameworks or annexes to deal with more specific aspects of a particular event.”
Brown’s job is part endurance contest. Keep running, even when there’s no finish line in sight.
Brown references the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, and how at the time she and her Missouri disease prevention colleagues worked at a “fever pitch” to make sure they were prepared for a potential U.S. landfall.
“You have to exercise and practice with partners who will be part of the response in times of emergency,” she said.
Those partners in the Cape Fear include the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC), the Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant Task Force and the Southeastern Healthcare Coalition.
And this advice from Brown: “Stay calm, be flexible and check your ego.”
Something a runner might say, which, coincidentally, she just happens to be.
But the pandemic has made it hard to do this and other hobbies, said Brown.
“To be sure, I haven’t been as good at [managing stress and finding downtime] as I know I should be,” she said. “I try to carve out time for my hobby, which is making jewelry and going for long runs to clear my head.”
Still, COVID-19 stays top of mind, she said.
Not even Stephen King’s supernatural thriller “The Outsider” – the last book Brown read – seems able to transport her beyond this world.
At the end of the day, Brown says she most appreciates “being with [her] family, hopefully on the patio.”
But for now it’s all about being prepared, she said, because “if you just write a plan and put it in a binder on a shelf and never practice it, you aren’t prepared.”
In these times, it’s a perfect closing argument.
Special Focus: Coronavirus Coverage
