5 minutes with PHILLIP LEWIS ’88
Position: Director, ECU Office of Environmental Health and Safety
Degree: B.S., environmental health
Resides: Greenville, North Carolina
What are your job responsibilities?
I provide leadership and management oversight for the comprehensive environmental health and safety program at ECU that includes biological safety, emergency management, employee health, environmental management, fire and life safety, indoor air quality, industrial hygiene, insurance/risk management, lab safety, occupational safety, radiation safety and workers’ compensation.
What’s most rewarding about your job?
The work environment and people at ECU. There is a true sense of community and I have had the good fortune to collaborate with many remarkable and interesting people.
What should people know about indoor air quality?
Many factors may adversely affect indoor air quality including poor ventilation, problems controlling temperature, high or low humidity and contaminants in or near a building. A challenge with indoor air quality is much of it is comfort driven. Comfortable for one may be uncomfortable for another.
What is the most effective way or ways to improve indoor air quality?
Maintain HVAC systems in good condition, practice good housekeeping and control contaminants in and around buildings.
What lessons did you learn at ECU that have benefited you most in your career, or what professor influenced you most in a positive way?
If not for my advisor, Y.J. Lao, then I may have never entered the environmental health and safety field and may not be working at ECU today. He was enthusiastic about the program and truly committed to student success.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Surround yourself with good people and treat everyone with honesty, kindness and respect. Focus on the positive and hang on to your faith. Go Pirates!
We want to hear stories from alumni about how their experiences at ECU shaped them today and how they pass those lessons to others. Send us an email at easteditor@ecu.edu.