Heritage has something to do with Lisa Hagy’s interest in the Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board (ORSSAB). “I’m part American Indian and Indian culture teaches every living thing has a purpose. One of the things that got me interested in ORSSAB was returning as much as we can to the condition we found it; to respect Mother Earth and all things within it.”

ORSSAB is a volunteer citizens’ panel that provides advice and recommendations to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on its Environmental Management (EM) program of the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR).

Hagy is a native of South Carolina growing up in Beaufort. The family moved to the Florida Keys and as a young adult she went to work for a hospital in marketing and public relations. “I did that seven years working with the medical staff and the board of trustees,” she said. “It was interesting and never a dull moment.”

One of the hospital trustees was a bank president, and he offered her a job as the bank’s marketing director. She later took a job at another bank doing merchant services.

But Florida’s stormy weather blew Hagy and her husband inland to Tennessee. The breaking point was Hurricane Wilma in 2005. “We had 2 feet of salt water in our home. We had just moved in a couple months earlier and it had new cabinets and furniture. It was a mess. After 16 years of numerous evacuations we’d had enough.”

Husband Dan had been hired by an insurance firm to open an office in the Knoxville area, and Hagy also earned an insurance license and began working in the field for a couple of years. However, she returned to banking in insurance sales and later as a financial services rep for five years.

Despite assisting people on a daily basis in customer solutions with her job, Hagy still wanted to do more for the community. She had been active in Florida in the Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Business and Professional Women’s Club, and the Domestic Abuse Shelter. “But I wanted to get involved in something I didn’t have any experience in; I wanted to learn something new.” She saw an ad in the newspaper about ORSSAB recruiting members and made an application. “It was a good choice.”

Hagy says the board is an important link between the community and DOE. “I would like to see more participation on the public level, but one thing I’ve learned about volunteering is that you can’t make people have an interest. The best we can do is publicize our meetings as much as we can, make the meetings as open as we can, and encourage participation.”

Hagy came on the board in January 2012 and is completing her second term as board secretary.

She and Dan and daughter Alyssa like hiking and spending time on the water boating and canoeing. “I haven’t tried paddle boarding. I’d like to do that.”

ORSSAB meets the second Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. at the DOE Information Center in the Office of Science and Technical Information, 1 Science.gov Way on the east side of Oak Ridge, fronting the 100 block of Oak Ridge Turnpike. Additional information about the board is available on the internet at www.energy.gov/orssab or by calling (865) 241-4583 or 241-4584.