Being the Change

Louisa A. Nara, CCPSC, is the Global Technical Director for the Center for Chemical Process Safety at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). She has over 42 years of experience in the chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries and has worked for over 65 companies worldwide.

The pioneering leader became a student member of AIChE at West Virginia University and an official member in 1981 when she graduated. Since then, she has been a lifelong learner, obtaining her master’s degree at Villanova and taking graduate-level classes at three other universities. She is now enrolled at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, taking classes as a Ph.D. student in Safety Sciences.

Louisa joined CCPS/AIChE in 2010 after spending 15 years with Bayer MaterialScience in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Baytown, Texas. At CCPS, she focused on increasing membership and outreach and having technical oversight of the books and products, explicitly emphasizing education.

Her experience in plant engineering and technical management, corporate oversight, and technical consulting gave her a unique perspective to give back and help others within the AIChE and CCPS communities. One of the most significant transformations for AIChE Academy was the introduction of a hands-on education program called “Process Safety Boot Camp” in the US and “Foundations of Process Safety” outside the US. Four seasoned professionals who retired from the industry donated their time and training materials to develop a program for new engineers and those new to the process safety discipline. Many more provided feedback and additional information to make this program strong. When she started with CCPS, she took over the program's growth and development and, with these industry professionals support collaboration expanded the one 4-day course in 2010, training 30 people, to educating over 14,000 people worldwide. To date, this is the flagship course for AIChE Academy.

“Whether you are a new professional or a seasoned one, you can become a leader if you are willing to put the work into it, are dedicated, and are fortunate to have a good mentor,” says Louisa, who recommends The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization by John Maxwell. “It provides examples of how you can influence your employees, colleagues and peers, your boss, and even corporate executives within an organization.” Louisa leads her team members by her examples and empowers them to be great leaders by providing opportunities to learn and grow, throughout their entire careers, not just during performance review time.

Louisa is committed to making a difference every day in someone’s life, in manufacturing companies around the world, and for people throughout the world in which we live in. In 2012, Louisa presented a keynote in India and referenced Gandi’s quote,” Be the change you want to see in the world.” On the long flight back to the United States, she thought about what difference she wanted to make and what impact that change would have. Before the plane landed, she had decided on a key personal course of action. She would “touch and share” her vision with 10,000 people in 10 years; as a physical symbol of that interaction would be a token of the Tree of Life. As she presented or led conferences, meetings, training, and other discussions, she would give each person a Tree of Life as a symbol of our personal and global connectedness.

She taught these principles in many countries worldwide throughout the ten-year journey and gave out the Tree of Life tokens, even to airline pilots, stewards, and people in the airport. Always explaining if we do a good deed or positively influence someone’s life, they will likely do that for others: Cause and Effect. One of the great surprises to her was that people would carry the token with them from conference to conference, clip them to backpacks and pursues, and show them off. “I got this one in Lima, Peru, and I keep it with me. You gave this one to me three years ago. Can I have three more to give my family or colleagues?” Of course, Louisa was more than please to share additional tokens.

In November 2022, the 10,000 in 10 years goal was met with the help of some CCPS colleagues that took 400 Tree of Life tokens and other gifts to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at CCPS’ Latin American Conference on Process Safety that Louisa could not attend. Her conference opening remarks were via video, and the small tokens were explained. Participants at the meeting were thanked for making the goal a reality. Many of them sent notes of thanks and explained how they were using the “pay-it-forward” mentality to help others.