A conversation with UC San Francisco Sustainability Director, Gail Lee.
Q: What do you really do at Campus Life Services (CLS)?
A: I cover all things sustainability and give input towards making things better by reducing the environmental impact of the campus and health system in any way possible.
I've been overseeing sustainability committees and workgroups to ensure that we are working in coordination with the increasing grassroot interests of faculty and students. There are different project areas that we want to focus on, and I'm confident that there are staff in place to manage them, such as our energy manager, waste and recycling manager, and water manager. They're all excellent at what they do. I see my role as filling in the gaps, whether it be UC or UCSF policies. If no one is assigned to the task, then I'll step in and make sure it’s addressed.
One of the things that I've been focusing on recently is healthy interiors mainly because I've seen incidents of newly remodeled spaces where you smell the chemicals off gassing before you even enter the room! UCSF realized that we have a responsibility to protect our patients, staff and visitors from breathing all those chemicals in our hospitals and clinics, not to mention our office and research buildings.
My staff and I have been working on putting together a Healthy Interiors Library to make it easier to select healthy materials. My role has been to ensure compliance with UC policy, making sure everyone's is supporting their areas of responsibility around sustainability and reporting, protecting our staff, doing the right thing, and then filling the gaps where I can. Leading the university to be as sustainable as possible includes being an example to others in healthcare and higher education and sharing our experiences so others can do the same.
Q: How long have you worked at UCSF?
A: I started on January 2nd, 2010 and my last day is January 2nd, 2025, so exactly 15 years.
Q: In all that time, what would you say has been your favorite part of the job?
A: I enjoyed working with the people in all levels of the the enterprise, getting people excited about the work that we do, and supporting them with what we can do to help move them forward.
From when I started to now, there are so many more people who are interested in sustainability, especially climate change. People are coming out of the woodwork, offering support and help. I enjoy helping them, pointing them in the right direction, giving them resources and encouraging them.
A lot of people may not know what we've done in the past. I can help them learn from what we did in the past and point them in the right direction to be able to use that energy to focus on new things, going beyond what we've done.
I'm working with students and fellows too. Recently, I participated in evaluation of the Center for Climate Health and Equity faculty fellowship proposals for sustainability projects. I enjoy working with student and fellows to ensure their work is meaningful and helpful to UCSF.
Q: What advice would you give to someone just starting out at UCSF?
A: One of the things I've been trying to do ever since I got here was to build some kind of education around sustainability in the new employee orientation. New employees come on board, and they're bombarded with all this new information so we thought sending something out in their 2nd or 3rd month would be helpful. We're working on some information to help them learn about how we sort our waste, use alternative transportation and encourage electric vehicles, purchasing sustainable products for work and at home, or get them started on new projects if they have an interest in working on a projects around energy waste, water, food, sustainable food procurement, green buildings, green laboratories, or toxic chemicals.
Q: What did you do before coming to UCSF or CLS?
A: In 2009, I worked for a software company where I was the Sustainable Operations Manager. Before that, I was with Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame for eight years, where I was the Environmental Health and Safety Director. I started at UCSF in 2010, reporting directly to the Senior Vice Chancellor and later to the Assistant Chancellor in the Chancellor's office. That allowed me to have more visibility in the schools. Several years later Sustainability was moved to Campus Life Services (CLS) and that it allowed me to get to know the whole CLS organization and identify areas where we could really build out susstainability programs in Facilities, Transportation and other areas across the campus.
Prior to that, I worked for San Mateo County’s Environmental Health Division for 10 years, overseeing cleanup of hazardous waste sites. I ran a groundwater protection program that provided regulatory oversight and remediation of toxic waste spills, chemical spills, gasoline leaking underground storage tanks and dry cleaner solvents leaking into groundwater. The risk was contamination of a municipal or private water well which could affect the water supply for a whole community. My job with a staff of four, was to ensure that all those spills are cleaned up and groundwater tested to make sure it's clean so people and future generations can use it.
The part that I liked best about these jobs was protecting the environment and our communities’ health while supporting efficient use of resources. That work included reducing waste, saving energy, and being efficient with buying and using materials. When I came to UCSF, I brought all those skills with me to help the UCSF and UCSFH be more sustainable.
All those experiences really helped me understand the operations of a campus and a health system. It helped me identify the areas of “the biggest bang for the buck” and the most impactful projects to implement. I would say all my career experience helped me be as effective as I could be in this position.
Q: Where'd you grow up?
A: I grew up in the South Bay, so I've been in the Bay Area all my life. I went to UC Berkeley, for my bachelor’s and I went to the University of San Francisco for my master’s. I think the Bay Area is the best place to live, and I’ve been to a lot of places..
Q: Was there a particular moment that made you want to pursue a career in sustainability?
A: I had a summer job between my junior and senior undergraduate year at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a clerkship position and I was so impressed by the people who work there. That they were passionate about protecting the environment and human health. There were so many problems and disasters happening around people being exposed to chemicals and dying of cancer from hazardous waste. I was inspired to pursue an environmental career.
There was a Division Chief at the EPA, Harry Saradarian who ran the department. He and his staff was so passionate about their work and I was just so impressed by the actions they took to protect people and the environment, ecosystems and habitat. I really wanted to do something that had a big impact, not just one-on-one.
I think that was the turning point. That's when I decided, this is really what I want to do for my career. I decided that I would finish my degree and then try to transition from healthcare to environmental health.
"From ‘environmental protection’ to ‘sustainability’ and dealing with climate change, all are the same thing; it's protecting future generations, not just people who are living here now."
Q: Looking back at your career at UCSF, what achievements are you most proud of having accomplished in your time here?
A: I think increasing people's awareness through the annual Sustainability Awards Ceremony allows us to recognize more and more faculty, learners and staff and highlighting the great work that they're doing. Getting feedback that I'm hitting the points that people care about has been really rewarding.
Also it’s rewarding to see how much we’ve accomplished over the years in all of our different work groups and programs that we're running. I’m also proud of getting other people engaged in getting their offices, labs, clinics and units certified, meaning that they're following recycling/composting practices as well as incorporating energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions.
One thing about sustainability that's different than other areas in education and healthcare is that we're not competing against each other. We're really trying to share everything we learn so that others can benefit and accelerate that change as fast as possible. Everything we learn and do we share as broadly as we can so other people can benefit from it and be able to leapfrog over having to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
Q: Looking ahead, what projects or initiatives do you hope continue in your absence?
I’ve been working on a Healthy Interiors Library project. For every large building project we have, there is a design team that selects products, and we want them to select the healthiest interiors made of healthy materials. In the past, every building design team would make healthy product selections but they are not required to share it. The idea for the Healthy Interiors Library was to pull the information from projects and put it all into one library where we could offer guidance on healthy products selections.
I've also been able to push really hard for every new building that we build to be all electric and use carbon-free power. Constructing a building in and of itself has a large carbon impact as most of the carbon comes from the materials put into the building. Then there's the operation of the building. I'm working with Real Estate to make sure we build buildings that are all electric, no carbon emissions, healthy interiors, low carbon concrete or mass timber construction, things that are cutting edge, and not previously considered standard practice but pushing the envelope.
The new Helen Diller Hospital, the Bakar Research Administration Building and the Bayfront Medical Building are or will be all-electric, zero carbon and low in embodied carbon. So that was a big push that I'm happy to have been part of it. We have a commitment to try to achieve that with all the new buildings going forward.
Q: What do you do for yourself when you're not working? What are you looking forward to doing in your retirement?
A: I had planned to just relax, work on home projects, start playing my ukulele again, and play more tennis and golf. After the [2024 Presidential] election, I thought ‘I have to ‘do something’ as Michelle Obama encouraged. I have to keep working on climate issues.' So, I'm exploring teaching or consulting opportunities to advance decarbonization, and support efforts to protect the US EPA. I recent joined the Board of Directors for Sustainable San Mateo County. Perhaps I’ll work to export the sustainable best practices in healthcare that we’ve generated here at UCSF so others can benefit from it. I'm not done yet.
Q: What's your favorite song to play on the ukulele?
A: Oh, gosh! I've been taking lessons for 5 years and play classical music. My teacher taught me a lot of Bach and Vivaldi pieces and my class played Vivaldi’s Concerto in A Minor at a ukulele festival one year. It was fun!
Q: Anything else?
A: Well, there's one more thing I could do...I’d like to pick up Kung Fu again. One of my favorite things was the broad sword forms. They are practice moves that you do with the sword for combat and then you can put them all together into one long smoothly flowing form so that you practice all the different moves. I would like to do that again.