Introducing Mary Logue, Head of ESH&Q

Mary Logue
ESH&Q Associate Director

When someone shouted "Mary!" in the McCarthy home in South Holland, Ill., lots of heads would turn, but no one would answer. All six of the McCarthy girls are named Mary. "Everyone has a different middle name," Mary Logue noted, "and we all ended up with nicknames that we still use today but when a call went out for Mary it wasn't uncommon for no one to pay attention."

Mary is the fifth child in this family of seven kids (brother William rounded out the bunch).  On June 2 she became Jefferson Lab’s associate director of the Environment, Safety, Health and Quality Division.

Logue's dad, a surgeon, believed in what she laughingly calls "child labor" – the children started out cleaning his office and then graduated to running the front desk, taking calls from patients and scheduling surgery. This was her introduction to science, health and medicine. By the time she graduated from high school, Logue knew she wanted to major in biology but was also sure she didn't want to go into medicine. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology at Notre Dame and as she approached graduation wasn't sure what she wanted to do next. By chance, she saw an article in the Chicago Tribune about the field of industrial hygiene. She was fascinated. "This combined everything I was interested in," she recalled. "Science, medicine, sociology, and best of all it involved working directly with people."

Northwestern University offered a master's program in industrial hygiene and, while there, she had the opportunity to do a 12-week summer program in health physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory. "I really learned the operational aspects of industrial health there, particularly the ability to be respectful of the elements we might be measuring but to not be afraid," she said.

She graduated with a master's degree in industrial hygiene/health physics. Logue first went to work at the Department of Energy's New Brunswick Laboratory at Argonne National Lab and learned what she calls her most important lesson about the working world. "Listen to the people who've been there for a while, everyone from the janitor to the director. They have a lot to teach you," she said.

After five years at New Brunswick she went to the Chicago office of the Department of Energy, where she conducted oversight of DOE laboratory health and safety programs and worked in technical support for FEMA in planning for emergencies at nuclear power plants. Just after starting work there, her life was radically changed when she was hit by a drunk driver and seriously injured. She spent two weeks in the hospital and two months recuperating. That cataclysmic event reinforced her core belief in how important family is and how precious life can be.

She moved on to Argonne National Lab in the early 1990s and then went to Fermilab in 1997, where she was involved in numerous critical ES&H programs, including environmental protection, waste management, ES&H training, industrial hygiene and safety, fire protection, construction safety and emergency preparedness.

When she was invited to interview for the position here, she immediately liked what she heard and saw. "I was impressed with the vision of everyone here, their passion about the science, and their desire to work safely.  I wanted to do what I can to help them accomplish all this" she noted.

Logue's husband, Jack, is retired and remains in Downers Grove, Ill., with their youngest son, Dan, who's finishing his senior year of high school. Their oldest son, Jim, is in Honduras, working at an orphanage while he prepares for medical school. Their daughter Betsy, a student at Notre Dame, is spending her junior year in Australia.

For now, Logue is living in an apartment close to the lab, with the loom for her weaving taking up what should be the dining room and a sewing machine for her quilting on the table. She's also taking time to get out on weekends, hiking and seeing the area.

For a woman who grew up in a large family and then spent years as a working mom, there's a certain joy in this arrangement. "While I truly miss my family, I'm really enjoying treating myself as my own only child," she said.

By Judi Tull
Feature writer