The DEI Expert with Lori Trawinski

Liz Tinkham (00:18):
Hi, this is Liz Tinkham and welcome to Third Act, a podcast about people embracing the third act of their lives with a new sense of purpose and direction. The third act begins when your script ends but your show’s not finished.

Liz Tinkham (00:34):
Today, I talk with Lori Trawinski, the DEI expert. So how does a PhD and economic/standup comic become one of the leading thought leaders on diversity, equity, inclusion with a focus on ageism? Well, after Lori got booted out of drama school while in college, she was told to do something technical. So indeed she did, earning a PhD in economics. But, she always had the itch to perform, so mid-career, she went back to performing, becoming a standup comic in LA for six years.

Liz Tinkham (01:03):
But, the great recession of 2008, 2010 pushed her back to a higher paying job. And after much searching, she landed in finance at AARP’s Public Policy Institute. As part of that work, she started researching and writing about the issues of unemployment in older workers. Today, she continues in this role, as well as teaches a class on the subject of DEI at NYU. Join me as she offers advice on what corporations and employees can do to combat ageism in the workplace.

Liz Tinkham (01:29):
Oh, and something really fun. She tells me how to become a National Parks Service park ranger. So stick around to the end, because after my discussion with Lori, we all might want to be doing a stint at one of the National Parks.

Liz Tinkham (01:46):
Welcome, Lori, to the podcast. And yet, another professor at NYU and again, another friend of the Overachieving Friends of Bev Tarulli Club. So thanks very much for coming to the show.

Lori Trawinski (01:59):
Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Liz Tinkham (02:02):
I looked at your LinkedIn, which I always do in preparation, and you have the funniest comment I’ve ever seen in the about section, which I’ll read. It says at the end, “My specialties are varied and frankly, fascinating.” So say more about those specialties, I’ve never seen anybody have that in their LinkedIn.

Lori Trawinski (02:20):
Well, I was hoping to have a catchy LinkedIn profile, so thank you for confirming that it’s working.

Liz Tinkham (02:26):
Check.

Lori Trawinski (02:28):
The frankly fascinating is about the fact that I am a little bit left brain and right brain. We often hear about people being right brain, you’re very creative and artistic, otherwise you’re more left brain, you’re analytical and methodical. I happen to be both and that comes from being a PhD economist and a standup comedian.

Liz Tinkham (02:54):
I love this and we’re going to get more to it here in a second. But, maybe just start with some dark humor. When we were prepping, you were telling me you were a drama major to start, at Catholic university, but you were rejected. What happened and what did you end up doing after that, in your first act?

Lori Trawinski (03:12):
The first act was a dream to always make people laugh.

Liz Tinkham (03:16):
Okay.

Lori Trawinski (03:17):
At the time, I thought the way you did that was by going to college and studying drama. I found out that they’re not the same thing. They are related skill sets. But I was told to get off the stage and go into something technical. So I pivoted. It was the first time in my life that I had a major pivot and I ended up joining the Department of Economics and studying financial management.

Liz Tinkham (03:45):
You said you had subsequent jobs in financial management, you nailed the technical in your jobs at the US government, the Trade Association and Freddie Mac. Did you like what you were doing?

Lori Trawinski (03:57):
In each of those jobs, my skill set usage was a little bit different. I found all of the jobs challenging, to a point. And then, I wanted something different. It was a matter of mastering a position and then seeking to continue developing in other ways. I went from doing government statistical preparation, to policy research work at the Bond Market Association, and then moved over to Freddie Mac, where I was actually in a business that was trading bonds. It was, for me, a complete trajectory.

Liz Tinkham (04:39):
Yeah. So you end up quitting, though, Freddie Mac, to pursue standup comedy. How many years into your career was that?

Lori Trawinski (04:47):
It would have been about 15, 16 years into my career.

Liz Tinkham (04:56):
My stomach just gets nervous thinking about that, that you would walk away from your job. What gave you the courage to do that? And, what did you think you were going to do?

Lori Trawinski (05:07):
The courage came from two things. Number one was I finished working on my PhD and successfully submitted my doctoral dissertation. That was something that I had been working on for 10 years.

Liz Tinkham (05:21):
Okay.

Lori Trawinski (05:21):
Because I was working full-time while I was in school, and it was a really tough challenge to do the research and work full-time. So having completed that, it was a very great achievement and then I felt free to pursue, really, what I believe is my true calling which is making people laugh.

Lori Trawinski (05:46):
At the time, I was in a relationship with a supportive partner who is now my spouse.

Liz Tinkham (05:52):
Okay.

Lori Trawinski (05:52):
I was encouraged to quit my job and pursue the dream. And so I did just that, I walked away from a job and studied stand up comedy out in Los Angeles.

Liz Tinkham (06:02):
How’d it go?

Lori Trawinski (06:04):
It went really well.

Liz Tinkham (06:05):
Yeah?

Lori Trawinski (06:06):
Yes. We had an eight week course. At the end of it, I was asked to join a comedy show at The Comedy Store in LA. Every couple of months, I would fly to LA and perform in a show there.

Liz Tinkham (06:20):
And do a show, yeah.

Lori Trawinski (06:21):
Yeah.

Liz Tinkham (06:22):
How long did you end up-

Lori Trawinski (06:22):
It was not for money.

Liz Tinkham (06:25):
I’ve heard that. How long did you end up being a standup comic, then?

Lori Trawinski (06:29):
I missed the intellectual challenge and the stimulation of all the years of knowledge that I had accumulated in my earlier career. I was thinking about the future and financial stability. With a financial background, I did understand that it would be good to earn money again and have a little bit more income coming into the household.

Liz Tinkham (06:56):
I want to just ask you a question about being a standup comic. Because maybe people who are listening might think, oh that sounds like an interesting thing to do in their third act. In order to make a living at it, what has to happen? What achievements do you have to have, how do you make that work?

Lori Trawinski (07:15):
The first thing you need is a lot of material.

Liz Tinkham (07:18):
Okay.

Lori Trawinski (07:19):
For that six years, when I was working as a standup comedian full-time, it was writing every day. And then, it was practicing almost every day, going to every open mic in town and testing all of the new material. It’s really an iterative process. You perform … At the time, it was cassette tapes.

Liz Tinkham (07:41):
Oh, gosh.

Lori Trawinski (07:43):
Now, it’s a lot easier with iPhones. But, it would be recording every set, listening to it, playing it back, figuring out where I could make it better. So working on the timing, working on the exact wording.

Lori Trawinski (07:57):
For me, it was an analytical approach to comedy like I do most things. A lot of research was involved, and a lot of practice and a lot of research.

Liz Tinkham (08:10):
And then, do you eventually get a break or somebody asks you to join a show? Or, what happens?

Lori Trawinski (08:17):
Some of it is, for the Los Angeles opportunity, it was being asked to join a show once every six weeks. Those shows were bringer shows, where I was supposed to bring 10 people with me to the show, to make sure that the comedy club makes money.

Liz Tinkham (08:34):
Yeah, exactly. Right.

Lori Trawinski (08:36):
Because there’s always a two drink minimum. So there was that opportunity, for stage time in a really great location.

Lori Trawinski (08:45):
Then, it was also being picked up by a booking organization, where they would get … This was, again, pre great iPhone and instantaneous communication times. You would get an email, and it would say, “We need somebody for upstate New York on this date. Who’s available?” And then, the first person to write in would get the gig. It was competition for paid work, in that way.

Lori Trawinski (09:14):
The people who can make a living at it are people who ultimately end up on television and compete on some of the Last Comic Standing or America’s Got Talent. You get more bookings with that kind of notoriety.

Liz Tinkham (09:34):
So you do that for six years. You’ve got a PhD in economics so you’re thinking, “Maybe I need to make some more money.” I think you also told me that’s right at the time of the recession as well, the Great Recession. What happens and what do you end up doing then?

Lori Trawinski (09:50):
What happened was I applied for many jobs and, in a two year period, I applied for over 150 jobs. I think I got two interviews.

Liz Tinkham (10:02):
Oh my gosh.

Lori Trawinski (10:03):
And, one offer. At the time, it was for $40,000 and I would have to clean the gentleman’s desk and make coffee every day.

Liz Tinkham (10:13):
Oh my gosh! As an econ PhD?

Lori Trawinski (10:17):
Yes. And actually, at the time, I also went back to school to … I went to Georgetown University for an executive certificate in financial planning because I always wanted to take the economics background and do more with it. So I thought becoming a certified financial planner would give me another qualification to help me in the workplace, and then the job market. But also, so that I could help people with planning for their futures because so many people today don’t have financial planning as part of what they do.

Liz Tinkham (10:55):
Right, right. What job do you end up getting?

Lori Trawinski (10:59):
I ended up getting a job at the AARP Public Policy Institute. This was one of these situations where I was looking at a publication that used to post jobs. They still do it, now it’s online. It was called Job Openings For Economists.

Liz Tinkham (11:14):
Oh.

Lori Trawinski (11:14):
It’s a very stunning, exciting name brought to you by the American Economic Association. There was a job for a mortgage finance person to work on issues related to both foreclosures and the things that we were facing in 2010. The aftermath of the recession, lots of home loss and mortgage difficulties.

Lori Trawinski (11:43):
It was one of these situations where I read the job description and I had every line item in the job description. So I applied for the job, and I knew nobody there, and I ended up getting called for the interview and getting the job. It was the one time in my life where every single line item I could check off.

Liz Tinkham (12:08):
Oh, I’m glad you got it. I’m glad they made it work.

Lori Trawinski (12:10):
I mention it because so many times, for women, we see a job and we read the description and we say, “Well, I have four of the five things, or I have three of five, I’m not fully qualified. I’m not going to apply.” Women self select out of the process. But on the other hand, we understand through research that men will have one thing out of five and apply. That’s the difference.

Liz Tinkham (12:41):
Yeah. Yesterday, I was talking with Stela Lupusor. I don’t know if you know her.

Lori Trawinski (12:46):
I do.

Liz Tinkham (12:46):
She’s also at NYU, right. She’s going to be in an upcoming episode. She was saying the same thing. And it gets worse, because the algorithms that now sort through resumes match what you write to the skills, and then they take you out as well. You have to really work on tuning it.

Liz Tinkham (13:04):
At the AARP, you’re studying financial issues in this Public Policy Institute. But, you also end up writing on unemployment on older workers. Talk about that.

Lori Trawinski (13:15):
I was asked to lead a multi-year project, back in 2013. It was called The Future of Work at 50 Plus. The main purpose of the project was to look at the Great Recession and to try to understand what ended up happening to older workers.

Lori Trawinski (13:34):
We looked at things like unemployment, but we also looked at job skills, we looked at the workforce development program. We brought in outside experts and asked them to answer a series of questions, so that we could learn different ideas from them about how to approach the problem. It also included public events. We did a lot of different things to study older worker employment.

Liz Tinkham (14:00):
What did you find?

Lori Trawinski (14:02):
We found that, in the recession, a lot of older workers who were reemployed ended up switching occupations. In many of those cases, they were employed at lower rates of pay than their prior job.

Lori Trawinski (14:18):
We also found that it took older workers longer to become reemployed and that’s still true today.

Liz Tinkham (14:25):
Have you seen any outcomes yet from the pandemic on older workers, as you fast forward to this crisis?

Lori Trawinski (14:33):
We’ve seen some of the jobs have come back, so we’ve had some recovery in older worker employment. But, we are also seeing that there are still fewer older workers than there were before the pandemic.

Lori Trawinski (14:48):
Now, some of that is natural in the sense of people retire, they exit the workforce, they decide to leave. But, some of it may be that people left the workforce because they were laid off and then they gave up looking for a job. We do see that that does happen, some of the time.

Lori Trawinski (15:10):
There are sometimes barriers for older workers obtaining employment. Things like age discrimination, for instance.

Liz Tinkham (15:18):
With the rampant employment opportunities that are out there now, you see them obviously in restaurants and things like that. But from what I understand, the job market is really hot. Do you think that people will come back out of the workforce, or back out of retirement, or pretirement? The folks that have left or got pushed out. Or, do you think we’ve lost an entire generation of workers through this pandemic?

Lori Trawinski (15:43):
I think there are a lot of people who still want to work. Part of the reason is we’re seeing a lot longer longevity. Many people are living longer than their parents or grandparents. It’s common to know someone who is in their 90s or even 100 years old. We have a retirement system that used to be based on your highest 35 years of pay and then you would retire in the mid-60 range or thereabouts and live for a few more years. And now, it’s different. You could retire at 65 and live another 30 years. So the question is, how are you going to finance your life for 30 years?

Lori Trawinski (16:29):
If social security is the only funding source you have in retirement, it may be difficult. We have people staying in the workforce longer because they need to.

Liz Tinkham (16:46):
We have people who are listeners, who are HR professionals, who are currently trying to find people to come and fill their jobs. Based on what you write about and what you know, what advice would you give them in terms of how do they create a good atmosphere for older workers to either stay or come back into their workforce?

Lori Trawinski (17:08):
One thing I advise companies to do is to look at your hiring process. Where are you sourcing your candidates? Or, what does your job application process look like?

Lori Trawinski (17:20):
We’re seeing a huge shift to automation and artificial intelligence being used, to do the screening. For a candidate who knows that certain keywords are going to be used to sort them out, or certain skill sets are going to be interpreted in a certain way by the AI, if you’re a candidate who knows that or you’re working with a career coach who can sit with you and your resume, and help you tweak it so that it is more readable for AI, you will have potentially an advantage over someone who doesn’t know any of that.

Lori Trawinski (18:00):
I think the way we recruit people has changed a great deal. I think the knowledge of how it all works is not shared with everyone who’s looking for a job. I think that is a key way that we can help more older workers get back to work, find another job. It’s helping people understand how the HR tech works today.

Liz Tinkham (18:28):
I could use a career coach. Are there any online resources? Does the AARP offer any help or guidance, in the resources that they have?

Lori Trawinski (18:38):
AARP offers some job seeker tools, so we do have a number of resources available to job seekers.

Lori Trawinski (18:47):
The other thing we do a lot of is we work with employers to try to help them understand that there’s great value in hiring older workers. We do that in a number of ways. We have an Employer Pledge program, where we ask employers to sign on to a pledge, which basically states that they believe in equal opportunities for all workers, regardless of age, that they’re open to hiring experienced workers, that there should be a level playing field for people and that age diversity and inclusion is a good thing for an organization.

Liz Tinkham (19:25):
Are you able to peg how many companies take this pledge?

Lori Trawinski (19:29):
Currently, we have over 1700 companies have signed the pledge and new ones join every day.

Liz Tinkham (19:35):
Oh, that’s good. That’s good. Again, a couple things. If I’m an HR professional and I’m trying to make my employer, the person I work for, age friendly, A, I want to look at AARP is, I want to sign the pledge, I want to maybe tune my AI or look at the programs that it’s doing and think about keywords. What else would I do as an employer?

Lori Trawinski (19:58):
AARP has another set of tools and resources available. It’s called the Living, Learning, and Earning Longer Collaborative. This is a partnership that AARP formed with the World Economic Forum and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD.

Lori Trawinski (20:20):
What the collaborative does is it collects information on promising practices from employers around the world and they share the information on a website. There’s research, and tools and other things available to employers so that they have the opportunity to learn what other employers are doing.

Liz Tinkham (20:42):
That’s a great idea and we’ll put that in the show notes. Does anything, as you think about what’s in there, any good examples jump out?

Lori Trawinski (20:50):
One of the things that stands out, when we look at diversity, equity, and inclusion research, is that age is often overlooked within DEI programs. To the extent that diversity, equity, and inclusion departments and chief diversity officers can think about adding age as a dimension of what they look at, I think it could really help.

Lori Trawinski (21:14):
We know that, as of July, there were over 10 million open jobs in the United States. We also know that there are millions of unemployed older workers who are seeking work. Wouldn’t it be a great thing if we could figure out how to get those older workers connected with the open jobs?

Liz Tinkham (21:39):
Now, how do men and women experience ageism differently, in your research?

Lori Trawinski (21:46):
AARP has been conducting survey research on age discrimination for many years. Our most recent survey found that 78% of older workers reported having seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace. Now, the differences between men and women, 76% of women have seen or experienced it. And for the first time ever, I think men, 79%. This year, the men came in higher. I think that was the first time that we’ve seen that.

Lori Trawinski (22:21):
But, the other piece of the story, when you’re talking about discrimination, is you have the intersectionality for other dimensions of diversity in this. If you are a woman and depending on your field or the organization, you may experience gender-based discrimination. And then on top of it, age. And then if you’re from a racial or ethnic minority, another layer. It’s the intersectionality of discrimination that is also having an impact on many older workers.

Liz Tinkham (22:57):
Oh, my goodness. That’s tough. I’m glad to hear about all the work you’re doing.

Liz Tinkham (23:01):
What’s next in your work with the Institute?

Lori Trawinski (23:05):
I am continuing to support our efforts to fight age discrimination so that is always going to be a part of my portfolio. I intend to look at mortgage foreclosure issues in the next year, because coming out of the pandemic and seeing financial relief programs scaled back, it will have an impact. We know from the Great Recession that the experience of foreclosure was different for older people than younger people, so I’ll keep looking at that.

Lori Trawinski (23:39):
The other thing that I really look forward to continuing is teaching at NYU.

Liz Tinkham (23:44):
Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about that. Tell us about the class you teach.

Lori Trawinski (23:47):
Right now, I’m teaching a class in diversity, equity, and inclusion metrics. It’s part of the NYU certificate program in DEI.

Lori Trawinski (23:56):
The point of the course is to help people come up with better and more meaningful measures of DEI goals. So that instead of saying, “Okay, we’re going to count the number of heads we have that fall into this- ”

Liz Tinkham (24:12):
How many men, how many women, how many Black, how many white, right?

Lori Trawinski (24:15):
Right.

Liz Tinkham (24:15):
We used to do that, yeah.

Lori Trawinski (24:17):
We want to do better than just counting heads. It’s about, what are other things we can measure, let’s look at the systems we have in place for hiring. And, what are different ways we can approach getting to better representation in our workforces?

Lori Trawinski (24:35):
It’s a great experience for me, because most of my students are people who are in HR capacities at various companies. I always make sure I mention the age issue. Many of my students are younger and it’s the first time they’ve ever thought about age.

Liz Tinkham (24:56):
You’re measuring that, you’re teaching them how to measure that as well?

Lori Trawinski (25:00):
Yeah. I’m teaching people how to think about all the dimensions of diversity. Instead of just one or two, it’s all of it.

Liz Tinkham (25:10):
I teach at the University of Washington and I have found that my students are more in tune, the younger students are more in tune with these things than, say, the people that I worked with a few years ago. They have a much better understanding of the importance of DEI and how it’s not just a checkbox. Hopefully, do you see the same thing with your professionals?

Lori Trawinski (25:35):
I do. There’s great interest in these courses that NYU is offering. It speaks to the fact that this is an area where people want to learn more. And, I think corporations and organizations are trying to embed it into everything that they do. The only way they can do that is if more people understand that it’s more than just one thing and it’s not a checkbox. It’s work.

Liz Tinkham (26:09):
I almost titled this podcast I’m Not Done Yet. Gosh, back to your LinkedIn and all of your varied specialties and frankly, fascinating interests, what else are you going to add to that list in your life?

Lori Trawinski (26:23):
I’m going to continue conducting research on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, so those are definitely going to be part of anything that I do going forward.

Lori Trawinski (26:34):
I have another interest, though, that wasn’t in the LinkedIn and that is I actually had a job as a park ranger, early on in my career. I would love to join the National Parks Service again sometime, because I absolutely loved that job.

Liz Tinkham (26:51):
Wait. This did not come up. Where were you a park ranger?

Lori Trawinski (26:55):
I was a park ranger at Ford’s Theater National Historic Site.

Liz Tinkham (26:59):
Yes.

Lori Trawinski (27:00):
I did lectures about the Lincoln Assassination.

Liz Tinkham (27:04):
Okay.

Lori Trawinski (27:04):
But, the other piece of me is I am an avid bird watcher.

Liz Tinkham (27:10):
Okay.

Lori Trawinski (27:11):
Last summer, I started a course offered by Cornell, Bird Biology. It’s an ornithology course.

Liz Tinkham (27:19):
Oh my gosh!

Lori Trawinski (27:20):
All about the bird biology.

Liz Tinkham (27:24):
Do you sleep?

Lori Trawinski (27:25):
I do.

Liz Tinkham (27:26):
You’re teaching a class, you’re at the AARP, you’re teaching an ornithology class. You do get some sleep?

Lori Trawinski (27:33):
I’m taking the ornithology class. I do sleep, but I’m not done with the ornithology class. It’s self paced online.

Liz Tinkham (27:40):
Okay.

Lori Trawinski (27:40):
I’m taking a little long with it. But, it’s great fun.

Liz Tinkham (27:43):
I wanted to just say one more thing about the park ranger, and it goes to this discussion on age. There was a very interesting article that you probably read about the 100 year old park rangers in the New York Times this past weekend. Did you see that?

Lori Trawinski (27:56):
Yes, I did.

Liz Tinkham (27:57):
Now, I just want to ask because, again, the Third Act, I’ve got listeners who are always trying to figure out, “What am I going to do next.” Frankly, I’m a huge National Parks person. If I wanted to be a park ranger, what do I need to do?

Lori Trawinski (28:11):
You need to go to usajobs.gov and search for park ranger jobs. They’re a little bit hard to come by, in that many of them are temporary.

Liz Tinkham (28:23):
Okay. Well, that might not be bad.

Lori Trawinski (28:25):
But, it is my understanding they do have a program where people often travel to different national parks after they retire and they work on a temporary basis, and go from different park to different park. They get summer employment, say at Grand Canyon, and then they don’t work for part of the year.

Lori Trawinski (28:46):
There are these temp jobs available, within the Parks system.

Liz Tinkham (28:50):
I’ll tell you what, we’ll look that up for the show notes because I think that’s an interesting third act. Do you have a particular park in mind?

Lori Trawinski (28:57):
Not yet. But, I am very fond of Grand Canyon. I did avail myself of the mule ride to the bottom of the canyon.

Liz Tinkham (29:05):
My husband and son did that once. A mule kicked my son.

Lori Trawinski (29:09):
Oh. Oh, no, no. I couldn’t walk well for about a week, but it was great fun.

Liz Tinkham (29:14):
Okay. So maybe, in your fourth or fifth act, we’ll see you out there with the Stetson hat on and everything else.

Lori Trawinski (29:21):
That is quite possible.

Liz Tinkham (29:23):
Okay. Well, Lori, it’s been great fun talking to you. Thank you for all you do, with your work at AARP, to support the demographic of aging. As I said, the items that you mentioned, we’ll publish in the show notes and we’ll look forward to following your next adventure as a park ranger.

Lori Trawinski (29:40):
Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Liz Tinkham (29:45):
Thanks for joining me today, to listen to the Third Act Podcast. You can find show notes, guest bios, and more at thirdactpodcast.com.

Liz Tinkham (29:53):
If you enjoyed our show today, please subscribe and write a review on your favorite podcast platform. I’m your host, Liz Tinkham. I’ll be back next week with another guest who’s found new meaning and fulfillment in the third act of their life.