Nicole Huesman: Karen, it is so wonderful to have you on today's episode of She Lights the Way. We were introduced through a mutual friend and it's been so wonderful to get to know you. Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you?

Karen Freeman: Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here with you today, Nicole. Our mutual friend is an inspiration probably to us both. So, when she connects me with anybody, I know it's going to be a fantastic conversation.

I am Karen Freeman. I am an architect, been practicing for about 25 years now, 20 of that in the healthcare space specifically. So, I lead the healthcare studio of our Atlanta office of the firm I work for, HOK.

We're a global architecture and engineering firm with 26 offices worldwide, and one of our key areas of focus is healthcare. So I'm fortunate to lead a studio, a fantastic team of healthcare experts in Atlanta. And then on the side, I have some roles in a professional organization called Women in Healthcare of which I am the national president. And that also takes up a lot of my time and is a real fulfilling and rewarding experience for me.

Nicole Huesman: How do you pack this all in? How do you fit this all in? So one of the things that is near and dear to my heart — I'm a mother of a 13-year-old boy — and what really resonated with me, of course, is the fact that you focus on pediatric healthcare spaces. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Karen Freeman: Yeah. It's not a role that I ever thought I was going to take on. If you asked me where I was going to start when I was in college, it just kind of came to me naturally and organically. And I made a job shift about five years ago that took me a little further away from that space. And when I had the opportunity to work on a PEDS project in this new role, I was instantly brought back to why, you know, this is, these are my people, this is what's important to me, this is something that I want to do more of for the rest of my career. So, it's a little bit of a moment of clarity to when you're, when you get back in the zone and you feel like you're in the right room with the right folks.

So, PEDS is definitely my passion. I am not a mother; it's just my husband and a dog who's sleeping off frame right now. But it's just a different type of work. And I think architecture is a tough work to start with. It's a tough job. It takes a lot of time and energy and time away from our family and our friends. But pediatric healthcare, in particular, is very rewarding to me. So when I think of, you know, just being exhausted at the end of the day, it's because we did something that I find really meaningful. And that's something that fills my cup.

Nicole Huesman: Absolutely. One of the things that we talked about earlier was how you’re really focusing on both the space for the patient, in this case, the child, and also how can we make spaces for our healthcare workers more inclusive? And you had pointed out that, for folks with neurodiversity, for example, while these things may be considered disabilities in other areas, in this context, these could actually be strengths. Can you talk a little bit more about designing spaces to honor their strengths?

Karen Freeman: Yeah. I think in healthcare design for a long time, we have been really focused on the patient and the patient family for many good reasons. They are the focus of everyone's time and attention in the healthcare space. They're really why people working in healthcare are serving is for the patient and the wellness of the patient.

But I'm glad that there is a shift in recent years, really thinking about the healthcare workers. There has been an incredible amount of pressure on healthcare workers as a result of the pandemic. We are losing healthcare workers at an alarming rate. I think the data showed something like 20 percent of healthcare workers left that space in 2022 and it's almost 50 percent who will have left the space by 2025. So systems are looking at, I hate to overstate it, but a mass exodus of healthcare workers from this space. And this affects every single one of us here in this country.

So, I'm glad that there's a shift in new attention on making sure that we are recruiting the most incredible, capable staff, that we are retaining them, and we are providing them the best possible workplace that they could have. Because you and I, in our workplace, if maybe our situation isn't perfect, we can still get by, and the things that could be impacted from us not doing our job well, while important, or maybe not life threatening, right, are critical. And so when we think about healthcare workers, the, the job that they're doing, the decisions they're making, the communications that they have with one another can quite literally have life or death impact. And so ensuring that they have the best possible environment to do their job, I think is incredibly important.

And when you think that about 15 percent of the population has some sort of neurodiversity disorder — whether that's autism spectrum or ADHD, Tourette's, Parkinson's, dyslexia, any number of diagnoses — this is a significant portion of our population. And not only are they valuable members of our work staff in a number of different fields, but particularly in healthcare, they can have critical capabilities that are real assets to their jobs as healthcare workers. So you think of stereotypical characteristics that you might associate with anyone of these diagnoses — an incredible attention to detail, a fixation — these are all things that I would love my healthcare worker to have, right? I just think that those who have neurodiverse diagnoses often have a number of characteristics that, while could be seen as impediments that need to be overcome, can often be seen as really critical capabilities for those teams. And so things like attention to detail, hyper focus, these are things that should be celebrated for our healthcare teams and supported.

And so really thinking about how do we design an environment for a population, neurodiverse and neurotypical alike, who are under tremendous pressure. It's an exhausting job. It's a difficult job, particularly pediatric healthcare. You're dealing with children who, you know, may not see their adult years, unfortunately. And it can be a very stressful and difficult position to be in. And so, how do we make, to the extent that we possibly can, the physical environment such that it's supportive to their needs and is the best possible workplace for them to do the best job they can to support the health and wellness of children and adult patients alike.

But we're thinking about creating the best possible environments for really everyone. Inclusivity now needs to include responses to neurodiversity so that we can all be the most successful and productive members of our society that we can, whether that's in an academic setting or in a healthcare or job setting, or even just how we interact with other people in our society, whether that's our family members or our friends. How can we set everybody up for success?

Nicole Huesman: Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's take a step back for just a moment and talk about how did you get to where you are today?

Karen Freeman: So let's go way, way back on the way, way back machine. I grew up in a very small town, a single traffic light, not kidding, and our school bus picked up everyone from the kindergarteners through the seniors in high school and made multiple stops at the multiple schools in our small town. And when I was towards the end of my middle school career, there was a student who was a year ahead of me who I'd been in the school bus with for years out from our country home, and he would get on the bus in the afternoons with these fantastic little models and that he had been building in his design and drafting class in high school. And as an eighth grader, I thought, “Oh, I want to build these models.” You know, I'd been tinkering with Lego my whole life, and I was the kid who put things together with Lego and never agreed to have them taken apart again, and, you know, just needed more of the bricks to build more of the things. And so, you know, it was just kind of being envious of this little model that got me thinking, “Hey, I really would love to do something in architecture and design.”

So I took some drafting classes in high school. The one that we had. And then my drafting teacher created a second one for me, and then a third one, and a fourth one. So in the end, we spent four years together, kind of creating a curriculum. So that was incredible, he has, he's been one of my mentors for a long, long time, And someone who just saw something in me, I wanted to foster that. And that was a really meaningful relationship to me. So that led to architecture school.

And then out of school, I didn't really have an area of focus that I wanted to start in, but worked for a firm who did a lot of higher education work, a lot of colleges and universities. I found that very interesting. It was something that was quite familiar to me, having just come out of college myself. And in those early years, it was all about learning on the job. And I had just come out of a period of time where I was paying someone else to teach me everything, and here I was getting a paycheck to learn something every day.

And what an amazing and refreshing face that was, you know, “Oh, you're going to send me to a class on this and you're going to pay me while I'm there?” Great opportunity. And so started my career with that, really enjoyed it, worked with some fantastic leaders who taught me just a lot about, you know, working in architecture and then expanded into multifamily housing, which again, I lived in an apartment building and I knew something about, you know, being in a multifamily building. So all of these were quite familiar to me. And I really cut my teeth on how to be an architect, how to properly document what it meant to be in the field, how you answered questions while you were there. What was construction like? How do projects go? And how, you know, how do we do the business of architecture? All the things that are so important to learn in your early career.

And then from there, I moved to a firm who also focused on higher education. And I thought, okay, you know, this portfolio will travel. And I thought I could contribute to their higher ed group, but they also focused on healthcare and the arts, and they really believed that these three pillars were the foundation of any good society. So if your populace was educated, if they had access to some form of culture that represented their culture and their passion and their society, and if they were a healthy and well society, this is how we flourish as a society.

And so almost immediately, I got put on a pediatric healthcare project, and I thought, I don't really like doctors, I don't know anything about children, I, you know, felt lost. And so in those early meetings, I would go to meetings and I would phonetically write things in the margin of my notebook, and come back to my hotel room at night, and look things up on WebMD, and what happens when you have an endoscopy, and what happens when you go for an MRI, and what does the surgical procedure mean, and how long do people stay in the hospital if they have X, Y, or Z done. And so it was just this constant learning opportunity, and the people at the table were just so incredibly smart, and the things that they were doing were so meaningful and inspiring to me, to think that you are, you know, trying to make a person's life better, you're trying to find solutions to disease, you're trying to make people more comfortable in what can be a really stressful situation. And that really resonated with me, the opportunity to be part of that. I saw it as an incredible opportunity, and now I've been doing it for about 20 years. So it's a design that I think is fueled with a lot of passion, and ultimately I think, a lot of empathy. It's quite easy for me to think about being in the shoes of someone coming into this space for the first time, what they might be feeling, and recognize that any little design influence we have could change the course of their life in potentially a positive way. And that is a very, something I really take to heart, is recognizing the number of people we can impact with the design of the physical environment that we have.

Nicole Huesman: Wow. And that's so big to understand, the immense impact that you're having on other lives. It's just so amazing when you bring all of that together.

We talked earlier too about, and I know coming from the tech industry, I'm typically one of the only women in the room. And it resonated with me that you often have been as well. Can you talk about women in architecture and what you've seen over the years, how that's impacted your journey?

Karen Freeman: Yeah. It definitely has been historically a male-dominated industry. I believe the current data is saying that there is a shift in that, so I'm thrilled to see that. But when I was in architecture school, we had a professional program that accepted 30 people, and there were five of us who were women in that program. So a very small majority, or minority rather. These days I understand it's closer to 50/50, but there's still just a ton of progress to be made. It's not atypical to be on the job site and to be the only woman in the construction trailer, on the construction site, having to go toe to toe with men in our field, whether they're our clients, our contractors, our colleagues, and to really establish ourselves as experts in what we do, professionals in what we do.

It's really interesting when you look at the data between what men and women are kind of looking for in their jobs. There is a massive kind of disparity between the two. Men are more focused, based on the survey data, on compensation, benefits, authority, power. Women tend to be more focused on being seen as experts and being respected for their role, being good communicators, being part of a collaborative team. And it's really just a difference in mindset, I think, that spurs on our careers and the paths in our careers. So I've always appreciated and understood sort of the privilege of my role and I see it as an opportunity and somewhat of an obligation to help chart the way for the women behind me who are, you know, facing a lot of the same challenges that I was.

Nicole Huesman: That is a great segue into, you know, this beauty in helping others. Can you talk about how that has manifested in your own career?

Karen Freeman: Well, I think, not to get too much into stereotypes about generations, but I do think there are some incredible generational differences. And I had some wonderful and inspiring women leaders that I have looked up to throughout the course of my career that I continue to … I am very fortunate to work for quite a progressive, multinational company where half of our C suite are women. We are super proud that Kimberly Dowdell was just installed as the 100th president of the American Institute of Architects and is an HOK team member. She's the first black woman to ever serve as president of that organization. So just amazing leaders that we have to look up to.

But I think historically, a lot of those leaders have said, “Hey, I know what you've gone through, or you're going through, I know what you're facing. It was difficult for me too. I know you can get there.” And that kind of motivational and inspirational talk is valuable. But I see a shift, and it's something that's important to me personally, to not just kind of continue to say, “Hey, come on, you can do this too,” but to actually sort of, at times, take a step back and lead someone up to the position that you're in and ensure that they really have a sponsor — not just a mentor, but a sponsor — and really understand the difference between those two. Someone who is saying your name when you're not in the room, who is speaking up for opportunities that you should be granted that would allow you to grow and expand in your career. And I see that as an obligation in the role that I am now in at this point in my career to offer to be a sponsor, to look for talent that I think is worthy of that recognition and deserving of those opportunities and ensure that his or her name is spoken and that they are being provided with the opportunities that they need to see the career growth that they're looking for. And that's different for each one of us. I really value the time I spend learning about my team, what their goals are, and then making sure to the extent that I can, that they have those opportunities.

Nicole Huesman: Can you talk about your role as the national president of the Women in Healthcare organization, and what that means to you?

Karen Freeman: Yeah, so Women in Healthcare is a national organization. We have chapters in the U. S. and Canada, so I guess technically international, but we have chapters in more than half the states in the United States now. We really only started about six years ago. Our goal is to ensure that women have a seat at the table where they want to be seated. So whether that's ensuring that they have the right skills to have the conversations that they want to have, whether it's helping them break down barriers, really equipping them with the tools to make the advances in their career that they're looking for.

While about 80 percent of the healthcare workforce are women, less than 20 percent are in the C suite and even fewer are leading healthcare companies. It's about 4 percent who are leading healthcare companies who are women. So a massive disparity between the bulk of the workforce and the leadership of the workforce.

This has a lot of parallels to my own professional career in architecture. And so I saw that as a really meaningful way to get involved in a national organization that was focused beyond the AE space and really into women in all forms of healthcare, whether those are frontline workers or administrators or people who are in the service industry like myself, who are really looking for more leadership opportunities.

So, I became involved in our Georgia chapter here in Atlanta, ultimately became the Georgia chapter president, and then from there, I had taken on a two-year role as the national president. So I'm just concluding my first year of that role. But it's a great organization. We have about 3, 000 members across the United States and Canada from all walks of life, and I learn something from them every single day.

Nicole Huesman: And I just want to say thank you for all of what you're doing to really elevate women in your field. It's not easy work by any stretch, but it's so worthwhile and meaningful. And so I just personally want to thank you for everything that you're doing in that realm.

Let's talk a little bit about the advice that you would give to others.

Karen Freeman: Oh, well, I mean, I think that's a tough one. It kind of depends on the situation. But, you know, I look at every opportunity and learn something new as a blessing. It's a truly as an opportunity and just soak it in. Ask questions. Everyone is happy to tell you about what they do in their day. They love that attention and you can learn so much from it. So don't ever be afraid to ask.

And then I see when people ask for help, I see that as a real vulnerability, right? They're asking you to participate in something, they're asking for your help doing it. They are in a vulnerable position when they do that. I was a 4H camp counselor growing up and our leader taught us that the answer was always, “I'll be glad to.” So when someone really asks for your help in a sincere way, the answer is, “I'll be glad to.” And that has gotten me a long way. That sort of participatory spirit, that willingness to kind of help others, that willingness to take things on, even when you don't know about them, I think has benefited me greatly, so I would certainly encourage other people to do that, too.

Nicole Huesman: Wonderful. It's just such a beauty in helping other people. And I think they get, you know, they get a lot from that. And I think we do, just as human beings.

Karen Freeman: Yeah, definitely. I, you know, I have some great teammates and I'm happy to help them, but man, the help that they have given me over time, the people who have spoken up for me or have put me in a position that I wouldn't otherwise be in is just incredible, so I'm grateful for that.

Nicole Huesman: Yeah. We all define success differently. What does success mean? How would you define it for yourself?

Karen Freeman: Yeah, I think I am at a point in my career, and I recently used the word in a self review, being very content with where I am in my career. I feel like I have learned a lot. I've been given great opportunities. I've been part of teams that I'm very proud of, and I am very content and satisfied with the ascension path that I have been on. I'm not actually sort of aspiring to my boss's job or my boss's boss's job. It's funny in architecture, and maybe in other fields too, that often the promotion path starts to put you more into a business mindset and less of an architecture mindset. And I really sort of just love doing the job of architecture. So I'm not, at this point in my career, looking for that additional responsibility, whether it's fiscal responsibility or management responsibility, even though I am in quite a senior role.

I see a real reward in the team that I have built, who I'm very proud of the talents that they have and ensuring that they really have the opportunities that they're looking for as they develop their own careers. And so my focus is maybe a little bit more backwards looking these days. And that's what I'm defining as success is ensuring that they really have a chance to build the skills that they need to be successful in their careers, that they have the opportunities on the project types or client interactions to achieve their professional goals, whether they're more technical or client-facing. Or if they'd like to go into more fiscal and management responsibilities, how can I put them in a position to learn the skills that they need to achieve those things? And that's what makes me feel successful.

And I think that really translates to what I'm doing in Women in Healthcare. How do we get the chapters to be more successful? How do we give the leadership teams in each one of those the opportunities? How do we create success stories for our membership base as an organization? I don't know if backwards-looking is the right place to be, but it's sort of where I am and it's what's fulfilling me these days is ensuring that everybody that I could possibly help along the way has the chance that they want.

Nicole Huesman: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Karen, looking forward, what's next and what possibilities are you most excited about?

Karen Freeman: Yeah, so, you know, here I just sat and told you that I'm very content and satisfied with my career, as I am just a few days away from starting a new role and a new promotion within our company that I am very, very excited about. We'll be kicking off some centers and expertise in our healthcare studios, primarily at this point in time focused around two topics, behavioral health and pediatrics. And I am excited to be taking the lead as our firm-wide pediatrics practice leader. So in this role, I'll be a resource to all 26 of our offices working globally to strengthen and really show off our PEDS expertise that we have here at HOK. So I am content, but I'm also excited about this opportunity to really focus on the part of this that I have realized over the last 25 years is my passion, and that's pediatric healthcare design. So I think we have been doing a lot of that at HOK, but this is an opportunity to really kind of formalize that, be thought leaders in that industry moving forward, and, you know, really shine a spotlight on the great work that's been done so far.

Nicole Huesman: Oh, how exciting! I just want to say congratulations, that is super exciting, you're on the cusp of such wonderful things. Not to say that what came before wasn't wonderful, but oh my goodness, wow!

Karen Freeman: It's certainly a great opportunity for me personally, but I think it's a great opportunity for the firm to spend some focused attention and time on this and, you know, a great opportunity for those of us within the firm who are really interested in this particular portion of the healthcare environment. So, I see great potential for them as well.

Nicole Huesman: Can you talk a little bit about your goals and aspirations as the new leader of this global pediatric practice?

Karen Freeman: Yeah. Yeah. We have done some really wonderful projects for many of our healthcare clients, not just in the PEDS space, but there is a focus on PEDS. So whether that's a renovation of a pediatric floor or an expansion of one of their PEDS programs. So I think HOK has had a great history of that, but in the last five years, I've been part of bringing in three really influential projects that I think are sort of setting us moving forward.

We're doing an outpatient center for a client in Florida. So they're aggregating all of their PEDS clinics into a single building. So when you really think about patient families or children with really complex diagnoses who need to see more than one specialist, often those kids are coming from hours away to, you know, a metro area or a major town that has a pediatric specialty center and getting all of those appointments coordinated, getting time off work for family members. You know, just trying to get in with all the different doctors is a difficult thing. So these facilities where they're looking at really pulling all of those services together, I think are a real asset to patient families and really ensure the best possible care for these patients with really complex diagnoses. So that project will be going live soon. It's on the boards now is what we call it.

We're also working on a PEDS mental health facility in the Watts neighborhood of South Central LA, a really underserved population that has not had a focus of pediatrics and is a much-needed service. So we're working with a really wonderful client who is really based in the community and culture in that area and has been doing a lot of adult services that's serving pediatric patients as part of one of their larger facilities. So they're looking to build a freestanding pediatric mental health hospital in that neighborhood, and we're excited to be kicking that one off. We just won that over the summer.

And then recently we had a wonderful project — I think it just went live last week in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. So, Oscher — a children's hospital, which has been sort of a hospital within a hospital, they were a floor within one of their main hospitals — now has a new face to their children's hospital, a new identity really show them off as the number 1 children's hospital in the state. And we'll bring all of those children's services together in one building.

So, those are three projects that we're excited to get underway. They’re three sort of ground-up facilities that we have not previously had in our portfolio, and I think they'll be the basis for a lot of exciting work to come in the future.

Nicole Huesman: Oh, wow. You are going to be one busy person. Wow. So many exciting things coming up. As we were talking about these different projects, I just thought about the vital impact that these projects will have on those that will be served by them. What exciting and impactful work.

As we wrap up today's episode, what does She Lights the Way mean to you?

Karen Freeman: Well, to me, I think it's about that sort of looking back, right? It's not just saying, “Hey, I know that the path ahead leads to where you want it to be,” right? “I know it's rocky, or it's steep, or it's narrow, but I know you can do it, that you're strong enough to get through it.” It's really about lighting the way for those behind us, you know, showing them how to climb over something, making sure that they have the strength and the skills to conquer whatever that challenge is. Yeah, it's really about lighting the way. I think it's a great title, and really, really resonates with me in what I'm trying to do in my career now, both personally and professionally.

Nicole Huesman: Yay! Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Thank you. Karen, I cannot tell you how absolutely wonderful, and I feel it's just been a privilege to speak with you today. Thank you so much for your time and energy and participation.

Karen Freeman: I've enjoyed it, Nicole. It's been great to talk to you. I hope we can continue the conversations in the future.

Nicole Huesman: Yes, yes, I would love that. Yes. Let's absolutely do that. Thank you.