Every member of ICC's Government Relations staff came to find their political side in a unique way, but Dottie Harris may have the most unlikely of them all: through dance.
As a student at SUNY Potsdam intent on majoring in dance, she volunteered to be the treasurer of the dance ensemble, which got her involved with the student government association, which she went on to become treasurer of. By that point, the political bug had bitten her: she turned her dance major into a dance/political science double major, and after graduating took a job in her state assemblyman's office.
Now anyone who's ever danced before knows that timing is of the utmost importance, so it's no small wonder that timing is what decided her fate into getting into building codes. Working for the New York insurance department in the wake of Hurricane Andrew, when insurers began to balk at issuing policies on Long Island due to insufficient wind provisions in the New York state code, she saw the cause and took to it immediately.
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International Code Council Vice President of State & Local Government Relations Dorothy Harris presents on International Green Construction Code adoptions and advocacy. |
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Learning everything she could about codes, she began advocating for the adoption of a national model code, which led to her appointment by Governor Pataki to be in charge of the New York state code adoption process in 1999, which just so happened to be the year the three legacy code organizations finalized the consolidation process. So, after a couple years of the adoption and amendment process, the state of New York went from using a homegrown code to the very first International Building Code in 2000.
That passion for keeping New York's model codes hasn't diminished over time. Right now, Dottie is helping guide both New York and Massachusetts through the process of updating to the 2015 I-Codes — both labor-intensive as both states are populous and politically active, but she doesn't mind. "It's a 24/7 position, like most political jobs, and in most cases, that's negative, but with ICC it's definitely positive," Harris explains. "It feels like the people I interact with are really family and friends, to the point where my real social life is going to chapter meetings and working with the members and other organizations, building relationships."
Now while it may be easy to be skeptical of that claim, it becomes far more believable when I ask what about her people might not immediately realize, and she's stumped. "I'm such an extravert, everyone who knows me already knows everything about me, from the loves of my life Clara and Anthony [ed. note: her cats], to my major in dance, to spending free time at the track," Dottie admits. "Probably the thing that would surprise most people is that when I'm not around them, I'm pretty boring!"
Much as that takes a great deal to believe, both the Northeast and ICC are more than happy that she shares her tremendous energy, code expertise, and adorable cat pictures with all of us. |
