Welcome back Erica! Meet SOIL’s new Chief Technology Officer
Erica at the composting waste treatment site in Limonad.
Erica’s back! And we’re oh so happy she is. A natural-born strategist and systems thinker who is deeply passionate about Haiti and making sure that everyone has what they need to thrive, Erica Lloyd has stepped into the role of SOIL’s Chief Technology Officer. Before becoming CTO, she was also Research Director, Program Assistant, and much more! Read on to learn about Erica’s journey with SOIL.
If you were explaining SOIL’s work to a 10-year-old, how would you explain what we do and where we do it?
SOIL works in Haiti, a country that is near the United States but very different. For many different reasons, most people there don’t have toilets in their homes. SOIL created a way for people to have toilets, even if their homes aren’t connected to pipes that bring water in and carry waste away. We have a system to keep the toilets smelling nice and looking fresh. Every week, our team goes around and picks up the containers with the waste. Then we treat the waste to kill everything dangerous, and turn it into beautiful compost!
You’ve been a SOIL-ie for a while now, can you briefly give us an overview of your involvement with SOIL and what first brought you to the organization?
I’d read Mountains Beyond Mountains and knew I wanted to come work in Haiti. When I visited in 2013, I immediately fell in love with the country. Ellie Happel, who is now on our advisory board, then connected me to SOIL, which needed a program assistant at the time. I started in that role, but I’m a natural tinkerer, so I started digging deeper into our systems and asking questions about why we did things the way we did. That eventually led me to step into the role of Systems Director, and then Research Director.
Do you have a particular ‘favorite’ problem that you’ve solved while working with SOIL?
The move to Salesforce and TaroWorks was a project that I worked on from start to finish and that gave me some hard questions to answer—at that point, SOIL was growing rapidly and we needed stronger systems to support that growth.
We started by asking big-picture questions: “What kind of data do we need?” , “How will we collect it?” and “How do we need to be able to analyze that data?” Once we landed on the right system, our team embraced the move wholeheartedly. My degree is in teaching, so I really enjoyed training everyone on how to use the new tools and seeing them implement them in a way that ultimately improved the quality of our work.
As the Chief Technology Officer, what are your main responsibilities day-to-day?
There are three main categories that capture what I do as SOIL’s CTO.
The first is building the capacity of our Haiti-based IT team. The second is recommending updates to our IT systems and infrastructure, including the systems we use to collect customer feedback. The third is looking at what’s on the horizon for SOIL, like how AI can be a useful tool for us and other ways we can put our data to work.
If your childhood self could see what you do for a living now, would they be amazed—or deeply confused about why an adult spends all day doing that?
Probably both. First of all, she’d be like, “I’m sorry, toilets?!” And then she’d marvel at all of the things I’ve learned through this work. Between agriculture, sanitation, and learning Haitian Kreyòl, working with SOIL has always kept me engaged and curious.
Why is SOIL’s work important to you?
I can’t think of another organization that successfully tackles so many significant issues all at once. There’s the environmental impact of keeping waste from contaminating waterways and neighborhoods and the public health benefits of preventing waterborne disease. Then there’s also the fact that SOIL provides living-wage jobs in Haiti—dignified work that people feel proud of, and which allows them to take care of their families. The SOIL team cares deeply about providing all of these things. I was an EkoLakay customer when I lived in Port-au-Prince and I loved the fact that so many of my colleagues were also customers. We truly believe in the product that we are selling.
SOIL also has a tradition of having everyone work at the waste treatment site for a day each year. You suit up, do vidanj (emptying the containers) and learn from the compost team about how this very essential (and very demanding) work is completed. It’s nice to work at an organization where each and every team member is celebrated and valued. We all share a deep respect for each other and our work.
Where do you hope to see SOIL and Haiti in the future?
Haiti shocked the world in 1804 and deep down I know that they will do it again. The seeds for peace and flourishing are all there and waiting to come to fruition.
For SOIL, I would love to see us grow and meet the sanitation needs that exist in Cap-Haitien. We’ve hit an exciting inflection point with our service growth and the signing of a government contract. But we know there are so many families who still don’t have a safe place to go to the bathroom. With worsening climate change, Cap-Haïtien is incredibly vulnerable to flooding and natural disasters. While we can hope that it doesn’t get worse, we know that there is an increasing need for flood-resistant, climate change-resistant sanitation—and that’s exactly what EkoLakay is.
If you were to give someone a window into your world in Haiti, how would you describe that image?
Think sensory overload. A tap-tap going by with 10 mattresses strapped to the roof. The best fried chicken you'll ever eat, from a guy with a grill on the sidewalk. Baby goats bleating in the street, traffic coming from all directions, a stream of color-blocked houses and storefronts. There is so much of Haiti’s beauty and depth that doesn't make the news. The beaches, the music, the art. In my opinion, nowhere does the human spirit shine through more clearly than in Haiti.
Why do you love your toilet?
I love my toilet because it is a safe and comfortable and private place for me to take care of myself!
