From Observer to Change Agent
By Dr. Lorin R. Carter, Esq., E.I.
Dr. Lorin R. Carter is a Dallas-based founder and chief strategist of Carter Creative Enterprises.
I am a Black, Southern woman with a passion to facilitate healthy communities. I started as a Civil Engineer ensuring facility compliance, but observed glaring issues of environmental, economic, social, and racial justice were left unchanged.
I began legislative, lega, and outreach efforts to address the existing power and resource imbalances I witnessed. Yet the more I met with communities, the more I realized needed to be done.
I also noticed practitioners leading equity efforts often looked and sounded nothing like the communities they served and others interacted with community members as a savior instead of a resource.
I decided to become a partner in facilitating changes that were long overdue. I started researching, teaching, completed my PhD, and opened my consultancy—C-Suite Consulting—to be the resource communities needed.
Almost two years from starting C-Suite Consulting’s first project I’ve seen communities empowered for change. I’ve led an equitable development plan that facilitated an additional $6 million investment in three POC communities in Dallas vulnerable to gentrification and displacement.
Dr.Lorin R. Carter participates in the Justice Summer Series discussion about urban development, upward mobility, and high-displacement gentrification in Dallas.
I’ve also completed a Community Needs Survey instrumental in approving the return of a full Urban League Affiliate in Dallas. I am currently leading a deck park equitable development plan to begin rectifying racially charged transportation and environmental injustices in South Dallas.
Through C-Suite Consulting I’ve also had the pleasure of hiring talented POC practitioners to conduct research, engagement, and advocacy with my firm. When community members see me leading, seniors know their sacrifices were worth it, and it sparks the idea of new possibilities in the eyes of young POC.
Knowing that my decision to create a new narrative by getting involved has resulted in tangible change is galvanizing.
I know we can be the change.
Dr. Lorin R. Carter is Founder & Chief Strategist of Carter Creative Enterprises, LLC Companies, including C-Suite Consulting and Dr. Lorin R. Carter, LLC, a licensed Attorney, Engineer, Urban Planning & Public Policy PhD, Wellness Advocate, and a Dallas Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project.
@csuiteconsulting; www.cartercreativeenterprises.com
www.csuitequityconsulting.com; www.lorinrcarter.com https://www.instagram.com/lorinrcarter linkedin.com/in/drlorinrcarter
““When community members see me leading, seniors know their sacrifices were worth it, and it sparks the idea of new possibilities in the eyes of young POC.” — @Csuiteconsulting founder, chief strategist in Dallas. #PowerToChangeStories”