Having earned her degree while raising her family, Mary Lou Lawrence believes she understands how Metro State accommodates working students.

Mary Lou Lawrence has worked in a lot of different places over the years, but never in an environment as welcoming as Metro State’s.

“Just walking down the hall, or across campus, everyone is so warm,” the new interim executive assistant to the president says. “I’ve never run across people more friendly.”

Lawrence, who started in her new role on Monday, brings to the job six years of experience as an executive assistant in the higher education field, having worked for both the Colorado Commission on Higher Education and, most recently, for the Board of Governors of the Colorado State University System.

A Colorado native, Lawrence obtained her associate’s degree in paralegal studies from Dallas Community College while raising young children in Texas. Having juggled marriage and child-rearing with school, she says, she understands the position faced by many Metro State students. “I took three years to get my degree, since I was also doing cub scouts, girl scouts and PTA,” she says, which gives her an appreciation for “how Metro State accommodates working students, as well as students straight from high school.”

Lawrence would go on to work for 29 years as a paralegal in both Texas and Colorado, including stints in the Texas State Attorney General’s Office, various private law firms, AT&T and Great-West insurance company.

In 2001, a lawyer she had worked with was hired by then-governor of Colorado Bill Owens, and asked Lawrence to join his staff. She worked at the Governor’s Office of Policy and Initiatives and with the Governor’s Legal Counsel through 2003, before becoming executive assistant to the executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. In 2006, she became executive assistant to the Colorado State University Board of Governors, a position she held until earlier this year. While she’s still learning the ropes at Metro State, her higher-ed background, she believes, gives her a better sense of the “big picture” in which the College operates.

Asked how her higher-ed executive experience compares to that of being a paralegal, she says “This is more fun! Because I’m working with people more, and there’s so much more variety in the work.”

Lawrence says her highest priority has always been her children —and grandchildren. She has a daughter in Denver, a son in Austin and twin five-year-old grandsons. ”As you look back on your life, most of us won’t be able to say we’ve found the cure for cancer,” she says. “But to say, ‘My children are happy, productive members of their community,’ that’s something to be truly proud of.”