Meet Pia Owens

Q: Congratulations on being elected to the Library Board of Trustees, Pia! What made you decide to run, and how did the whole experience feel?

I love the library – and I also know how hard it is to sustain an institution over time, especially one that’s open and accessible to the public.

The stars aligned for me to run for trustee this year. My oldest went off to college, freeing up some of my time and energy. Two current trustees decided not to run again. Recent attacks on literature, arts, and minority groups made it feel urgent to get involved. And I have a lot of experience in helping to run organizations, so I thought this would be a way I could contribute.

Campaigning was harder than I expected! I knocked on doors every weekend all through the fall. It was tiring, but was also a great excuse to talk to people. We’re so lucky to live in a community that actively supports our library, and the people I talked to told me what they love about it.

Q: Is there a library program or space you think more people should check out?

Here’s a mini-scavenger hunt with a few of my favorite library areas. Upstairs: zine library, jigsaw puzzle collection, local art gallery, and reading room. Downstairs: Library of Things (everything from jewelry-making supplies to snowshoes!), new books display in the lobby, and black sesame coffee at the library outpost of O’Some café.

Q: Can you walk us through your career story? Where did you start out, and what are you doing these days?

In my twenties, I worked as a software engineer. When I was around thirty, I decided to switch careers and go to law school, where I focused on mediation and negotiation skills. Now I work as in-house counsel at a tech company, covering topics like data privacy and artificial intelligence.

Q: You’re active with Watertown Community Conversations. For folks who might not know, what is WCC all about?

Watertown Community Conversations is a group of volunteers who facilitate civic dialogue. Dialogue sounds simple. But think about all the decisions we have to make as a community, even ones as small as a change in a traffic light. It’s important to gather a range of perspectives and make sure the final decision takes them all into account.

The traditional way is to hold a public meeting where people take turns speaking, but these often end up with disgruntled attendees who feel they were treated unfairly or didn’t get a chance to be heard.

WCC offers a different model where we have structured conversations in small groups and every group reports their findings. People leave feeling more connected to each other, instead of being polarized.

Q: What first brought you and your family to Watertown, and what’s kept you here?

We bounced around between different apartments at first, and decided to settle down when our landlord tried to charge us a whole month’s extra rent to renew our lease. We found a little house on Dexter Ave that was straight out of the 1960s, with a bubblegum pink kitchen and an all-lavender bathroom. Lavender tiles on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Lavender sink, lavender toilet.

At that time, Watertown was affordable, and we loved the location. We subscribed to the local newspaper, the Watertown Tab, to learn more about the community, and started attending all the public meetings that were listed in the paper. We would show up at everything from nonprofit potlucks to town council meetings. People were surprised to see us – we were often the youngest people in the room by a few decades! We appreciated that Watertown had such a large group of people who were deeply engaged in the community and trying to help each other. Soon enough, we would walk down the street and see people we recognized from around town. That’s still my favorite part of living in Watertown – walking down the street and seeing friends and neighbors everywhere.

We’ve also loved raising our kids here. I miss our daily morning walk to the Hosmer, seeing the big kids run around together and the little ones getting hugs from parents before heading in to school. At the middle school and high school, our kids have had opportunities to do robotics and theater and benefit from our fantastic music program.

After many years here, we can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else! Watertown is walkable, vibrant, and full of people who care about each other.

Q: What do you like to do for fun when you’re not working, raising kids, or volunteering?

Whenever I can spare a few hours, I’m working on my novel. I have been writing it, and re-writing it, for seven years now. Possibly some day I will even finish it. But not any day soon. It feels more like a permanent fixture in my life than a project that will eventually end.