Onjalé Scott Price is a powerhouse, a visionary, a mentor, and a driven member of the Falmouth community. She is the Chief Operating Officer at scientific equipment maker Mizar Imaging, Co-Director of the Woods Hole Diversity Advisory Committee's Woods Hole Partnership Education Program, a Justice-Equity-Diversity-Inclusion advocate, is currently running for Falmouth Town Council, and in her free time is a drone photographer.

“I strongly believe in public service, which is why I do what I do,” she says. "I believe that as a community we need to support each other, encourage each other, and essentially love each other.”

Onjalé’s commitment was recognized with a 2018 John K. Bullard Diversity Award -- a recognition given every other year to an individual in the Woods Hole community who plays a significant role in making the community more inclusive and more welcoming to people of all backgrounds.

Price has lived all over the country. Originally from Inglewood, California, she attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Florida, where she graduated in three years with a BS in Civil Engineering. After college, she made her way to Maryland where she worked with Americorps part-time while working full time at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, an HBCU. She earned an MBA from Western Governors University.

In 2011, Price’s college mentor Dr. Ambrose Gerald Jr. invited her to come to Woods Hole for the summer and be the coordinator of the Partnership Education Program (PEP) internship. She was a little apprehensive, mostly because of the weather. “I like to stay warm, I’m looking up the weather like 'Hmmm, I don’t know, this might not work out.’ Obviously, I fell in love with the place.”

She began the hard work of coordinating the 10-week program for college juniors and seniors who spend the summer gaining practical experience in marine and environmental science, and has since become the program’s co-director.

Her work at PEP also helped her professional career: By 2018, Mizar Imaging CEO Joel Smith had watched her hard work and tenacity coordinating the PEP program over several summers and offered her the COO position at the company.

Onjalé Scott Price spoke with Amplify’s Tamora Israel.

Amplify: Why are you so involved in the community? What does community mean to you?

Onjalé Scott Price: This is where I’ve decided to live, and I want to be in a community that I love living in. That means serving my community in whatever capacity that I can.

Amplify: What is your vision for Falmouth?

Onjalé Scott Price: I would like to have more of the voices that aren’t heard represented. It’s my understanding that the Cape Verdeans and other demographics who live in East Falmouth, where I live, don’t always feel like their voices are represented when it comes to local politics. I think quite often the burden is placed on the people to say, ‘You should come to a meeting’ or 'You should run' or ‘You should’ve sent an email with your issues.’

I think there needs to be more outreach. I’m in a position of power and a position of privilege in that I have a very flexible schedule, and when somebody doesn’t [have that same situation], their voice still needs to be heard, so I need to make the effort to make sure their voice is heard and their concerns are raised so their ideas are brought to the table. My vision would be to tap into some of the places around town that aren’t usually tapped into and bring that to the greater Falmouth community.

Amplify: You’re running for a seat on the Falmouth Select Board against Michael Heylin. How do you feel about your run?

Onjalé Scott Price: I feel really good about it, I’ve gotten a lot of really encouraging support from people I know, a lot from people I don’t know. I’m doing multiple zoom calls per week, I’m meeting different people and they’re all providing a lot of good feedback. They’ve all seemingly been excited about my candidacy. I feel pretty good about it.

Amplify: Your platform issues are Affordable Housing, Water Quality, Coastal Resilience, Opioid Epidemic, and Equity. Out of these five things, is there one that is at the top for you? And why did you pick these issues?

Onjalé Scott Price: I picked these platform issues because I think they are incredibly important to the Falmouth community in one way or another. Look at Coastal Resilience: We have 70-plus miles of coastline in Falmouth. That’s huge. The Opioid Epidemic: There’s been a 20% increase in overdoses since the pandemic started. We already had an issue and it’s being exacerbated by the pandemic. Affordable Housing: Oh man, I could go on about affordable housing. I was on the Falmouth Affordable Housing Committee for a while and I really think the affordable housing issue might be the biggest issue because it particularly encompasses the other issues that we have. Not necessarily coastal resilience, but I feel like affordable housing is an equity and a justice issue, and I’ve been doing what I call J.E.D.I work (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) for a long time now.

It’s really about equity. People who work here deserve the opportunity to live here. They don’t have to if they don’t want to, but they should at least have the opportunity to. The people who are the backbone of our economy in the tourism and service industry should absolutely be able to live in the beautiful place they work. If we have more Equitable Housing, people are going to be commuting less; that’s going to lower congestion on the highways. It’s going to reduce the environmental impact of having so many cars on the road. We have ridiculous parking issues in downtown Falmouth and Woods Hole, it would reduce that. So I think affordable housing encompasses so many issues that we have. It’s an equity issue and I’m all about things being equitable and just.

Amplify: Could you talk more about JEDI work?

Onjalé Scott Price: A lot of people do D.E.I. work -- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The justice aspect was a really important piece of that. And if you say you do J.E.D.I work, people kinda perk up, and they say, what do you mean, and you explain that J.E.D.I is Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and they’re disappointed that you're not talking about Star Wars. But at least it got them asking. I found that is an interesting way to broach that subject.

When I was an undergrad, I became a mentee in the GeoSciences and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) programs. That was where I first started to work on J.E.D.I. issues. They are personal issues to me. More often than not I was the only woman and/or the only person of color in my classes. I was doing engineering undergrad, so there weren’t a lot of us. And there’s still not a lot of us. It’s something that’s personally affected me.

As I move on with my career, I find that I’m often asking people to use their privilege in one way or another. To amplify the voices of others or to move out of the way of others. Then sometimes I find that I’m in a position of privilege, not because of my race, but maybe because of my employment. I feel I need to be using my voice to amplify others and that comes to full circle of why I’m interested in the Select Board.

Amplify: If you are elected to the Select Board, at some point you’re going to come into opposition with someone. How do you move forward with someone who might not see your vision the way you do? How do you bring, what I call 'fence people', over to your side?

Onjalé Scott Price: I think a big thing is active listening, which as a society I don’t think we do very well. It’s not listening to get them on my side of the fence, it’s not listening to rebut anything they have to say, it’s listening to understand. I really feel like there are almost always three sides of a story, it’s his side, his side, and the truth. Or in some cases it’s my opinion, your opinion, and somewhere in between. We can usually come to some sort of compromise or some sort of agreement.

If it’s something I feel very strongly about, or I feel like I don’t want to compromise about something, which does happen, I tend to still listen. I still want to hear what the other person has to say. As in go through all of their concerns, or perhaps their misconceptions, I try to help them understand my point of view. I would listen to what they have to say. I would give my side to my perspective and hopefully discuss it rationally.

Once in a while, you get people who are not willing to listen and that becomes more challenging and more difficult and you have to handle those people a bit differently. But I find that most people, if you take the time to listen to what they have to say, ask them questions, show them that you’re listening, and then tell your side or your opinion, people are generally apt to listen to you because you listened to them. And then somewhere, with some back and forth conversation, you can usually come to some sort of compromise or some sort of conclusion that might not make everybody happy, but at least people will feel like their voices have been heard and they haven’t been ignored.

Amplify: Who was the first person to believe in your talent? And how has that encouragement pushed you along the way as you climb the ladder of success?

Onjalé Scott Price: I’ve always been really supported by my mom, my brother, and my god-sister. They’ve always been like, ‘Yea, you can do it. You got it’ in a broad sense.

Very specifically about my career, and being about to manage multiple things and work with people, that person has been Dr. Ambrose Gerald Jr. — Dr. Gerald, he’s the man, like for real. Dr. Gerald was my mentor in my undergrad program. I met him, I think it was 2006 he argues it was 2005, but somewhere around there. In 2011, he called me and asked me if I would come to Woods Hole and run the PEP internship. He’s like, “Look I know you haven’t done anything like this but I’ve seen the things you have done, and you can do this, and you can be really good at this.” I came that first summer and fell in love with the place and kept coming back. Part of the reason I kept coming back was because he was so encouraging. Even when I made mistakes, he was like, “That’s okay. You learn from that and now let’s move on.” Every step of my career he has been the person to say, ‘Remember, you can do this. Don’t doubt yourself.’

I think he was the first person who was really able to see my potential. I’m now the co-director of the PEP internship and he was the first Director. He has coached me along the way, not to follow in his footsteps, but to stand on his shoulders.

Amplify: If Greatness were to sit next to you as a being, what would it compliment you on first?

Onjalé Scott Price: Oh my goodness. Okay. I think greatness would compliment me on my capacity for compassion and learning. I can be compassionate and I am always open and willing to learn. So I would say those two things.

Amplify: If Sorrow were to sit next to you as a being, what would it notice about you first?

Onjalé Scott Price: I think sorrow would notice that sometimes I do have feelings of being overwhelmed by being compassionate for people. Sometimes I have to take a step back and put my mental health first. I have not watched anything in the last couple of weeks about the trial in Minneapolis. I just, I can’t. I know that I can’t do that and do the work I have to do. My heart goes out to my people, and especially to the people in that community, I know that for my well-being, it is not something I have the capacity to watch right now.

Amplify: When is the election? Who can vote? Where do they vote?

Onjalé Scott Price: The election is Tuesday, May 18th, and there are multiple ways to vote. Any Falmouth resident who is registered to vote can vote in this election. There’s a couple of options. Someone could just go to their regular polling place, on election day which is Tuesday the 18th. There is a form online that you can fill out or email back or drop off at Town Hall and they will send you a mail-in ballot. You fill out the mail-in ballot and you can take that back to Town Hall. It’s a little bit more cumbersome to do it that way, but if people are not comfortable going in person to vote, that is an option.

Amplify: What do you want people to know about your campaign that they don’t?

Onjalé Scott Price: I just want the opportunity to serve the people of Falmouth.

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On the Web: https://www.oscottprice.com/ and www.electOnjalescottprice.org

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OnjaleScottPriceforFalmouth

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/osnapsphotos/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/Onjalescottprice