Tamara’s Awards • Photo by Avi Rubin, September 2019

Updated; February 9, 2020
(Rates & Minimums Subject To Change)

Background

Tamara Rubin, an internationally-recognized expert on childhood Lead-poisoning and its prevention, has won numerous awards for her pioneering work in raising awareness of household exposure to neurotoxic Lead (and other heavy metal toxicants) and safe work practices in remodeling and remediation – and is the only person ever to win the national “Healthy Homes Hero Award” (pictured above) — presented to her in 2011 by a consortium of federal agencies (HUD, USDA, USDoE, CDC & EPA) at the National Healthy Homes Conference in Denver, for her ground-breaking consumer advocacy in raising awareness about the dangers of residential Lead exposure.

Tamara became an advocate and activist for Lead poisoning prevention after her children were acutely poisoned at their home in Portland, Oregon in August of 2005. In early 2012 she gave up a career as a successful computer consultant and database designer to do this advocacy full time.

Since December of 2016 she began working under the name “Lead Safe Mama” as an independent advocate and consumer goods watchdog, with a focus on consumer goods testing and reporting the results of this testing here on the #LeadSafeMama blog, incorporating officially as “Lead Safe Mama, LLC” in January of 2018.

Highlights

• 2016: Tamara was recognized as one of the key whistleblowers in the Portland Public Schools (PPS) Lead-in-water legal case, for her work exposing the PPS administration’s knowledge and active participation in allowing children to drink Lead-contaminated water from school fountains without taking any action to remediate the Lead hazards (nor alerting the parents of this concern).
• 2017: In the summer of 2017 her work finding Lead in the popular fidget spinner toys went viral and was later covered by CBS This Morning in November of 2017 (link).
• March 2019: With her discovery and reporting of Lead (and Cadmium, Arsenic, and Mercury) in vintage Tupperware products in March of 2019, nearly 1,000,000 unique individuals from all over the globe visited the blog in a single month. [See the stats summary for March 2019 here!]
• September 13, 2019: In the past 12 months, the total number of unique visitors to the Lead Safe Mama blog (per Google Analytics) has grown to more than 1,500,000 people from more than 200 countries (link) – see image below & click here to see some more of the fun stats.

Recent News Coverage & Interviews Include:

• August 30, 2019 – New Idea Food, Australia
• August 28, 2019 – Truthout (USA)
• August 25, 2019 – Yahoo Style U.K.
• August 23, 2019 – The Sun (U.K.)
• August 16, 2019 – 7 News Australia
• August 1, 2019 – Better Homes & Gardens, Australia
• July 25, 2019 – New Idea Food, Australia
• July 23, 2019 – Vice (USA)

Writing

The TamaraRubin.com / LeadSafeMama.com blog has more than 1,900 posts and pages with information and resources specifically on the subject of Lead, childhood Lead poisoning prevention, Lead in schools, Lead-safe work practices in renovation, Lead in consumer goods (consumer goods test results), and more.

Over the past 13 years, Tamara’s writings have been published and quoted widely and the #LeadSafeMama website (which features extensive database of consumer and household goods she has tested) serves as a trusted source – a virtual encyclopedia – on these topics, which together with her social media channels (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), newsletters and blog, have earned her a large (and loyal!) Internet following.

Public and Private Speaking Engagements

Since her first speaking engagement at the Western States Lead Poisoning Prevention Conference in Seattle in 2007, Tamara has partnered with dozens of public health agencies and other businesses and organizations on collaborative outreach events for childhood Lead-poisoning prevention awareness. This has included headlining at professional conferences; she is also a popular keynote speaker and presenter at events hosted by medical schools, fortune 500 corporations, and civic groups throughout the U.S.

Speaking engagement highlights range from presenting alongside presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Flint, Michigan and serving as an opening speaker for renowned environmental activist Erin Brockovich. Her popular “lunch and learn” enterprise speaking engagements have included collaborative events at the Corporate Headquarters of Nike, Seventh Generation, and SC Johnson Wax. To read more about Tamara’s speaking engagements and collaborative outreach events, click here.

One-on-One Home Consultations
& Testing Parties

Tamara visits families and communities at home – where they live, educating people about common environmental sources of Lead exposure – particularly those lurking in plain sight in our homes – and childhood Lead-poisoning prevention. Healthy Home Consultations are one-on-one sessions where Tamara helps folks detox their life by helping to identify which consumer goods and household items in their home are free of heavy metal toxicants (Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Arsenic and Antimony) and which are good candidates to eliminate from their homes. During these visits, she also gives great advice and support to help parents make #SaferChoices for their families moving forward, offering a unique set of information and tools (tailored to the families she visits) as guidelines to help them limit their family’s potential ongoing exposure to toxicants. To read more about Home Consultations, click here.

Testing Parties

A Testing Party is like a one-on-one home consultation where the host invites friends to bring things to be tested (using XRF technology) and to help share the cost of the home visit. It ends up being a crash-course in metallic neurotoxicants commonly found in our homes — and how to avoid them. Testing parties often have between 6 and 10 participants – are usually a lot of fun and have often been compared to a “reverse Tupperware party”  – where the outcome is not that the host and guests buy things, but rather that they end up getting rid of things in their homes that are potential or confirmed sources of heavy metal exposure. To read more about Testing Parties, click here.

Rates – in most cities:
(subject to change)

DAY RATES, United States

• Public Speaking Events: $5,500/ half day or $7,500 full day (up to three events in a full day, schedule permitting). $10,000 for two full days. [Travel time and travel costs included]
• Private Engagements: $2,000/day, plus $1,500 per travel day — depending on location; usually one to two travel days are necessary for a full day of consulting. For example, an East Coast private engagement might require two full travel days but a California private engagement would normally just require one full travel day. [Travel costs (flight, ground transportation, etc.) included]
• Corporate Consumer Goods Consulting: $5,000/full day [Travel time and travel costs included]
• Non-U.S. Locations: Rates can be discussed, and depend on travel time and additional cost factors.

Click here to learn more about Tamara’s outreach events and speaking engagements.

Testing Parties & Home Consultations*
(one-on-one)

• $275 to $325 per hour in most (but not all*) U.S. locations.
• Normally $300/hour for a 3-hour or 4-hour appointment, or $325/hour for a 2 hour appointment (depending on availability).
• 2-hour or 3-hour minimum site visit depending on location.
• Maximum consultation length: 4 hours.
• No charge for travel time if travel is less than 1 hr. total driving required.
• Longer minimum visits may be required (or a charge for travel time or a higher rate) depending on the anticipated travel time to your location.

Considerations:

• Payment must be made in advance to confirm your time-slot.
• We can send you an invoice for payment, or you can use one of the electronic payment methods listed below.
• If travel time is greater than 30 minutes, 1/2 of round-trip travel time may be charged in addition to the time of the visit. [or a longer minimum site visit may be required – depending on the travel distance.]
• *Home Visit rates are for when Tamara is in your area already; if you would like to book Tamara to come to your city or state when she is not already going to be there, she needs to confirm a private engagement or public speaking engagement to bring her to the area OR at least 25 hours of aggregate home visits to make that possible [or 10 hours – for areas that are near a major California airport.]
• Included with your consultation is advance calls/communications with Tamara (to help you prepare for her visit), as well as follow-up questions answered via text, e-mail, or messenger (really pretty much “unlimited” – within reason!)

Legal disclaimer for private consultations:

Tamara is not (and does not claim to be) a Hazard Assessor, Lead Paint Inspector, nor Risk Assessor. And no formal written reports are provided with her consultations — however, you are encouraged to take notes during your time with Tamara.

Thank you for your interest in this important work!

Pay for your consultation using the links below:

Please confirm your rate, time-slot and minimum visit time (usually 2 or 3 hours, depending on your location) with Tamara or one of her helpers prior to making your payment. Payments can also be made by PayPal using “send money” to TamaraRubin@mac.com, by Venmo to @TamaraERubin or by Zelle to 503-702-2708.

• Confirm a 2-hour consultation or party. $650
• Confirm a 3-hour consultation or party. $900

Click here to read the refund policy.
This is linked in the footer on every page of this website.

Neighbor Visit

Is Tamara visiting a friend who lives next-door to you (a home that is literally next to your home) and you want her to pop in for a half hour or an hour?  Please inquire about a “neighbor visit: (only for situations where there is literally no travel involved!) 

Phone Consultations

Phone consultations are normally billed at $250 an hour, with a one-hour minimum. You can email photos and tests results (if that is what you have questions about) in advance of your call to TamaraRubin@mac.com. Please pay in advance to confirm your time slot (Venmo preferred: @TamaraERubin).

As always, thank you for reading. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Tamara Rubin & The Lead Safe Mama Team!