ALUMNI PROFILES
Barbara Woodbury MPH (Graduated in May 2007)
Director of Environmental Health in Park County, Montana
This photo shows me uncovering a septic system made out of a washing machine. This picture was taken in a town in rural Montana in 2005.
Since fall of 2001, I have worked as a sanitarian in Montana. Prior to that, I had worked many different jobs; from laundress to chemical analysis. As my 40th birthday approached, I decided I’d had enough of “stupid jobs” and I was going to go back to college to finish my degree. I had earned an Associate of Science degree in geology in 1982, and 15 years later, I was going to finish my education. I attended Montana State University and graduated with my BS in Microbiology—Environmental Health, with a minor in Religious Studies, in 2001. Twenty-six years after I started, I finally had accomplished my goal of a college degree. It was my desire to work helping people have clean water to drink and proper sewage disposal. I toyed with doing my graduate work in Environmental Engineering, but decided to start working before attending graduate school.
I started my sanitarian career in the fall after graduation. I worked with the local health department, one of the larger departments in Montana with eight sanitarians. I was able to learn from the senior staff, and then I got an opportunity to work in a rural county. I would be the only sanitarian in the county, serving a population of about 11,000. The county was 115 miles long, and not a single stop light! The washing machine photo was taken soon after I’d started.
Fifteen minutes after I started my new job, I got called out to investigate the first failed septic system in town, and I found out about the problems I would face in Sanders County. In the next three and a half years, I worked with approximately 150 failed septic systems. The people were very poor, so I wrote a grant to establish a Revolving Loan Fund to help them afford new septic systems. I started a “Get Your Poop in a Group” campaign to educate people about the importance of proper sewage disposal, and to inform them about the program. I helped people by doing site evaluation work and system designs, to save them $1000 on their replacement systems. The campaign brochure was also done for one of my classes in my graduate work.
Currently, I am the Director of Environmental Health in Park County, Montana: Population about 16,000, with millions of Yellowstone National Park tourists and part time residents during the summer. In this position I am also a floodplain administrator along the longest free flowing river in the continental US—the Yellowstone River. Learning that program is another challenge in my career!
One of the neatest things about going to school online, while you work in the real world full time, is studying real issues in your work, while doing your school work. This experience helped me to gain a deeper commitment and understanding of my vital role in public health. Sanitarians are often forgotten in public health---the ugly step-children, if you will. In America, we do not have children dropping dead of diarrhea. Most of us enjoy safe drinking water, we are very blessed. As I studied in my MPH classes, I learned how sanitation was one of the foundations of early governments.
So, sanitarians have done their jobs so well, people have forgotten the importance of what we do. Sanitation is the foundation of public health; without it, you cannot maintain public health.
The main reason I pursued a graduate degree was personal. It had been a personal goal I thought I would never achieve, but in 2007 I did achieve my goal! So, my MPH is a source of personal pride and sense of accomplishment. Professionally, it says I am committed to public health. My experience in the MPH program helped to deepen and focus that commitment.
In my personal life, my son and his wife are expecting my first grandchild in May 2009. I am looking forward to the grandparent experience! My husband is a lapidary and jeweler. We love to hunt agates on the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana. We have three kitties and they love helping me crochet amigurumi, which are little toys made of yarn. In my former life I owned a small bakeshop, specializing in cookies and cheesecake. I love to bake for people. In one of my online classes we did a cookie exchange with the members of our group project.
