From Our President
From Our Executive Director
It has been my honor and privilege to represent the wide range of dedicated,
American writer Walter Lippman once quipped, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.” These sentiments echo in my thoughts as I reflect on our performance during fiscal year 2022– 2023. I believe you will find there is much to like and admire in the data we present in this report. Perfect? No. Good? You are the customer and have the privilege of making that judgement.
We recognize our focus on providing resources and education to empower our members and support our affiliates to spread the word about the wonderful world of environmental health. The environmental public health profession continues to be challenged by a lack of recognition for the important work we do to safeguard food, water, housing, and so much more. We took bold steps in leading an advertising campaign to help communities and policymakers understand the importance of the workforce. We also continue to advocate and support legislation that improves environmental public health—with more to come in 2024. Together, we will raise the profile of the environmental health profession for the greatest good! Although every year has presented us with unique challenges, it has been my pleasure to see both environmental health professionals and our staff come together in extraordinary ways.
quality training and education you have come to expect so that you know what you need to know when you need to know it.
hardworking environmental health professionals working in local, state, and federal governments, industry, and academia this past year. We are proud to have supported this good work through collaborations with CDC and FDA to provide significant investments directly to state, local, tribal, and territorial environmental health programs and to reach diverse communities. We have reached far and wide to support our peers as they face program changes with government relations resources and a strong effort for our Hill Day. We also continue to strive to provide up-to-date science and find opportunities to build and strengthen the environmental public health workforce through collaboration with accredited education programs and a well-supported internship program. We have insightfully worked to strengthen the ever-evolving educational offerings, including written materials, online and in-person trainings, courses and certificates, e-learning, and scholarships to our fantastic AEC & Exhibition.
We are thinking differently and challenging old ways of doing business. For example, many of our counterparts have abandoned hybrid conference offerings because of expense. We know many of you are unable to travel and subsequently we have maintained our commitment to provide you that option. We have published over 30 scientific articles on the environmental health workforce in the last 6 years. That is a record of thought leadership for which I am particularly proud. Last year we delivered course content to professionals in all 50 states and most U.S. territories. In sum, that is performance data we stand by. And we accomplished that by thinking differently—about you, about us, and about our mission.
Most readers familiar with my leadership philosophy understand that I believe it is the who and not the what that make organizations special. This year we doubled down on recruiting the right who so that our what would naturally spring from our nationally distributed workforce. The evidence speaks for itself. We employ five doctoral degree holders on staff and work daily with two others on mission-critical activities. That’s roughly 10% of our workforce. An additional five employees have master’s degrees and there are at least five additional individuals with nationally recognized credentials. Our staff, irrespective of education or status, bring their talents to bear to deliver the
Tom Butts Board President
David Dyjack Executive Director
II
III
Powered by FlippingBook