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Message from the President

I know you’ve heard it before, but we need to do a better job of tooting our horns. Much has been said recently about the ‘invisibility’ of our profession. We need to ask ourselves if we take advantage of the opportunities to educate the masses about our profession. We do ourselves a disservice if we don’t point out the good things we do on a daily basis to protect the public health and respond to environmental threats. We need to take advantage of every opportunity to speak with the press – whether in front of the TV camera or in the print media. (Lord knows we’ve had plenty of opportunities lately with the nation wide salmonella outbreak, etc.) If we allow other agencies and sectors of public health practice to take all the limelight the sanitarian and the EH department will continue to toil in anonymity and be deprived of the exposure and recognition we deserve.

Your Governing Council is working on projects designed to provide tools to members to help us toot our horns. The following is a brief update on those initiatives.

* We are currently taking proposals from media companies to create and air a radio public service announcement all across the state of Texas that describes and promotes our profession and what we do.

* We continue to work on the development of a Speaker’s Bureau for the TEHA website. Members can volunteer to be listed on the site and be invited to speak to interested groups in areas of their expertise. This will also provide an opportunity to educate the public on the profession and the important work we do.

We, along with most professions, are bracing for a mass exodus of an experienced and maturing work force. Demographers warn that staffing our departments in the coming years with educated and qualified individuals will become more and more challenging.

Some of you baby boomers out there can help alleviate the situation by taking every opportunity to promote our profession and encourage young people to consider a career in EH. We can also encourage professional growth and promote retention by volunteering to mentor new EH employees.
We must continue to promote TEHA and encourage EH practitioners to become involved in this association. TEHA exists to serve the EH professional in Texas by providing quality educational and networking opportunities. I don’t know about you but it’s also where I find many of my friends.
Thank you for your support of TEHA. I hope to see you in October at our annual education conference at Omni-Southpark, Austin.

Steve Claybrook, REHS/RS
President, TEHA