The speakers urged students to find mentors while in school or in the workplace, build good networking skills, and be willing to seize opportunities.

Barbara DeBuono, MPH '84, who is now senior medical director/group leader for public health at Pfizer, Inc., said that she was inspired at age 14 when she read the book Microbe Hunters by Paul Henry De Kruif about the history of microbiology. She knew at that moment she wanted "to save the world."

"So, I tried to figure out how I could do that," she said. She chose medical school, with special training in internal medicine, and then public health, eventually becoming health commissioner for New York and director of health for Rhode Island.

Ardell Wilson, MPH '86, chief of the Bureau of Community Health for the Connecticut Department of Public Health, followed a different route. After dental school, Wilson spent two years in the barrios of New York as part of the National Health Service Corps. She studied maternal, child, and geriatric health at HSPH and later returned to New York to teach at Columbia, but her earlier clinical experience, coupled with encouragement she received from HSPH mentors, prepared her for a leadership role in health care delivery and the government.

Wilson advised students to be innovative, enthusiastic and unafraid to show leadership in their work. Public health training, she said, teaches a person how to change systems, how to have an impact on populations; in other words, how to lead.

Beth Waldman, MPH '97, went to law school right out of Union College. With her law degree in hand, she thought it would be interesting to work for a state agency, so she took a job with the Massachusetts Board of Education in Medicine.

"That was my entry into health," she said. Later, a mentor suggested she apply for a job as assistant general counsel for the Division of Medical Assistance in the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. She got the job, and now is Medicaid Director for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Waldman said that she found herself to be in the right place at the right time. She advised imminent grads to be willing to do "grunt work" in their new jobs because it shows agencies that they want to learn.

"Massachusetts is always looking for smart students interested in internships," she said. "We always have opportunities, and it's a good place to start your career."

Craig Melin, SM '75, MBA '76, had planned a career in accounting. He thought law and business degrees would help him run an actuarial company, so he applied to Harvard Business School.

Before entering graduate school, however, he and two MIT students spent a summer working as interns at the Rate Setting Commission, which designates Medicaid provider rates for the state. At the time, he never thought that he would become a hospital CEO 17 years later. He serves as president of Cooley Dickinson Hospital, an affiliate of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Alliance, in Northampton, MA.

Melin credits three HSPH mentors and a search firm with shaping his career. He has held administrative positions at University Hospital in Boston, National Jewish Hospital/National Asthma Center in Denver CO, and Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston.

Myron Allukian, Jr., MPH '67, current member and former president of the HSPH Alumni Council, moderated. Allukian is also elected director of the Harvard Alumni Association and chair of the Alumni Students Relations Committee. In his welcoming remarks, Allukian reflected on his professionally fulfilling career as director of oral health at the Boston Public Health Commission for the past 34 years.

The panel discussion was followed by two break-out session where students could continue the discussion on careers with individual presenters. The program ended with a reception attended by students, alumni, and faculty.

The program was co-sponsored by the Office of Alumni Programs, Career Services Office, HSPH Alumni Council and Pfizer, Inc. Pfizer provided all attendees with books about careers in public health.

--PHC