CONCURRENT SESSION PRESENTER BIOS
Erin Arifin, City of Minneapolis
Erin Arifin works for the City of Minneapolis Department of Health and
Family Support in Emergency Preparedness. She has been in her position
as an Emergency Preparedness Specialist since November 2002. Some of her
response experience includes Cavity Lake Fire, hurricanes in
Florida and the I-35 Bridge collapse with
the
Family
Assistance
Center. She is State
of
Minnesota Certified Emergency Manager.
Jane Braun, Minnesota Department of Health
Jane Braun has been the Deputy Director of Emergency Preparedness at
the Minnesota Department of Health for the past three years. Her
responsibilities include overall program guidance, planning for special
projects, and leadership of response to incidents. She has previously worked
as an epidemiologist for Hennepin County, and for over 20 years in a variety
of positions within MDH. She has a Masters degree in environmental health,
is a certified emergency manager, teaches Incident Command at the University
of Minnesota School of Public Health, and served as the lead public health
planner for the 2008 Republican National Convention.
Lisa Brodsky, Bloomington Public Health
Lisa Brodsky, MPH, CEM has been with Bloomington Public Health for nearly
3 years and coordinates all public health emergency preparedness activities
in the cities of Bloomington, Edina and Richfield. Lisa holds a
Master’s degree in Public Health from the
University of
Minnesota and is a State of
Minnesota Certified Emergency Manager.
Mary Burfeind, Minnesota Department of Health
Mary has extensive experience as a critical care Emergency Nurse and
Healthcare/EMS educator, as well as Emergency Preparedness Coordination for
All Hazards Planning with hospitals, local public health, clinics, medical
reserve corps, emergency medical services and state pan flu preparedness.
Rob Carlson, Minnesota Department of Health, Office of Emergency
Preparedness
Rob is employed in the Office of Emergency Preparedness at the Minnesota
Department of Health. He is the State coordinator for the Minnesota Responds
Medical Reserve Corps which is a network of local and state operated health
volunteers programs coordinated through MDH.
Laura Eiklenborg, City of Minneapolis
Laura Eiklenborg is Deputy Director with the City of Minneapolis,
Emergency Preparedness and Regulatory Services. Her work focuses on
health and human services related emergency planning and response.
Prior to her position as Deputy Director, she was the Regional Preparedness
Coordinator in the Minnesota Metro Region where her primary projects
included the development and implementation of the postal plan and the
coordination of a regional disaster behavioral health plan.
Laura holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from the
University of
Minnesota.
Richard Fong, Minnesota Department of Health, Communications Office
Richard is employed by the MDH Communications Office as an information
technology specialist. He has written many Web-base intranet applications
for the agency that facilitate information-sharing among employees; these
improve productivity, which saves money and provides better service to the
public. He is also the agency administrator for MDH’s free e-mail
subscription service, which provides alerts when new information is
published. Most recently he spear-headed several Web 2.0 implementation
projects for the agency and serves as lead staff person for many of MDH’s
Web 2.0 initiatives, such as podcasts, video on the Web, RSS feeds, Twitter
and the almost-ready-for-production public-facing blogging software.
Rob Fulton, St. Paul – Ramsey County Department of Public Health
Rob is director of the Saint Paul – Ramsey County Department of Public
Health since 1988. He directs the operation of a large, full service
public health entity that focuses on preventing communicable disease,
promoting the health of children, youth and their families, protecting the
environment and reducing environmental health hazards, and reducing chronic
disease. He directs over 300 employees in a department with a budget
of $52 million a year.
Pam Gahr, Minnesota Department of
Health
Pam Gahr is a senior epidemiologist in the Infectious Disease
Epidemiology Prevention and Control Division of the Minnesota Department of
Health (MDH). Pam received a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from
St.
Olaf
College and a Master of Public Health degree in
epidemiology from the
University of
Minnesota. Most of her
work over the last 10 years has been in the MDH Emerging Infections Program.
During that time she has worked on various outbreak investigations,
surveillance projects, and epidemiological studies. She has been working as
the MDH Pandemic Influenza Planning Coordinator since September of 2008.
J. Eline (Ellie) Garrett, Minnesota Center for Health Care for Ethics
Ellie is the Assistant Director for Health Policy and Public Health for
the Minnesota Center for Health Care Ethics. Her work at the Center focuses
on fostering collaborative, community solutions to ethical and policy
quandaries in health care and public health. She is a past-president of the
Minnesota Public Health Association and teaches health policy at the College
of St. Catherine. Ellie received the 2004 Albus Justus Chesley Award for
distinguished service to public health in Minnesota. Her most recent
publication is as a co-author of “Health Care Workers’ Willingness to Work
in a Pandemic,” American Journal of Bioethics (2008) 8(8):21-23. She
is also one of the leaders of the Minnesota Pandemic Ethics Project,
currently underway.
Katherine Grimm, HealthEast Care System
Katherine is the Director of Emergency Preparedness for HealthEast Care
System in St Paul since January 2005. She also joined the Joint
Commission Resources as an instructor for their Advanced Emergency
Management course in 2009. She has a Master’s in Public Health,
Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and is
a State of Minnesota Certified Emergency Manager.
Patricia Hadfield, Hennepin County Medical Center
Patricia is a Nursing Supervisor at Hennepin County Medical Center
(HCMC). She has many years of experience as a staff nurse in a variety of
clinical medical/surgical and intensive care settings, education instructor
and management positions. In addition to her nursing supervisor position at
HCMC, she is also functioning as the Coordinator of the Alternate Care Site
Committee for the seven county metro areas under the Healthcare Facilities
Partnership Program Grant. Patricia is an active member of the
hospital’s Emergency Preparedness Committee and a Hospital Incident Command
System (HICS) Instructor. She participated as the Planning Section Chief
with the set up of Camp Ripley for Minnesota’s response to Hurricane Katrina
in 2005.
Sheryl Hogg
A board member for Pleading Paws Pet Rescue in the Twin Cities and
Secretary of the Minnesota Animal Disaster Coalition, Sheryl has been active
in working with animal issues on a volunteer basis for many years. She
served as an owner liaison for two major sheltering groups for eight months
following Katrina, volunteered with the Emergency Animal Rescue Service for
animal sheltering operations following the Cedar Rapids, Iowa floods, and
helped to coordinate resources for animal issues for the Hugo Tornado and
Red River floods in Fargo-Moorhead. Her professional background is in
securities analysis and management consulting and she currently runs her own
business as a translator of Japanese business and financial documents into
English. Sheryl is a Chartered Financial Analyst and holds B.A. degrees in
Japanese and Linguistics, and an M.A. in Linguistics.
George Johns, Minnesota Department of Health
Before working for the State of Iowa and the State of Minnesota, George
was a refueling supervisor at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. He was responsible
for radiological technician response training as well as the refueling and
defueling of nuclear submarines. In Iowa, he had an active roll in the
Radiological Response Preparedness (REP) program. He now serves as the
supervisor of the Minnesota Department of Health's Radioactive Materials
Unit.
Nathan Kendrick, Minnesota Department of Health
Nathan Kendrick obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees in
microbiology from the University of Iowa. He obtained his
microbiologist certification from ASCP while working at a central clinical
laboratory for a large health-care system in Indianapolis (Mid-America
Clinical Laboratories). Nathan worked at Hennepin County Medical
Center in Minneapolis as a Med Tech Specialist for Bioterrorism & Emergency
Preparedness and Laboratory Safety Officer until February of this year.
Joni Kristenson, Cook County
Joni, Public Health Nurse for Cook County, has a diverse background in
the area of Public Health Preparedness. In the past 5 years Cook County has
experienced forest fires, flash flooding and various chemical situations
that brought multiple partners together, working to keep the County, Tribe
and Border people safe and healthy. Joni is the county Emergency
Preparedness coordinator, co-chairs the local preparedness committee,
partners in the regional public health preparedness committee and cross
border partnership.
Karma Kumlin-Diers, Ramsey County
Karma Kumlin-Diers has been working or volunteering in Emergency
Management for eight years. She obtained MN Certification as an Emergency
Manager in 2005 and will soon complete a Bachelor’s Degree in the field. She
has been an Emergency Management Coordinator with Ramsey County Emergency
Management and Homeland Security since 2005. Mrs. Kumlin-Diers is the
department's liaison to the City of St. Paul and assisted them with their
Emergency Operations Plan update including writing their new Mass Care and
Animal Services Emergency Support Functions (ESF). Now, in addition to
adapting those Mass Care and Animal ESFs for the Ramsey County Emergency
Operation Plan, she is serving under a grant for the Metropolitan Region
Homeland Security and Emergency Management Joint Powers Agreement Council as
their mass care (human and animal), and special needs populations planner.
This position will include assisting each jurisdiction in the 10 county JPA
Council with enhancing their mass care plans including integrating the new
laws and federal guidelines for special needs and animal sheltering
consideration and coordinating them with neighboring jurisdictional planning
efforts.
Janice Maine, Minnesota Department of Health, Office of Emergency
Preparedness
Janice has fourteen years of experience in the public health field
working at the local, regional and state level. She has worked as
program coordinator for a nine county public health consortium in Wisconsin
overseeing the implementation of public health preparedness activities.
Janice currently works for the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) in the
Office of Emergency Preparedness as a public health all-hazards planner
where she has written the MDH All-Hazards Response and Recovery Plan, the
MDH Multi-Agency Coordination Plan, the MDH Department Operations Center
Manual, and has facilitated the development of forty-six plan annexes. She
also develops and provides trainings for MDH response staff and holds a FEMA
train-the-trainer certification in the Incident Command System.
Jacob Owens, Minnesota Department of Health
St. Cloud State University graduate with Bachelor of Science degrees in
Biomedical Science and Community Psychology. Jacob is currently a
metro region Public Health Preparedness Consultant with the Minnesota
Department of Health. Prior to working at MDH Jacob worked as Public Health
preparedness planner with Anoka County. He is a part-time graduate student
in the University of Minnesota’s Public Health Administration & Policy
program.
Stefan Saravia, Minnesota Department of Health
Stefan has worked in the field of industrial hygiene for the past nine
years. He received his masters in Public Health from the University of
Minnesota in 2005, is a Certified Industrial Hygienist and a Certified
Hazardous Materials Manager. For the past five years he has worked for the
Minnesota Department of Health to help prepare health care systems, law
enforcement and hazardous materials professionals for threats of weapons of
mass destruction. Steve currently works in the Public Health Laboratory
Division of the health department as the Chemical Threat Preparedness
Coordinator.
Ulysses (Ulie) Seal
Ulysses (Ulie) Seal has 33 years experience in the volunteer and career
fire service with extensive background in technical rescue and hazardous
materials response.
Don Sheldrew, Minnesota Department of Health, Office of Emergency
Preparedness
Don currently works with the Office of Emergency Preparedness at MDH to
help identify, define, and provide assistance for At Risk populations to
become better prepared and to identify resources that may be of benefit to
them during times of crisis and disaster. He also assists them in organizing
to help them partner with each other, Emergency Management, Public Health,
and others during disaster circumstances. Don previously worked as a
behavioral health consultant for 2 Minnesota regions in developing
behavioral health resources before during and after disaster situations.
Prior to that worked Don worked as a paramedic and a prehospital health
educator. Don continues to work part time as a paramedic. Crisis
experience includes the small disasters that impact individuals and families
on a daily basis as emergencies occur and work in Mississippi post Katrina
on behavioral health concerns. Most recently has had work related to the
I-35 Bridge collapse and the flooding in SE Minnesota.
Eric Weller, Immanuel St. Joseph’s Hospital, Mankato
Eric has 25 years of public safety experience which includes emergency
medical services, emergency management, and fire/rescue disciplines along
with hospital and healthcare leadership settings. He has been an
administrative, training and planning leader in each of these areas as well.
Currently, Eric serves as EMS and Emergency Preparedness Program Manager at
South Central College in North Mankato, Minnesota. Additionally he
developed and leads the Health and Human Services (HHS) Hospital
Preparedness Program for the south-central region of Minnesota which
includes 15 hospitals in 11 counties. Eric was also recently appointed
Deputy Emergency Manager for Blue Earth County.
Jean Wentink, Washington County Public Health and Environment
Jean is a Community Health Specialist at Washington County Public Health
and Environment working in public health emergency preparedness.