Jim Allen

11/2010 from Nancy Towle's journal of the African trip

After graduation from Kodai, Jim returned with his family to New Delhi and spent the summer working as an unofficial intern with the agricultural research projects of the Rockefeller Foundation. In the fall he flew to the United States and college in the premedical program at the University of Redlands in southern California.  His major distraction from the dominance of science courses and labs was working on the award-winning college newspaper, including being faculty adviser his senior year.  Learning to write and edit quickly and succinctly, he says, has been as important throughout his career as any other skill he possesses. 
After college, Jim slogged through 8 years of medical, public health, and pediatric training at the Johns Hopkins University and hospital in Baltimore, sustained primarily by his marriage to Karen-Marie Nordberg in 1968.  It was a long, focused tunnel, he says, and he missed involvement in all the major social changes taking place in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s. 
Jim's approach to work and life tends to be broad-based and inter-disciplinary rather than super-specialized.  He expected to work internationally much of his career, but the opportunities and choices opening before him dictated otherwise.  The one major exception was a 3-month assignment as part of a United Nations sponsored nutritional assessment in rural Bangladesh in 1972 just six months after the country won its independence. 
Jim's public health work at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta placed him in the middle of the early work on the AIDS epidemic starting in 1982, and he wound up in Washington, DC, as an Assistant Surgeon General and Director of the National AIDS Program Office from 1989 through 1992.
Since leaving the Public Health Service Jim has worked as a vice president for science and public health at the American Medical Association in Chicago, director of the Arizona state health department, and president of the American Social Health Association, a not-for-profit health education organization, in Raleigh, NC.  Although Jim officially retired several years ago, he has remained busy as a part-time consultant, volunteer (he is currently on the boards of 3 not-for-profit health organizations), grandfather, and with his photography hobby.  He also enjoys camping, hiking, and bicycling.
Karen has been active and busy over the years as wife, mother, and librarian/media specialist.  Her employment focus has migrated from school-based media work to special library projects, children's library supervisor, and now branch manager for a local history and genealogy library in Raleigh.  Jim and Karen have parented four children (three adopted, each with a unique set of circumstances), and now enjoy special activities and trips with their adult children and 7 grandchildren (ages 1 to 12).  They credit their canine companions for any success they have had in raising children; they are particular advocates of West Highland White Terriers.

Earlier Date

Dear Kodai Classmates –

Words cannot describe my frustration at the conflict I faced last year when I had meetings I needed to attend during the days of our class reunion. I had really looked forward to seeing all of you, catching up on what you were doing, and reliving past adventures and misadventures. Just a few years ago I would have provided an update of my life in terms that would approximate a job resume or the academic “curriculum vitae.” Much of that seems less important to me now. I have a greater appreciation for friendships and the value of relationships – especially for the importance and value of marriage and a life partner. Karen and our family have been absolutely the best gifts to me. We enjoy and are close with all four of our young people (and their spouses) as they approach and pass 30. Being a Grandpa is wonderful!

I have changed in many ways from our Kodai days. I am still serious and relatively intense, but considerably more relaxed and fun-loving, and definitely more at-ease with who I am than I ever was as a younger person. While I continue to love the structure and challenge of science, I have a much greater appreciation for the intrinsic value of music and the arts and the importance of them to humanity. Faith is an important part of my life but I continue to struggle with organized religion.
The last two decades (my forties and fifties) have been among my best, but they also have been extremely busy and stressful, especially professionally. After 14 years living in Atlanta, Georgia, we have enjoyed four years in Washington, DC (OK – Karen hated living there), five years in Chicago (kids grown, lots of great restaurants and bakeries within walking distance of home and office), and are now well into our fifth year in Arizona. Mark Twain noted that people who had spent a winter in Phoenix had no need for heaven, and those who had spent a summer here had no fear of hell. I revel in the beauty of the Sonoran desert and the high country and the wide-open vistas. This (probably) will be our final move although public health is an anachronism in this state.
I currently am employed by the Maricopa County Department of Public Health in charge of the tobacco control and chronic disease programs. Back into the bureaucracy but involved in challenging and important programs – and ones where I can see progress being made. But these issues are far removed from my earlier career that was focused much more on infectious disease issues and policy. One of the biggest challenges facing the terrorism events of 2001 and the anthrax scares is how to get politicians to understand the importance funding public health capacity (I loathe the terms “infrastructure” and “capacity-building”) for the truly important issues when the single-minded focus is all on bioterrorism preparedness and response. Yes, that is important, but not exclusively so when we look at all the other problems and needs that exist in our society (not to mention the remainder of the globe). Our leaders are obsessed with the potential for someone to disseminate a chemical or biological agent in our country but they support with impunity the right of our large tobacco companies to market their products of disease and premature death to the people of all other countries. (Sorry for the diatribe . . . . I get carried away on this issue.)
I have regrets. I should have spent more time with my family, especially when the kids were younger. I should have spent more time hiking and camping and enjoying the beauties of God’s creation. I should have spent more time building friendships and personal relationships. I should have eaten less junk food. I should have lived in a country where mangos and papayas ripen on the trees – but then I would miss the peaches and blueberries you get here. I should spend more time walking the dogs. I should spend less time on useless activities such as shaving.

The theme for our Kodai graduation in 1961 – if I remember correctly – was Kodai Friendships Worldwide. That has been a strong but largely subconscious part of my life. After a 9-week assignment from the Centers for Disease Control to the fledgling country of Bangladesh in 1972 (part of a national nutrition survey to determine if the UN relief operations could be terminated) I concluded that I would have difficulty adapting back to work full-time in Asia – and I definitely had qualms about sending our children to boarding school at an early age. I have found plenty of opportunity for public health challenges in the United States – but I also am acutely aware of the global health and economic and political and social issues and how they are intertwined. Kodai influenced all of us – and continues to do so with the students and faculty who have been there over the years. We are blessed to have had that experience!

We have room. Come visit.
– Jim