About Me
I'm Keith F. Smith, from Mobile, Alabama. I'm Director of Disease Control for Public Health Area XI where I have been employed since 1981. In order to tell you who I am, I guess it is appropriate to tell you a bit of what has come before today.
I was raised in the little coal mining town of Hollsopple, Pennsylvania which is nestled in the Allegheny mountains about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh and 8 miles south of Johnstown. Although it was certainly one of my dreams to leave the Appalachians for the big city, I have many fond memories of growing up in a small town, and I miss the mountains so much, that I spend most of my vacation time every year hiking and exploring new mountain trails where ever I can find them.
I attended first and second grade at the old Benson Borough school which is now a parking lot, and went to third grade at the old Eash School which is now the Hollsopple Community Center. The post war baby boom created a need for new schools in our area, and I went to 4th through 6th grades at what was then the newly constructed Central Elementary School. I graduated from Conemaugh Township High School in 1969 and spent the following three years at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, studying Religion and Philosophy as well as Speech and Theatre. I was raised in the Evangelical United Brethren Church, which joined with the Methodists to form the United Methodist Church in 1968. Otterbein is a United Methodist Liberal Arts College and much of what I learned both in and out of the classroom restructured my view of morality and the Christian faith. I'm very much a student of the great bioethicist Joseph Fletcher, and hold the belief that right and wrong are contextual and not predetermined by rules of conduct. More on that when I write my essays on philosophy.
In 1972, I left Otterbein and spent the next several years playing Bass Guitar and keyboards with the Rock Band Touch based out of Johnstown. I returned to school as a Biology Major and received my B.S. degree from University of Pittsburgh. Following graduation I traveled to Mobile Alabama where I attended the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. I received a degree in Basic Medical Sciences in Summer of 1981 from the College of Medicine.
I began my public health employment in the Bureau of Environmental Health as an Environmentalist. I earned my Masters in Public Health from the University of Alabama in Birmingham in 1985 and in 1988 I was promoted to director of the EPSDT (Medicaid Screening) Program. Since that time I have served as Director of the Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC), Director of Medical Plans and Quality Assurance, Director of Vector Control, Director of Adult and Pediatric Services, Biostatistician in the Health Statistics Section, Director Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Director of Immunization and my current position as Director of Disease Control. My department includes the Divisions of Immunization, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS Surveillance, and HIV Intervention.
Page last updated 06/01/2001
Email me at: smithkf51@comast.net
