Craven commissioner named to national health board

Craven County Commissioner Lee K. Allen has been elected the Southeast regional director of a national association tasked with minding public health.

He will direct efforts of the National Association of Local Boards of Health in a nine-state area that runs from North Carolina to Florida. He beat out competitors from Kentucky and Atlanta to take the post.

His election is the latest move in a five-decade career aimed at public health - a career that he says started "by pure accident."

"It's not that I was looking to do anything noble," he said "When I joined the Navy in 1954, somebody looked at me and said, ‘Geez, you'd make a good hospital corpsman.' "

Hospital corpsmen are enlisted medical specialists for the Navy.

"That set into motion a whole series of training ... and stops where I learned more and more about public health over the course of decades," he said.

His decades-long military career included time as command master chief at Naval Hospital Cherry Point.

"I guess I've sort of retired in Havelock, but I'm still up to my ears in public health, and I like it that way," he said. "Public health is the silent miracle. It's not in the limelight unless there is an outbreak. And our goal is to keep it out of the limelight."

Allen serves as the commissioners' representative on the Craven County Board of Health, and is a member of the Association of North Carolina Boards of Health. He served as president of the statewide association in 1999 and 2000.

He is also a member of Gov. Mike Easley's Task Force for Healthy Carolinians.

"He's a Democrat and I'm a Republican, but I managed to make it on there anyway," Allen said.

Allen said he is proudest of his 2006 distinguished-service award from the N.C. Public Health Association.

"It hangs right over my desk in my home office," he said. "It was really an honor."

In his new post as regional director of the national association, Allen said, he plans to focus on teaching about governance.

"When you're appointed to a board of health, you may be a doctor or a veterinarian or have an extensive medical background, but that doesn't mean that you understand the governing role on the board," he said. "We're here to train, prepare and offer advice to those board members, so that ultimately they help the health department achieve its three objectives: prevention, prevention, prevention."