Stephen E. Laker, MS, LEHP, CPHA
A Local Health Department Perspective on the 1976 Swine Flu Immunization Initiative
Professional Biography
Stephen Laker has served as the Public Health Administrator for the Vermilion County Health Department since January 1, 1976. During his tenure the Vermilion County Health Department has developed from an agency that was basically a Medicare certified home health agency with three environmental health regulatory programs and a family planning clinic with 28 employees that achieved became a local health department that was fully certified by the Illinois Department of Public Health in 1982. Today the Vermilion County Health Department provides a much broader spectrum of public health programs and has 82 employees.
However, leading the development of the Illinois Public Health Mutual Aid System is probably his greatest achievement because it benefits the entire public health system in Illinois and it should continue to provide benefits for the residents of Illinois for many years. Stephen Laker believed that we needed some type of memorandum of understanding or intergovernmental agreement that would allow local health departments to share personnel in response to requests for assistance even if the need for assistance did not require the formal declaration of an emergency. Stepher Laker served as the first president of the Executive Board for the Illinois Public Health Mutual Aid System and he has just been elected to serve another three year term on the Executive Board.
Stephen Laker is also privileged to serve on two statewide committees that require gubernatorial appointment. Those two committees are the Illinois Terrorism Task Force and the Immunization Advisory Committee for the Illinois Department of Public Health. He has also served as a member of the Illinois Public Health Director's Local health Liaison Committee for over 20 years.
Stephen Laker also actively participates in public health promotion activities and associations. He has received the Illinois Public Health Association's and Office of Community Health Partnership Award. He also served as the President of the Illinois Association of Public Health Administrators in 1986-1987and he is currently serving a 1.5 year term as IAPHA President through December of 2009.
Stephen Laker is also very proud of his thirty plus years of membership in the American Public Health Association, the Illinois Public Health Association, the National Environmental Health Association and the Illinois Environmental Health Association.
