Tuesday, February 7, 2017
OFF PAGE ONE
SETZER: Climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro at 58 JOBS: 100 percent of Oregon counties
coops in Hanoi looking for luba,” Setzer said. “He
Continued from 1A
now gaining jobs rather than losing them
sick chickens during a bird totally flipped out. We talked
from dispensing vaccines flu outbreak in the early for a while. He kept looking
Page 10A
East Oregonian
to designing information
systems. He said Namibia,
which is about twice the size
of California, experiences
health
issues
different
from Eastern Oregon, but
similar ones, too. HIV/
AIDS, cholera, malaria and
other infectious diseases are
waning as first world diseases
become more of a problem.
“We’re beginning to see
more chronic disease,” Setzer
said. “We’re seeing obesity,
hypertension, diabetes and
cancer. People are adopting
different lifestyles, but also
various health problems that
we bring upon ourselves.”
Setzer comes to Umatilla
County where obesity and
smoking top the list of health
challenges. The new director
has already begun working
with a group of community
partners use a couple of
community health assess-
ments (one for adults and one
for children) to design a plan
for health improvement.
It’s been a long journey to
Pendleton. The Philadelphia
native started out with a
stint in the Peace Corps after
college graduation. He began
as a science teacher, but got
interested in public health
while serving on a mobile
vaccination team.
“I didn’t start out to be a
public health guy,” he said.
He quickly got hooked.
The work was rewarding
and valuable, though often
tiring and unglamorous. He
remembers, for example,
crawling around in chicken
2000s. And there were some
crushing moments.
He
recalled working on a vacci-
nation team in the Congo and
learning that the host family
with whom he lived had
lost a child from an easily
preventable disease.
“I came home one day
and everyone had their heads
shaved and they were all
crying,” Setzer said. “The
three-year-old had died of the
measles.”
The good moments,
however, outweighed the bad.
While working in the Congo,
he fell in love with a Peace
Corps volunteer named Kathy
Parker. They married in 1985
and had two daughters. Jim
had earlier earned his master’s
in public health and tropical
medicine at Tulane Univer-
sity. In 1992, the family
moved to Atlanta where Jim
taught public health classes
at Emory University, located
across the street from the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
It was at the CDC
where Setzer met Dikembe
Mutombo.
The
seven-
foot-two NBA star from the
Congo wanted to do some-
thing to improve Congolese
health care. Setzer, who had
worked in the Congo, was
invited to the discussion.
Mutombo’s mother had died
because of lack of proper
care and he wanted to spend
$22 million of his own
money to build a hospital.
Setzer attended the meeting.
“I greeted him in Tshi-
at me.”
The two struck up a
relationship. Setzer serves
on the board of the Dikembe
Mutombo Foundation, which
seeks to improve the health,
education and quality of
life for those in the Congo.
Setzer said he hopes to
lure Mutombo to Umatilla
County sometime to conduct
a basketball clinic.
The Setzers left the
95-degree
weather
of
Namibia in mid-December
and arrived in Pendleton
during a snowstorm. They are
still acclimating. Jim, who
climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro at
58 and trekked to the base
of Mt. Everest at 60, said
he was drawn to the Pacific
Northwest for its recreational
opportunities. When he saw
the job opening in Umatilla
County, he applied.
Umatilla County Commis-
sioner George Murdock said
he was attracted to Setzer’s
epidemiology training and
broad experience.
“With the expansion of
health care coverage to many
more of our residents,” said
Murdock, “we are moving
away from direct services
and more into areas such as
prevention, healthy commu-
nities and population health.”
“George Murdock is
thinking outside the box,”
Setzer said. “I wasn’t the
average applicant.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
Continued from 1A
more jobs in the Willamette
Valley.
Jobs in Southern Oregon
contracted by roughly 12
percent during the recession
but the region now has 0.3
percent more jobs than
before the crisis.
Northeast Oregon and
the North Coast haven’t
yet fully recovered, but the
number of jobs is less than
a half-percent lower than
before the recession.
Southeast Oregon still
has 4.7 percent fewer jobs
from the pre-recession peak,
while the South Coast has
6.1 percent fewer jobs.
These regions have seen
worse times, though — both
have recovered roughly half
the jobs they lost during the
recession.
Some counties are still
seriously reeling from the
downturn. Gilliam County
has recovered only 10
percent of the jobs it lost
during the recession, while
Crook and Grant counties
have recovered fewer than
30 percent.
The good news is that
nearly 100 percent of
Oregon counties are now
gaining jobs rather than
losing them, McMullen said.
The lone exception —
Morrow County — is actu-
ally an economic success
story, but has recently lost
some jobs due to the comple-
tion of major construction
projects, he said.
Oregon now has about
2 unemployed people per
job opening, down from 11
people per open position in
late 2009.
In terms of income, the
top 20 percent of Oregon
households are now making
6.7 percent more money
than they were a decade
ago, adjusted for inflation,
he said. Inflation-adjusted
incomes are about 1 percent
lower among the middle 20
percent of households and
7 percent lower among the
bottom 20 percent.
Oregon is the 12th most
trade-dependent state in the
U.S., he said. Computer and
electronic equipment lead in
the way in exports, followed
by heavy manufactured
products such as metal and
machinery, then agricultural
goods and forestry products.
China is the major desti-
nation for Oregon exports,
followed
by
Canada,
Malaysia, Japan and South
Korea.
Exports from Oregon are
now facing a headwind due
to the high value of the U.S.
dollar compared to other
currencies, which makes our
products more expensive in
foreign markets.
“It hasn’t been this strong
since 2000,” McMullen
said. “It’s putting downward
pressure on the demand for
our exports.”
WALDEN: ‘I’m not an open borders guy’
Continued from 1A
repealing other significant
parts of the law, specifically
the individual mandate to
hold health insurance.
Walden
said
rising
premiums means that young
people opt to pay the IRS
penalties rather than sign up
for insurance, shifting the cost
to older insurance holders.
With premiums continuing
to become more expensive
and some insurance compa-
nies leaving the government
insurance exchanges, Walden
said Congress needs to take
action and change the law.
“I don’t look at this
through a partisan lens,” he
said. “I look at it through a
public policy lens.”
Despite promises that
Republicans’ plan would
offer more choice and lower
premiums, Walden wouldn’t
commit to details about a new
health care law or when it
would be put in place.
A caller pressed Walden
to say whether Republicans
would have health care
legislation in place once they
repealed the Affordable Care
Act, but Walden didn’t provide
a straight answer, instead
referring the woman
to the website for
“A Better Way,”
House Speaker Paul
Ryan’s conservative
policy platform.
Walden
also
touched on other hot
button topics, like
Trump’s executive
order temporarily Walden
banning refugees
and immigrants from seven
Muslim-majority countries.
In response to a caller
citing a Cato Institute article
that called the threat of refu-
gees committing terrorist acts
a “phantom menace,” Walden
said there was a benefit to the
executive order while admit-
ting that its roll-out wasn’t
handled well.
“I think a temporary pause
is not a bad thing if handled
properly,” he said.
A federal judge recently
put the executive order on
hold while the courts review
its legality.
Bend city councilor Barb
Campbell asked whether
Walden would support using
taxpayer money to build a
wall on the Mexican border.
A border wall was central to
Trump’s campaign promises.
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Walden said he
supported a border
wall along some
parts of the border
while saying other
sections
would
be better aided by
“enhanced” secu-
rity.
“I’m not an open
borders guy,” he
said.
Walden also said he briefly
spoke with the president
about timber and federal
land management issues and
expects further discussion
with the Trump administra-
tion once Montana Rep. Ryan
Zinke is confirmed as the
secretary of the interior.
Before ending the call,
Walden promised more town
halls, both in-person and over
the phone. According to the
Bend Bulletin, 4,000 people
listened in on the call.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A semitrailer remains on its side Monday morning after sliding off of icy
Interstate 84 this weekend near exit 209, Pendleton.
ICE: Hazmat team cleared diesel spill at rollover
Continued from 1A
according to call logs
from multiple emergency
services. Oregon State
Police reported the semi slid
onto the south shoulder and
rammed head on into the
earth slope and spun left.
The trailer broke free from
the tractor, which rolled
onto its left side.
The driver was the
lone occupant and was
not injured, according to
reports, but the semi spilled
about 70 gallons of diesel.
Hazmat team staff reported
cloth and cat litter absorbed
the diesel, and the crew
cleared the scene after about
an hour-and-a-half.
Oregon State Police
Sgt. Seth Cooney out of
Hermiston said the second
hazmat call came a crash at
8:24 a.m. Saturday on I-84
near Boardman at about
milepost 170.
The Volvo semi was
eastbound and hauling
two trailers when the
driver slowed due to
another crash, according
to Cooney’s report. The
semi slid on the ice, rotated
counterclockwise,
and
moved onto the median
“where the passenger side
wheels furrowed into the
soft shoulder,” causing the
semi to roll and block the
westbound fast lane. The
second trailer split open at
the top and back and spilled
cargo on the ground and the
westbound lane.
This time about 75
gallons of fuel spilled,
Cooney said, and the
hazmat team again handled
the clean-up.
Again, no one was
injured. The wreck partially
blocked traffic in the west-
bound lanes, but tow trucks
were so busy they could not
remove it for about four
hours.
Freezing rain covered the
region Friday night, and the
icy roads kept police and
fire services busy. Cooney
said there were crashes from
milepost 168 to the 199
through Saturday morning.
The Oregon Department
of Transportation shut
down sections of I-84 from
Pendleton to Ontario due to
hazardous weather condi-
tions and crashes between
La Grande and Baker City.
ODOT reported a few
crashes Saturday morning
and afternoon between
Pendleton and Stanfield, but
none were delaying traffic.