Susan Van Patten

I have worked for the New York State Department of Health's Center for Environmental Health for over 11 years as a public outreach coordinator. For the past 4 years I have been assigned to a portion of the Center that deals with Public Water Supply issues and Environmental Radiation issues.

For the first 7 years I worked for the Department I did public outreach for communities around hazardous waste sites. I was responsible for conducting public outreach at approximately 300 hazardous waste sites and 100 other facilities in the eastern, northern and central part New York State.

As a public outreach coordinator, I identify outreach and educational needs interested and impacted individuals, organizations and agencies have about a given environmental health program or issue. Then I develop and organize activities and prepare material to meet those needs. I often act as a liaison between the public and the agency and receive and triage public concerns. The majority of my public outreach work has been on hazardous waste issues and public water supply issues. The two programs handle public involvement and concerns differently (for a variety of reasons) and this has given me a better and broader perspective into conducting public involvement.

I got into the public participation field because I believed that if people were more involved in the decision making process that the final decisions would be better. After working in the field for many years that belief has been reaffirmed many times over. The best products have been where all the interested and impacted parties came together and worked on a solution or product that they could all live with or use.

I have a Master of Science in Environmental Science with a concentration in environmental communication.