I resigned my position with the National Cancer Institute in 1974 when I thought I had completed my obligation to the kicking off of the National Cancer Program. Cancer centers were up and operating all over the United States. We had developed information programs for both professional medical people and the general public. The National Cancer Plan was written outlining the goals and objectives in clear terms for the years ahead. Public awareness of cancer and how to challenge and fight this disease was at an all-time high.
I sold everything in Virginia where I had built a beautiful home in the woods, packed up Rusty II and headed West. I was going to Idaho, and had planned to settle for the time being in Idaho Falls and from there, look for property that I could buy in the State.
|
| Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center |
 |
| University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, a beautiful place to work and the hub of a six state cancer program supported by funds from the National Cancer Institute |
|
|
|
I still had my hands in the National Cancer Program, however, tied up with JRB Associates to develop a major comprehensive cancer center with associated programs through the University of Colorado Medical School in Denver. I bought a little house in Idaho Falls and commuted to Denver, driving weekly between Denver and Idaho Falls to help bring about the six-state cancer center. I had a great staff in Denver, people with whom I had worked for years while I was at the NCI.
This project lasted almost a year. My job was to manage a great team of people made up of contractor personnel from JRB Associates who had worked for me in Bethesda at the National Cancer Institute putting together the National Cancer Program Plan. I also had a lot of help from medical staff of the University involved in both research into cancer as well as outreach to the public for early detection and treatment of this disease.
Even while this development was going on in Denver, I was looking for my piece of property in Idaho where I could settle down and get out of the business of working in an office.
In Denver, I also was responsible for setting up the staffing plan for the new cancer center and for the hiring of the right person to head this center. Once this was done, my job was essentially finished. I could move on with my plans for my development in Idaho.
|
| Idaho Cancer Control Program |
 |
| Gov Cecil Andrus |
|
Would you believe that his man was my next boss? The Governor of Idaho, Cecil Andrus, and later during Jimmy Carter's Administration, the Secretary of the Interior.
In the section on Farming and Ranching which I will add soon to this, my web site, I go into the good fortune I had in finding a piece of property in Southwestern Idaho that met all the criteria I had outlined for what I wanted. The 500 acre piece was in Weiser, Idaho on the Western border of Idaho with Oregon, right where the Weiser River and the Snake River meet.
|
 |
| Idaho Department of Health |
|
Even as I was looking for my piece of property in Idaho, I was also doing some consulting work for the Mountain States Tumor Institute in Boise, Idaho. MSTI, as it was called, was a part of St. Luke's Hospital in Idaho's capital city. In fact, the night before I bought the property, I had been staying in Boise, expecting to work the next day at MSTI. I was already known to Doctors throughout the State as having been at the NCI and also that I was moving to Idaho. It was only a logical move on their part to ask me to become involved in a brand new program just under consideration in Idaho, a state-wide Cancer Control Program. The program was being pushed by the Governor's Office and the State Legislature, and a budget was already being set aside for implementing such a program. But there was no plan, no budget, no goals and objectives. Looks very familiar to what I went to the NCI to do some years before that.
I was offered the opportunity to become the Idaho Cancer Coordinating Committee's Executive Director, working as per my requirements, part time which meant half time, for the Governor's Office. My Board of Directors were docs from all over the State of Idaho. My office was to be in Boise; I was going to live in Weiser, some 75 miles away. I accepted the challenge and was off and running with a job in Idaho that paid very well for the time I was going to put in.
I was also going to be a farmer, rancher, land developer in Idaho. Could I do all of this? Yep!
|
 |
| Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, Idaho Falls |
|
I jumped into this effort the same way I had all my other jobs. The objective was to get all medical people in the State involved in developing a program that would benefit every Idahoan and include education of both the public and the professionals, information systems that would provide knowledge to both groups, and help in setting up early detection programs that would lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment throughout the State.
The support was fantastic. I traveled to every nook and cranny of Idaho, got to see every medical person in the State, went into every hospital and clinic, and generally got to see what there was in Idaho that would lend itself to the development of a comprehensive cancer control program.
|
 |
| Idaho Medical Association |
|
|
The program was a tremendous success. Nurses, Doctors, and the general public all got behind the program, and with the push of the Governor's Office and the State Legislature, Idaho's Comprehensive Cancer Control Program became a reality.
After two years, I asked to be relieved of the job as the Executive Director and be able to go back full time into my first intent in coming to Idaho, and that was to further my own projects in Weiser, that of developing my ranch property into subdivisions that I could plant houses upon. I had even farmed the land while doing the Boise/State Cancer thing, and that had gone well. I'll cover this a little bit in my Farming and Ranching Section.
So this little bit of technology effort paid off for all Idahoans, and this program is still very much alive in Idaho.
|
|