Remembering Rebecca Head

It gives us great sadness to report that the Ecology Center’s dear and long-time friend Rebecca Head died on June 23, 2015, after a year-long fight with cancer.

Rebecca was trained as a toxicologist, and worked briefly for Proctor & Gamble, before taking important environmental health positions in local government and academia, starting at Washtenaw County, where her positions included Director of Environment & Infrastructure Services.  She subsequently served as Director of the Monroe County Health Department.  In more recent years, she worked at the University of Michigan as Associate Director for the Office of Public Health Practice, and lectured in the School of Health & Human Services at Eastern Michigan University.

In her various positions, she worked with the Ecology Center on a large number of issues.  In the 1980s, she was the County’s lead official developing the county’s Right-to-Know ordinance that lets the public know about toxic chemicals in their community, and workers know about chemicals in their workplace.  In the 1990s, she was the lead County staffer dealing with the groundwater contamination at Gelman Sciences on the west side of Ann Arbor.  Over the last several years, she’s been a member of the State of Michigan Green Chemistry Roundtable, working with the Ecology Center and others to facilitate the development of better chemicals.  

Rebecca held several national appointments in the American Public Health Association, and is particularly known for her work with the APHA Environment Section. (See APHA video on the history of environmental health, executive produced by Rebecca). She served in multiple roles within the Centers for Disease Control, Underwriters Laboratories, and the National Environmental Education Foundation.  In Michigan, she served as an advisor to the Center for Sustainable Systems, a board member of Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, and as an elected Trustee of the Ann Arbor District Library Board.

In 2008, she was one of the principal organizers of a visit by the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet to Ann Arbor to deliver a special Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability at Crisler Arena during the week of Earth Day.  The event brought together her strong commitment to environmental and social justice with her practice of Buddhism.

Rebecca and her husband David Stead have played important roles in the Michigan environmental and public health communities for three decades, and have been leading figures within the Ecology Center over that period.  David has served on Recycle Ann Arbor’s Board of Directors for twenty years, on the Ecology Center’s Board for the past year, and on staff in the 1980s.  Our thoughts and wishes go out to David, their daughter Celina, and their extended family.  Our memory of Rebecca will endure brightly.

Tracey Easthope, Ecology Center Environmental Health Director, remembers Rebecca:

I don’t remember when I first met Rebecca Head, but there would have been many places our paths intersected, including in Detroit on environmental justice campaigns, or on local environmental issues, or at public health conferences.  I likely don’t remember because Rebecca had a way of making you feel at home right away, as though you already knew her. 

Rebecca was deeply committed to the practice of public health, and its great promise, that we can make people healthy by attending to their context – their communities, neighborhoods, workplaces, social structures.  The insight of public health – that we are interconnected, to each other and to the planet - is also an insight central to Buddhism, Rebecca’s chosen spiritual practice.  Our collective fates are intertwined, she knew, and therefore no one can be left behind.  There can be no health without justice, and Rebecca was a tireless advocate for and example of the role of public health professionals as advocates for human rights, and social and environmental justice. Rebecca was particularly committed to the goal of environmental justice, and was a passionate activist and a friend to people working to advance it in Michigan and nationally.  

On environmental health and justice issues, Rebecca seemed to be everywhere, knew everyone, served unstintingly on numerous committees, and loved everyone.  Rebecca was a connector, and a promoter.  If you had an idea, Rebecca would start looking through her phone contacts to figure out just exactly the right person --or the right 10 people -- you could connect with to explore it further.  She had earned the respect of her vast network of contacts, built over years of work in public health, and she was willing to make connections using those contacts.  She would make introductions and then help find the synergies.  She always maintained a genuine excitement about pursuing interesting ideas, and connecting people who were committed to making the world better.  Always on the look out for people who had the potential to make a contribution, she would then encourage and promote them.

Most recently we served together on Michigan’s Green Chemistry Roundtable. Rebecca made significant contributions to the effort, as a toxicologist, and a public health professional, but also as a wise veteran of so many forums like it.  I am particularly grateful to her for her unwavering support of the effort and of me, and her positive can-do attitude throughout.  Late last year, we were still talking about teaching a class together, and working on another project about environmental health indicators in hospital Community Health Needs Assessments. 

Rebecca was open-minded and curious – and an early adopter. There was always the new project, the next interesting idea or new approach.  I will so miss her infectious energy, enthusiasm, encouragement, and her wisdom.  And I will miss her as a role model -- as the consummate and committed public health professional and as a compassionate and loving human being.