On March 16th, Orange Sparkle Ball in collaboration with Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University hosted another installment of their Public Health + Webinar series about the intersection of public health and other disciplines. We had a great opportunity to tune in as Alexa Morse, MPH discussed public private partnerships with Maria Thacker Goethe, MPH and Ken Berta, MBA.
Like many of us who work in the Public Health sphere, Maria’s career trajectory encompassed a few shifts that led her to her current role as President and CEO of Georgia Bio and CEO of the Center for Global Health Innovation. Her journey began with an undergraduate education at Sweet Briar College in the environmental division. She then pursued an ORISE fellowship at the CDC in the chemical demilitarization unit, where she learned “fascinating and scary things at the same time.” Her work with the unit also encompassed health communications and she developed a keen interest in “elevating the work of public health within communities” through messaging. After pursuing an MPH at Tulane University, the unexpected Hurricane Katrina changed Maria’s course and prompted her to pivot into the biotech space where she has been for the past fifteen years.
While Maria jokes that she has four jobs, her core work with Georgia Bio involves promoting the interests and growth of the life sciences industry encompassing several sectors including medical and technical devices, biopharmaceutical, agricultural and environmental spheres. Maria’s work at the Center for Global Health Innovation started with trying to find a way to “break down the silos between our life sciences community, global health community, and health-technology community.” She describes the center as a problem-based innovation space with public health at its core that can act as the “main node” between partners across sectors, that truly serves as a “connector and economic driver” for the community.
“The center is a place, it's a connector, it's a convenor, and it's also going to be an accelerator… it will be the first innovation district to intentionally include public health...at its core.”
- Maria Thacker
Like Maria, Ken has held positions across various sectors which has enabled him to have a cross-sectoral lens in his current position as the Executive Director at Global Health Crisis Coordination Center (GH3C). He began his career as a VA researcher, shifted into corporate research and development, and then business management, investment, acquisitions, consulting, and private equity positions.
During his time with the Airforce Research Labs at the Wright-Patterson Airforce base, Ken had the opportunity to continue his expertise in public/private partnerships where he worked on the state of Ohio’s Third Frontier program. Ken’s role in this position revolved around exploring how to “work with both the universities and the federal government, with private sector partners to develop new technologies that can be absorbed quickly into companies to generate jobs.”
Ken then shifted into working on confocal microscopy, a technology that essentially allowed us to look at pathology images in a different way. He began this path with Philips Healthcare, launching their digital pathology business and launched the product in the United States. The company’s desire to establish stronger partnerships prompted him to shift into the Strategic Alliance and Partnership group. Through this role, Ken found himself working with the Emory Innovation Hub at Emory University which led him to his current role with GHC3. Here Ken has been able to “leverage the power of the cumulative public health community” based in Atlanta to advance global health in an incredible way.
“It's not just a public health focused effort but a community focused effort, companies like Coca Cola, Microsoft, and Verizon, we can align with them to move public health in a positive direction.”
- Ken Berta
Both Ken and Maria had incredibly diverse paths that allowed them to traverse across various sectors and establish public-private partnerships through their work with GHC3.
GHC3 is a branch underneath the Center for Global Health Innovation that has aimed to create programs to address inequities exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. One of those programs includes the Priority-based use of Allocated Vaccines Estimator (PAVE) equity tool. Through a partnership with Microsoft, the PAVE tool was developed to help state and county health leaders assure equitable distribution of the vaccine by aligning both public and private population data to inform leaders of specific populations of at-risk individuals.
On the community level, GHC3’s Back 2 programs encompass three branches Back 2 School, Back 2 Work, and Back 2 Worship. GHC3 has worked to provide best practices and guidance for safe environments to gather since the start of the pandemic. Of notable success was a partnership between several private partners to reopen the KIPP Academy. Through the process of reopening this school, GHC3 developed the When To Test K-12 Playbook that offers guidance on in-person learning in a school setting.
In a short time, GHC3 has made incredible strides in catalyzing these projects amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Here at OSB we are incredibly excited to see the continued growth and impact of the Center for Global Health Innovation and GHC3.
“The pandemic has put everybody in the path towards one goal and that galvanization always seems to bring partners together quickly, maintaining partnerships is going to be the challenge.”
- Ken Berta
To view previous and upcoming installments in the Public Health + Series click here.
Written by Liris Stephanie Berra, Public Health Innovation Analyst
Liris is a Master of Public Health student at Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. She is part of the Global Health department, pursuing a concentration in Community Health Development and a certificate in the Social Determinants of Health.
