BETH WASSENBURG-RIDDLE

It's been a long, but interesting road from Thailand in the early 70's to Santa Cruz now. After Peace Corps Group 37, I worked in Bangkok for the U.S. State Dept in a mental health center with American families. Leland Dickerman (Group 32) and John Raab (group 37) worked there also. Then in February '75, Cricket Dellenbaugh (Group 37), Leland, me, and a couple of non-Peace Corps folk headed out from Bangkok on a sailboat. I stayed on for six months, and then returned to the States for graduate school at UCLA. Cricket, Leland and others sailed for years after that... I met them again in Singapore in '78 while I was working in Thailand. They had some serious adventures which you may have heard about!

In '76 I was the cook on a 73' sailboat (much more luxurious than the ferro-cement boat built in Thailand!). Sailed from LA to Tahiti and did my master's degree public health research in the Marquesas Islands. Crewed with the same folks until 1995...we had many fun adventures. Was based in LA from 1975-1995. Did my masters and doctorate in public health at UCLA while working full-time at UCLA. Worked twelve years in maternal and child health field research programs at UCLA, and in Asia and Africa. Also did the Exec Education one-year program in the business school at UCLA.

Worked at UCLA's central academic computing organization for 15 years, including positions in the UCLA-IBM partnership; in the Microcomputer Support Office; and in central user computing support services. In about 1984 when we began to integrate microcomputers into the departmental computing environment at UCLA, we began the departmental computing coordinator program. It was based on community organization tactics from the Thai Ministry of Public Health Community Health Worker handbook... one health worker per village is analogous to one computing coordinator per department...! I distributed excerpts from the handbook to the central computing staff. In 1995, I relocated from UCLA to UC Santa Cruz because of strong interest in the use of digital media to improve undergraduate education. Met John when I moved to Santa Cruz and we were married last year.

Still have continued interest in public health programs, especially in remote areas of Indonesia. John and I usually take two trips a year to Indonesia or southern Africa where he used to work for Sun in business development. In the past few years we've been to Irian Jaya (West Papua) twice, trekked for two weeks across the interior of Borneo, camped for a week with Bushmen in Namibia on the Angolan border, traveled in Nias off the Sumatran coast, and been to other interesting very-out-of-the-way places. When we went to Luang Prabang I sent email from a newly-opened internet cafe.

Hope you all have a terrific time in Albuquerque. I hope you all feel as satisfied as I do with your time in Thailand. I feel very grateful to have been with such wonderful Thais who were so dedicated to their health work. Paichit Pawabutr, the doctor I worked for in the little town of Ban Phai, changwat Khon Kaen, went on to become the head of public health for the country.

If you're in Northern California, please email me so we can make plans to get together for a Singha!

Have fun! Beth