member spotlight
Urban Growth and Rural Tradition at the Oregon PHL
by Nancy Maddox, MPH, writer
Almost half of Oregon’s four million
residents are clustered into the tri-county
Portland area in the northwest corner
of the state. And why not? Condé Nast
Traveller calls Portland “the hippest city
in the USA.” From craft beer to abundant
farmland to the high-tech Silicon
Forest, Oregon is filled with contrasts.
The western third enjoys a temperate
climate and year-round lushness,
while the eastern portion, in the rain
shadow of the imposing Cascade Range,
features high desert and volcanic rock.
The needs of Oregon residents contrast
nearly as much as the geography. In the
last few years, populations in Portland and
Bend have risen rapidly, and, in Portland
alone, 120,000 more people are expected
in the next few years. Yet, alongside
the urban expansion, families in rural
Oregon also need access to health care.
John Fontana, PhD, HCLD(ABB), who heads
the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory
(OSPHL), views the contrast as a key
public health challenge—from accrediting
cannabis testing laboratories to providing
testing for the underserved people in
Oregon to adapting new technologies.
“All to achieve the goal of keeping the
‘public’ in public health,” Fontana said.
Oregon State Public Heath Laboratory Staff. Photo: OSPHL
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LAB MATTERS Winter 2018
Facility Staff
The 40,000-square-foot laboratory
occupies about half of a red brick,
concrete and glass building located about
10 miles outside Portland in Hillsboro.
Though it was completed in 2002, it
remained vacant until the state invested
$35 million to meet the needs of a fully-
functional public health laboratory. “We
were the first occupants in 2008,” said
Fontana. The other half of the building
is home to the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality (DEQ) Laboratory. OSPHL employs about 75 people, including
33 microbiologists, 12 medical laboratory
technicians, eight managers and
supervisory managers, two on-site IT staff,
nine support staff and five laboratory
compliance inspectors who oversee the
accreditation of the state’s clinical (CLIA)
and environmental testing laboratories,
including Oregon’s 20 cannabis testing
laboratories. The laboratory is actively
recruiting a general microbiology
manager and two microbiologists. “I’m
continually impressed with the level of
dedication and quality of work every
section of the lab, despite all the changes
we’ve had to deal with,” Fontana said.
Director
Fontana was born in Massachusetts,
earned his BS at Clark University in
Worcester and studied pathology at the
University of Vermont. “And that’s where
I became enamored with labs,” he said.
“It was the first time I worked in a lab,
and it was great. I always wanted to be
in a lab after that.” After finishing his
master’s degree, Fontana returned to
Massachusetts as chief of virology at the
State Laboratory Institute (now the Hinton
Laboratory), where he stayed for 18 years,
moving from virology to enteric pathogens
and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis
(PFGE). During that time, he earned a PhD
in biomedical sciences from Worcester
Polytechnic Institute—with a thesis on
the transfer of antibiotic resistance in
Salmonella—and board certification from
the American Board of Bioanalysis.
In 2005, Fontana left Massachusetts for
the biological sciences section of the
Connect icut public health laboratory
(now the Katherine A. Kelley State Public
Health Laboratory). When Katherine
Kelley passed away in 2007, Fontana was
asked to become laboratory director, a
post he filled for seven and a half years.
He assumed the directorship of OSPHL
in 2015. “It was a good fit for me. The lab
had a good reputation and I was familiar
with most of the testing going on.”
Revenue
OSPHL’s two-year $35 million budget
comes from state general funds (9%),
newborn screening (NBS) fees (60%),
other fees (14%) and federal agreements
(17%). Federal sources include CDC’s
Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity
for Infectious Diseases Cooperative
Agreement (ELC), the Emerging Infections
Program (EIP), the Public Health
Emergency Preparedness Cooperative
Agreement and a Tuberculosis grant.
The laboratory also receives funding
for its drinking water primacy from the
US Environmental Protection Agency,
is a member of the US Food and Drug
Administration’s National Antimicrobial
Resistance Monitoring System (FDA
NARMS) and is supported by the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services
for the cost of CLIA inspections.
Testing
OSPHL serves all 34 county jurisdictions,
covering an area of about 100,000
square miles, and receives over 400,000
specimens annually. Its focus is on
providing testing to support public health
programs, which includes specialized
reference testing for clinical laboratories
and county health departments, as
well as newborn screening (NBS) to
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org