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Ruth Van Bogelen Appointed New Coordinator of the Chelsea-Area Wellness Coalition

“It’s like working in Utopia,” says Manchester Ruth van Bogelen of her new position as Coalition Coordinator at the Chelsea-Area Wellness Foundation.

The Chelsea-Area Welness Coalition includes Chelsea, Manchester, Dexter, Grass Lake and Stockbridge.  The Coalition mission is to “create a culture of wellness and foster sustainable improvements in community health.”  Programs include cooking classes, walking guides, and book groups.

Although van Bogelen had volunteered as a board member of the organization the prior spring, it wasn’t until she talked with CWF Executive Director Amy Heyduff about how to field candidates for the newly created coordinator position that she realized that “Hey – I want that job!”.

Van Bogelen has impressive credentials: her University of Michigan undergraduate degree in microbiology led to a research position at Pfizer. She became a leader there, publishing extensively and developing her team-building and management expertise.

“Pfizer didn’t require it, but it was for me,” she says of her 1999 enrollment in a Ph.D program while employed full-time there. When she learned that the University of Michigan prohibited its PhD candidates from outside employment, she knew that matriculating there was out of the question and instead enrolled at a university in Norway, where she spent only three weeks, defending her thesis which was constituted of nine of her papers published while at Pfizer.

When Pfizer left the area during van Bogelen’s nineteenth year with the company, she retired rather than move with the company, choosing instead to work for a biotech and as an independent scientific consultant. Her work focused on the protein assay necessary to create a predictive blood test for prostate cancer – work that is still ongoing.

“It would be like a blood test for cholesterol.  Routine.”

Van Bogelen is quick to point out that it is not her scientific background that makes her a good fit for CWF, but instead her team-building, management, and leadership skills. Indeed, she is an unlikely mix of highly educated and warm and folksy – talking to her you can see exactly why she would be effective at coalition-building.

“Some of our people said that folks who were new to the Wellness Coalition had trouble grasping the scope of the project or their place in it.  ‘Well,’ I said to myself ‘THAT’S an easy fix.’  So we made welcome packets for new members.”

Of all the Coalition activities, Ruth is most passionate about gardening.  She is active in the Manchester Community Garden and enjoys working with kids at the Manchester school gardens, all of which were funded by the CWF.

“Many of the kids, for example, don’t know how to pick vegetables.  You have to show them.  You show them the cucumbers are not smooth like the cucumbers in the store.  They’re prickly.”

“And they know it a ‘tasting garden.’  That means you can pick and try anything.  They know they can spit it out in the grass if they don’t like it.  But that almost never happens.”

Ruth van Bogelen so good at her job she can make children, willingly, eat vegetables.

Reporting by Anne Marie and James Miller

by News News