Lake County Health Department Director Mark Pfister has experience with mass vaccinations having dealt with a pandemic scare from the H1N1 influenza virus in 2009, and the county became the highest-vaccinated county in the state during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Pfister said the H1N1 virus is highly virulent and that similar resistance to a mass vaccination drive was seen 12 years ago and surfaced again as plans were made to inoculate the majority of the population in early 2021.
“Lessons have been learned,” Pfister said, “We knew what wasn't working for some groups of older adults, and we made changes in our response to COVID-19. We asked local leaders to show us it was OK.”
Lake County Health Department Director Mark Pfister works at his desk. (Courtesy of Steve Sadin/Lake County News-Sun)
Pfister, who worked with AbbVie to set up a clinic at the Greenbelt Cultural Center in North Chicago in February 2021, said it was an effort to encourage older adults in the African-American community to get vaccinated.
North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. was the first to receive the shot in front of a throng of television cameras, after which Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham made it clear that the horror wrought in his community by the Tuskegee experiments, carried out from 1932 to 1972, should no longer exist.
“These efforts have enabled us to become one of the highest vaccination counties in the state,” Pfister said.
Pfister, who became health commissioner in 2017 and has served with the department for 33 years, will end his term on September 3 and move to Washington state, keeping a long-held promise to his wife.
Living in the Pacific Northwest was a goal he and his wife had been thinking about for a long time, he said, and every new position or promotion he received at the health department felt like another goal to achieve.
“It's been a long time coming to keep that promise,” Pfister said at the Aug. 13 Lake County Commission meeting where the resolution was awarded. “I knew I couldn't wait any longer. I was going to return to nature in some form.”
Pfister said he doesn't plan on taking another executive director job, but he plans to stay active, both intellectually and physically, and he knows how he'll start life after retirement.
“I'm going to relax a little bit and not do anything for a while and then I'll make a decision,” Pfister said. “Maybe I'll do something environmentally. We'll see how it goes.”
Growing up in Denver, Pfister didn't necessarily plan on a career in public health after earning bachelor's degrees in biology, psychology and environmental science from Augustana University in Rock Island.
With a goal of one day becoming a dentist and considering where to attend dental school, Pfister enlisted in the Peace Corps in 1986. While deployed to Cameroon, West Africa, a natural disaster changed his path to public health.
“A carbon dioxide cloud formed over the lake,” Pfister says, “heavier than air and fell into the valley, killing 1,700 people and 4,000 cattle. We had to teach the Fulani new ways of rotating pastures and raising cattle, like they do in Wisconsin.”
Returning to the United States in 1988, Pfister earned an advanced degree in freshwater limnology from Indiana University. In 1991, he joined the Lake County Health Department as a limnologist, helping to ensure the health of Lake Michigan and the county's many lakes.
Pfister said that as he took on increasingly responsible roles on his way to leading the department, a value system emerged: He came to believe that ZIP codes have more to do with longevity than anything else.
Pfister said he understands the term “food deserts” to refer to areas without access to grocery stores or healthy foods, but also calls them “food swamps,” which also have negative public health implications.
“People are eating cheap, high-calorie, high-fat, high-cholesterol foods, which is leading to diseases like diabetes and obesity,” Pfister said.
As he advances to executive director, Pfister said he wants to find ways to make a difference in the lives of Lake County residents and help them live healthier lifestyles.
By the time the first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Lake County on March 11, 2020, Pfister was ready to lead the health department and the county through what Lake County Commission Chairwoman Sandy Hart called a “public health crisis of historic proportions.”
“Mark Pfister has led us through the most challenging public health crisis in the last 100 years,” Hart said. “His leadership has been unwavering and he will be dearly missed.”
Initially, he was directing his department to make sure everyone knew they needed to practice the three Ws (wash your hands, keep your distance, wear a mask), but he also knew how the vaccine was being prioritized, and he had a plan to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
Early efforts to roll out vaccinations were at sites in Greenbelt. He also set up sites for teachers to get vaccinated so schools can reopen and kids can return to the classroom.
Lake County Health Department Director Mark Pfister talks with staff. (Courtesy of Steve Sadin/Lake County News-Sun)
Pfister said they are setting up a drive-thru vaccination clinic at the Lake County Fairgrounds, trying to create a location with as little person-to-person contact as possible to prevent the spread of the disease.
With masks and other personal protective equipment now in abundance, large vaccination sites have been relocated so more people can get vaccinated, Pfister said.
Tim Suschko, chairman of the Lake County Board of Health and a member of the board for 21 years, said he has had the opportunity to watch Pfister grow as a leader as he has assumed roles of increasing responsibility.
“He practices what he does as a way of life and is constantly making a difference through it,” Saschko said. “He embraces the changes we need to make to our lifestyle. He's a sponge for knowledge and has a perfect grasp of every need.”
