2021 Gebhardt Speaker: Camille Rodriguez

The inaugural Gebhardt Family Endowed Speaker Series for Political Science event was held on October 5, 2021. The lecture featured Camille Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Boulder County Public Health Department. Her talk was titled, “Leveraging Inflection Points in Public Health: Thinking Creatively and Acting Boldly to Protect and Promote Health.”

Professor Greg Shaw began by introducing Ms. Rodriguez. Before her current job in Boulder, Ms. Rodriguez served in several roles in McLean County, most recently as County Administrator for two years, and before that as the McLean County Department of Public Health Administrator. She focused her talk around her efforts in Boulder to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ms. Rodriguez talked about arriving at her new job in the spring of 2021, while the COVID-19 pandemic was still ongoing. She noted that Boulder County, and the country as a whole, had now arrived at a “safe normal” with businesses back to open and children back to school. She pointed out that she lifted the mask order when evidence indicated that it was safe to do so; however the Delta variant's high transmission rate forced her to put it back on. She was proud to report that Boulder County had reached a 69.1% fully vaccinated rate. She was proud of that rate given that only 77.9% of the population was eligible. She talked about trying to incentivize the population. One incentive was that, while the County would have no vaccine mandate, if you got vaccinated, you could go without wearing a mask. However, she noted that we were a year and a half into the pandemic with no end in sight.

Ms. Rodriguez ended with comments about the meaning and purpose she gained from a living a life in public service.