Gratton Wins Snyder Award for Service to Industry
Terrance B. Gratton, Dr. P.H., D.A.A.S., R.S. is the recipient of the 2009 Walter F. Snyder Award, according to NSF International and the National Environmental Health Association.
Dr. Gratton was presented the award at NEHA's 73rd annual Educational Conference in Atlanta, Ga., on June 21.
This award, given in honor of NSF's co-founder and first executive director, is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the advancement of environment health. Gratton was recognized for his 40-year career within the San Antonio, Texas, Metropolitan Health Department, the U.S. Public Health Service, and the University of North Texas School of Public Health.
"Dr. Gratton's contributions to the environmental health profession have left a lasting positive impact in areas such as education, training, and sanitation," said Kevan P. Lawlor, NSF president and chief executive officer. "It is his outstanding leadership and dedication to environmental health that resonate with the principles of Walter F. Snyder, and what make him an ideal recipient of the 2009 Walter F. Snyder Award."
Early in his career, Gratton was employed as a sanitarian with the San Antonio Metropolitan Health Department, where he worked to improve and implement food establishment inspections in the lower income areas of the city. He was then promoted to the engineering section, where his primary responsibility was the inspection of daycare facilities, institutions, and nursing homes. He later became the chief trainer of new sanitarians, where he taught food codes and San Antonio Metropolitan Health ordinances, improving the overall education and quality of sanitarians' work with environmental health issues.
He joined the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service in 1977. During his career there, Gratton spent 18 years with the Indian Health Service in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arizona, and five years with the Bureau of Prisons in Fort Worth, Texas. Throughout his tenure with the Indian Health Service, Gratton's leadership and determination led him to organize and implement several environmental improvement projects, which provided quality of life improvements to tribes in his jurisdiction.
As a full-time faculty member at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of North Texas Health and Science Center School of Public Health, Gratton teaches the environmental health core courses for the master of Public Health program and the environmental determinants core courses for the Ph.D. program.