Gail M. Bush is the founder and owner of Pure Soul All Heart. It is a holistic and wellness business. It is a one stop shop to feel good about yourself. Ms. Bush will show you how to utilize your kitchen to help you with nutrition. She can also do a body scan, weight control, massage, body wraps. Her daughter, Destiny, does all- natural face and body scrubs and mists. Ms. Bush will take care of your mind, body, spirit, and soul. She is a member of the Better Business Bureau.
Jessica L. Sotiriou received a Master of Science in Nursing from Kaiser University. She is Regional Dean of Nursing at Concorde Career Colleges, Inc., and specializes in Nursing. She has co-presented ACEN Conference and oversees 9 different Nursing Programs in the United States. Ms. Sotiriou is responsible for the development of the New BSN Program. She has received the Worldwide Leaders of Healthcare Award from the International Nurses Association. Ms. Sotiriou is a member of the American Nurses Association, California Nurses Association, and the National League of Nursing. In her free time, she enjoys biking, hiking, swimming, and traveling.
Carol L. Niemeyer received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California at Berkeley. She was fascinated by the behavior of non-human primates, and studied their social behavior in the Departments of Anthropology, Psychology, and Zoology, earning an Independent Honor’s major in “Evolutionary and Comparative Behavior and Biology.”
After graduating, she was a zookeeper for the adult primates at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was early in the summer of 1971, so she was one of the very first women to work with adult exotic animals at a zoo in the United States.
Women working with wild animals in zoos traditionally raised and cared for the infant animals in the Nurseries and Children’s Zoos. Carol worked in the Children’s Zoo at Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, Massachusetts in 1970. Simultaneously, she was a Playboy Bunny at the Boston Playboy Club.
One day, Carol was displaying a huge Traveling Zoo boa constrictor at a local park in Boston. She was sitting next to a chain link fence with the boa constrictor around her shoulders. Before she was aware of any danger, the boa constrictor had intertwined itself around her neck and the fence! She could not dislodge the massive, strong snake. Fortunately another employee, who drove the Traveling Zoo truck, was able to assist her.
At one point, interested in using her brains and making a bit more money, she returned to school to take more of the hard sciences in order to become a Psychiatrist. Following straight A’s in those difficult courses, she was not even allowed to apply to take the Medical College Admissions Test! She was told it was because she “was a woman”. ( New Orleans Louisiana, 1973).
So, she returned to zoo work, and was later a zookeeper at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. and at the zoo in Dallas, Texas.
At the National Zoo, she became involved with the Curator of Reptiles. One day, he went to the airport to pick up three extremely poisonous snakes from Southeast Asia. There was one each of yellow, green, and brown, with triangular heads, in two snake bags. The Reptile Curator took them home, and took them out of the bags to inspect them, using an improvised “snake hook” made out of a clothes hanger. Then he and Carol spent the night there.
The next day, the Reptile Curator found that he only had two of the very poisonous snakes! The zoo X-rayed the snakes to see if one had devoured the other one, which was missing. Nope. That evening, the Curator’s roommate, who didn’t even know about the lost snake, directed the Curator’s attention to a bright yellow snake in their fireplace, stating “It doesn’t look like a garter snake!” The snake had been loose in the apartment while Carol and the Reptile Curator slept.
Also at the National Zoo, Carol worked briefly with the elephants. One day, a young male elephant chased Carol out of the enclosure, ears and trunk flailing aggressively. Carol escaped this dangerous animal, but decided to return to work with the primates again.
At the Dallas Zoo, Carol was a Research Technician for the primates. She participated in Jane Goodall’s study of chimpanzees in zoos, called “Chimpanzoo”. Jane Goodall’s work with wild chimpanzees had been the inspiration for Carol’s career, and the two had met a number of times.
In between these two zoo jobs, Carol lived in the Amazon jungle twice, both times at least eight hours away from any city by boat, but in completely separate locations. In one location the ant was the “king of the jungle”. In the other location, it was the mosquito.
In the first location, she assisted in a study of Titi monkeys. She learned what it is really like to study primates in the wild! The crew got up very early, and followed these tiny monkeys through their daily ranges, cutting trails with machetes, and watching them through binoculars thirty meters high in trees. To be truthful, the best part of the day was when she and the other woman, Barbara Sleeper, went to the stream for their daily bath, after following the monkeys all day in the hot, humid jungle. Barb Sleeper is now a very prolific writer.
Carol was also the Director of a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in the Amazon Jungle. Among other things, she took an anteater for a daily walk, cradling a woolly monkey, who gripped her with it’s prehensile tail as well as all four limbs. This felt Wonderful, like being held.
Tourists paid to come to the location, again about eight hours from any civilization by boat. Once, Carol and a group traveled by boat another eight hours away, through waters infested by alligators, with only their eyes visible in the dark night above the water.
The destination was to visit the Mayoruna Indians, who had a reputation as ” fierce, nomadic cannibals”, who did not get along very well with the white missionaries. Reportedly, they also used to eat their dead relatives, in order “to absorb their spirits.” They made interesting facial tattoos that looked sort of like railroad ties, and inserted thin fibers of palm leaf into holes made in their noses and faces to make whiskers, like jaguars.
Fortunately, the group made it back safely from visiting the Mayorunas. But the tourist season in the jungle ended. One day, all of the employees at the camp mutinied and returned to civilization. They were no longer being sent edible food and drinkable water in their isolated location. So, Carol had to leave as well.
Carol continued her education in non-human primate behavior, obtaining a Master’s Degree from the University of Stirling in Scotland. She was told at her “viva” that this enormous masterpiece was “really a PhD”. She could have changed it to a PhD in about two semesters, but by this time she was very deep in debt from overseas student’s tuition, so she returned to the U.S.
Back in the United States, she volunteered at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, on a study of Golden Lion Tamarin monkeys living free at that Zoo.
Subsequently, she utilized her Master’s Degree working at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, first as a Primate Behavior Technician, and then was promoted to Animal Behavior Supervisor. Her duties were to “improve the psychological well-being of the primates”. To do that, among other things, she formed pairs and groups of individually housed monkeys, who were often very aggressive to each other. She also provided them with devices to keep them occupied, and hopefully prevent self-injurious behaviors. And she arranged with a local supermarket to get special produce for them to eat.
She supervised the Animal Behavior Technicians. Carol authored a number of articles, and gave presentations at national and international Primatological Conferences.
One day in 2002, something rather unexpected occurred. One of her assistants, who had done a good job for a year, resigned. The next day it was found that he was a spy for the radical animal rights organizations. Nobody at the Primate Center knew this.
Carol carried on, continuing to completely dedicate her life to helping the monkeys as much as possible. Although she was paid a salary and was expected to leave work at 4 p.m, she frequently worked until late at night. One day, not long after the spy resigned, the Administration decided that since Carol worked so much, she must also be a spy. And they got rid of her.
She found out much later that this was not the only reason she lost her beloved career: there was a woman working at the Primate Center who coveted her job, and that woman orchestrated Carol losing her career.
This was a very serious blow.
Carol still lives in Portland, Oregon with a very special Maine Coon cat, and is working on a book about her career. In her spare time, she enjoys singing in a choir, walking, pet sitting, ushering for theater, and participating in activities with the Society for Creative Anachronisms.
Maryann M. Shanley received an Associate Degree in Nursing from NYC Catholic Medical Center School of Nursing. Maryann has been a Registered Nurse for the past 27 years. She is with Miller’s, a nursing home located in Indiana. She specializes in long term patient care. Maryann has been named ‘Employee of the Month’ on two separate occasions. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, travel, and spending time with her family.
Harold Odhiambo is the Director of Community Outreach. He develops and implements ongoing public relations that promote Passport to Languages, Inc. services. He establishes and maintains good working relationships with organizations by assisting with their client populations. In addition, he participates in Passport to Language’s community fundraising activities, serving as a community liaison while establishing and maintaining cooperative relationships with other agencies and community groups. Harold’s excellent communication skills assists with problem solving while providing team leadership training. He also is the key person involved with securing and on-boarding new qualified and certified healthcare interpreters to Passport’s current large team of healthcare interpreters. Mr. Odhiambo is the current Chairman of the Community Health Centre Board with Multnomah County Health Department’s Clinical Sites. The Integrated Clinical Services (I C S). Harold Odhiambo is the current chairman of African Family Holistic Health Organization. He is a Board Member of African Women’s Coalition, a member of Northwest Regional Primary Care Association, which includes 4 States, Alaska, Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Mr. Odhiambo is a member of Healthy Birth Initiatives (HBI) and Community Action Network Leadership Group (CAN) with in Multnomah County Health Department. He is a State of Oregon Qualified Health Care Interpreter and is recognized National by the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) as a certified health center governance leader, since 2009. Mr. Odhiambo received an award by the Oregon Qualified Health Care Interpreter Association as Interpreter of the Year in the state of Oregon in 2015, he received a Certificate of Recognition from Healthy Birth Initiative and HBI CAN leadership Group, for ideals and leadership role in helping to have better healthy and birth outcomes in the African American community in 2020. He got a Certificate of Completion from Health Birth Initiatives for Leadership Development Training in Champions for Change, in 2019, a public service award in recognition of exemplary contribution of time, ideas, and creativity in Multnomah County Health Department, Integrated Clinical Services, and the Community Health Council June 19th, 2019. He got a Certificate of Appreciation from Multnomah County in recognition to service to the community Health Center Board and Contributions to the mission, Vision, and values of the Multnomah County Health Centers as Chair of the community Health Center Board in 2020, a certificate of Appreciation from Healthy Birth Initiatives (HBI) for valuable contributions to the health of the African American Community through his work with the Healthy Birth initiatives and Community Action Network Leadership Group in April 2021, a certificate of Completion on Hippa privacy and security training fro business associates, January 30, 2020, a certificate of Completion on Combating Medicare Parts C and D Fraud, waste, and
Harold Odhiambo was the first recipient of Interpreter of The Year Award in the state of Oregon in 2015. He is registered as a state of Oregon Qualified Healthcare Interpreter, and is the recipient of OHSU’s Rosey Award, which this year was the first time it was awarded outside of OHSU employees and given to an Oregon state qualified healthcare interpreter. In his free time, he enjoys Rugby, golf, soccer and swimming.