Next stop was Tucson, Arizona (left) for five years where I earned my M.S. in Hospital Pharmacy and then a Ph.D. in Pharmacy Administration from The University of Arizona. Also completed an ASHP-accredited General Hospital Pharmacy Residency during my stay in Tucson, and worked at Tucson Medical Center, a 650-bed community hospital built on a single level.

Leaving the desert, I went from one weather extreme to the other, moving to Sitka, Alaska (right), located in that state's southeast panhandle. Instead of 100-degree temperatures, I now weathered 100 inches of rainfall annually. In Sitka, I worked part-time at White's Pharmacy, and spent the rest of my time serving as the Director of Pharmacy Services for Sitka Community Hospital, a 24-bed facility (with an average daily census of 6). In this position I was the ENTIRE Department of Pharmacy Services - I was the Director, the Staff Pharmacist, the Clinical Pharmacist, and the Technician. As you might imagine, my departmental meetings were always very brief, and we always worked by consensus!

Also while in Alaska, I served as the Consultant Pharmacist to Wrangell General Hospital and Long-term Care Center, where I would travel once a month to conduct medical chart reviews for the LTC residents as mandated by Medicare regulations. The best part of living in Alaska was meeting my wife, Suzanne Wasilczuk. As an RN at the time, Suzanne had been a Shift Supervisor at Sitka Community Hospital, and was very active in the life of the town. We really enjoyed living in Sitka and miss our friends there (but not the rain) a lot.

After four years in the Soggy Southeast, I was outbid for the hospital pharmacy consulting contract in Sitka, so it was time to move on and put all those letters after my name to some use. Turned out that the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC was desperately looking for another Pharmacy Administration professor - so desperate, in fact, that they were willing to overlook the fact that I am a Yank. Moving from a town of 7,800 to a metropolitan area of over 1 million was a bit of a shock, eh? I taught courses in pharmacy management and marketing in pharmacy for the four years we spent in Canada. At least we were close to Canada -- seems that few other Canadians consider Lotus Land (BC) to be "real" Canada (weather is too nice, trends are too avant garde, people are too laid back). But seriously, Canadians are wonderful people and Vancouver is a gorgeous city. We also really enjoyed the truly Cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Vancouver area. All this said, Canada still did not feel like home....

While we were in Canada, we kept our eyes open for job opportunities at US pharmacy schools. The town had to be relatively small. Vancouver, beautiful and livable as cities go, was still a city, and we really wanted something quite a bit smaller. "What do you think of Missoula, Montana?" Suzanne asked one day. "I've heard of it," I replied. Turns out that Suzanne had ridden through Missoula on a Greyhound Bus en route to Alaska several years before, and she thought that it looked like a pretty place.

This was good enough for me, so when a Pharmacy Administration teaching position became available at The University of Montana, I applied right away. I got the job and spent 10 1/2 years there, teaching pharmacy management, health care policy, ethics, economics, patient counseling and statistics. I was also Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice for a couple of years.

Faculty from the University of Minnesota determined that Minnesota needed 500 more pharmacists. The College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus already had as many students as it could accommodate, and there was no room for expansion on the Twin Cities campus. So, the state agreed to expand the College of Pharmacy to the Duluth campus, where the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) already had a medical school. The pharmacy program at Duluth emphasizes pharmacy practice in Greater Minnesota, the state's rural counties.

To try to shorten an already-too-long story, we already knew that my wife was heading down to Chicago to begin the four-year Unitarian Universalist seminary program, and I was fortunate enough to be offered a teaching position in the pharmacy program in Duluth. Duluth is not necessarily close to Chicago, but it is way closer than Missoula! Suzanne completed the M.Div. program - including a one-year Internship in Bangor, Maine - and now provides Outreach Ministry to small UU congregations in northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, the U.P. (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan and Thunder Bay, Ontario.)

What I Teach

My Research

My Extra-curricular Activities

In an attempt to keep my clinical skills current, I continue to work as a pharmacist occasionally at the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa's clinics in Duluth (Center for American Indian Resources - CAIR) and Cloquet (Min No Aya Win).

My Hobbies

In addition to photographing real trains, I have also enjoyed model railroading for many years. Alas, all the models are currently put away in boxes, and the next layout is but a dream.

My Faith

I am Unitarian Universalist and am a member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth. My personal faith is strongly influenced by the American Indian spiritual traditions shared by several American Indian nations.

Hey, thanks for visiting my website! If you're interested in learning more about me or my research program, drop me an e-mail message here.