Background in Videotaping CEOs Led to Better Footage of CDC Experts

Education

I graduated from North Carolina State University in 1983 with 2 Bachelor’s degrees, one in business and one in communication.

Jobs Prior to CDC

My first job was shooting videos for what had been Atlanta’s own Rich’s department stores, a large local chain that had been bought first by Federated Department Stores and then by Macy’s. After that, I free-lanced as a cameraman, videographer, and director, and owned or co-owned small businesses that offered those services.

One long-time client was Delta Air Lines. I created in-house training and communications videos for their staff and videos for external audiences as well. These included arrival videos for travelers flying into various domestic and international airports, and “what to expect” videos on topics such as immigration, baggage claim, and customs procedures. I also spent a full week with Jimmy Carter for the National Park Service.

I worked for other documentary producers as well, including one who won an Oscar for documentary feature. My work frequently involved filming C.E.O.’s and other prominent people like Reggie Jackson and Clint Eastwood. I learned how to put people who weren’t professional communicators at ease. Then I was able to help them connect emotionally with their audiences (the most powerful use of video), focus on basic concepts, and get key information across.

First CDC job

In 2007, I joined the broadcast unit of CDC’s communication group as a contractor. I remained in that status, producing videos, for 10 years. I was initially hired as a video cameraman but it was soon apparent that, with my decades of experience in production and editing, I could produce, direct, edit, and operate equipment for multicamera live broadcasts. The latter skill was helpful in connecting with broadcast networks for interviews with CDC officials.

Later CDC job

In 2017, I accepted a permanent fulltime position with the agency and served in that role for 8 more years. One regular activity was what we called satellite media tours. We would schedule local anchors from 15 TV stations in middle-sized markets around the country to interview CDC experts remotely. In SMTs, the station interviews a CDC expert or, say, a former smoker, and then our studio switches quickly to another station, making the process very efficient. People trust local news, and this kind of local connection made the point that CDC was approachable. Sometimes a CDC person would be interviewed by networks for later broadcast on national newscasts.

Final CDC job

This fall, CDC held a conference of staff from NGOs around the country who had worked on a major lead-poisoning prevention project. We taped interviews with the participants, capturing what the staff had done, how they did it, and how it helped to reduce early childhood brain damage and other problems caused by this toxic exposure.

My team and I also worked recently on 30-second public service announcements in English and Spanish that encouraged women to use flour fortified with folic acid to make Tortillas. This practice can prevent spina bifida and other serious birth defects. The spots were ran on Hulu and got the word out to many women who don’t have access to a doctor’s advice early in their pregnancies.

Proudest Achievement

I’ve made a lot of videos in my life, but at CDC, I believe that I helped make the world healthier and safer, one video at a time. It felt important to produce videos in-house because there’s so much specialized knowledge at CDC. I had no idea what public health was when I walked in the door; I just knew about the labs. I found 1000’s of people dedicated to making the world a safer, healthier place. As I built relationships with agency leaders and content experts, I had more influence. For example, when I taped the agency’s top doc colleagues from places like Johns Hopkins and Harvard, they could be a little stiff, but I was able to help them relax and communicate better. Leaders like Director Frieden grew to respect me.

Impact of My Work

We made many videos of the CDC director and other leaders to show at health problem-specific conferences around the country and around the world. This avoided travel, saving the director’s time and the agency’s money, at the same time that it let colleagues know that the director was aware of and engaged in their efforts.

And a story is what engages people, and I drew stories out of experts. For example, when I taped Dr. David Senser (a former CDC director) about the campaign to eradicate smallpox and other diseases, he told an interesting story about his interviews with surviving members of the “Yellow Berets.” This was the nickname given to people who were drafted during the Viet Nam war and volunteered to work on the ground in smallpox eradication instead of fighting. It felt very important, because eliminating the last few cases of a disease is so hard, this is the only disease that has ever been completely eradicated, and the window for preserving the lessons learned on the frontline was closing.

Leaving CDC

Nobody in my unit took the “fork in the road,” an early January offer to resign early and keep benefits until September. My conservative branch chief was confident that the branch would survive. Then, on January 20th, it became obvious that CDC would no longer communicate directly to the field of public health or to the public. Almost everyone in media relations and broadcast was fired on April 1st. I qualified for retirement, so I had decided about 2 weeks prior that to take the “early out.” Ironically, I was the only member of the production staff left in the office. They did keep 3 contractor technicians; 1 was a camera operator and the others maintained the equipment and ran the private IT network we maintained because our file sizes were so large.

Our work on the lead poisoning videos ground to a halt right after the election, before the footage could be edited, so those lessons from the field can’t be passed along. We were developing creative ideas for next year, but they are unlikely to be produced because we did the productions for free and if the birth defects program wanted to hire an outside production company it would be very expensive, somewhere between $50k–$150k.

My boss said, “I never saw anyone work with directors like you do.” Add to that CDC’s loss of my technical grasp that took decades to achieve, and being taken away from CDC abruptly feels like a wasteful loss of agency effectiveness.

Practically speaking, I’m 65, but my wife is not old enough for Medicare and my two children are under 26 and will lose their health insurance. My retirement paperwork was messed up because CDC HR was destroyed. They fired 137 HR workers, leaving 2 to process all the departures and terminations. On May 15, I finally received some paperwork about the retirement. I understand that my paperwork is now on the way to OPM, but I still have no official documentation to speak of

Future Plans 

I’ll continue to do part-time freelance work, and I’m considering a documentary series that would explain public health to the public.

I love the place and I love the people. I have met so many people who had traveled in their work, saving lives. Dedication and legwork in places like Africa, Pakistan, San Francisco early in the AIDS epidemic…people who had seen illness, death and heartache. But I think I’ll make way for someone else who needs the job more.

Other Comments

During outbreaks of diseases like H1N1, Ebola, and Zika (a mosquito-borne illness that causes birth defects), I was thrilled to put in the night-and-weekend overtime it took to deliver live feeds to national networks, cable stations, PBS, and commercial TV stations. During the Ebola crisis, our live satellite feed to all networks had the potential to reach almost every American. It’s hard to replicate being part of something so huge.