Kathleen Marquart is Alaskan Native, a member of the Tlingit-Haida Central Council. She was raised in Wrangell Alaska, the eldest daughter of a commercial fisherman. Summers were spent on the beaches in her family’s fish camp, or on seiners looking for jumpers. Her professional career was as a Certified Physician’s Assistant in Indian country, providing medical care on reservations in South Dakota, Arizona, and New Mexico, and Oregon, as well as in Urban Indian medical clinics in Seattle, Portland, and Oklahoma City. She worked hand in hand with people from many tribal backgrounds, especially Lakota, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni, all of whom she lived and worked among. She developed and supervised a Maternal/Child Health Program, using local community outreach workers and a mobile clinic unit to assure prenatal care in small, distant communities like He Dog, and Upper Cut Meat, SD. The Urban Indian clinics served a multitude of Tribes. For example, the clinic in Oklahoma City had active patients from 126 Tribes. Kathleen has been a member of numerous committees and advisory groups on the local, state and national levels, involving rural and maternal, child health Issues. She has served as Diversity Chair on her professional associations committees. Currently Kathleen is Vice Chairperson and Representative of the Portland Area (WA, OR, ID) of the National Indian Women’s Health Resource Center.
