Randy Crochier has started work as the regional health agent overseeing 10 towns for the Cooperative Public Health Service, a program of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG).
“The role of the health agent is to protect the public heath of everybody in (town), meaning, in particular, safe housing, clean water, safe food” and inspecting sewer systems, said Phoebe Walker, director of Community Services at FRCOG.
Crochier will serve the towns of Buckland, Charlemont, Colrain, Gill, Hawley, Heath, Leyden, Monroe, Rowe and Shelburne.
Many parts of this full-time position are familiar to Crochier, who has served on the Board of Health in Gill for more than 25 years. With respect to food safety, Crochier has worked as a full-time chef at the jail for decades and worked part-time as a food safety agent at FRCOG.
“It feels very good. It’s like a lifetime accomplishment type thing,” Crochier said of taking this position. “I’ve spent the majority of my working life basically as a chef, then doing the (public) health work part-time. I really had a passion for it.”
Throughout the years, Crochier has been licensed and certified in food safety, soil evaluation, septic inspection and lead determination, to name a few.
“I had every one at one time. I allowed a couple of them to lapse but I’m in the process of re-doing them,” he said.
Crochier noted that a portion of his job is preventative in nature; as a health agent, he will work with people and businesses on planning and education to prevent public health issues from arising.
For Walker, Crochier’s blend of experiences stood out.
“He brings a lot of history of both understanding how local governments work and understanding of the work of local public health,” Walker said. “It actually does take a great deal of education, information and experience to know all of the different codes and the science behind it (all).”
Crochier and Walker have talked for decades about the need for the regionalization of public health services. Both have been a part of the years-long process, which included other towns’ health boards, to create what is now the Cooperative Public Health Service.
“It was a long process,” Crochier said, in planning, creating and growing the cooperative. “Yeah, this is my baby.”
The Cooperative Public Health Service includes a member of the Board of Health for each town in the cooperative. It provides a public health nurse and a public health agent, and each town decides if it needs one or both services, Walker said. The services are approximately 75 percent taxpayer-funded and the other 25 percent comes from town’s user fees, Walker said.