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Q&A: UT Tyler Launched Ates into Successful Community Health Career

UT Tyler twice health and kinesiology alumnus Terrence Ates serves as the public information officer and director of community outreach for the Northeast Texas Public Health District. Learn more about Ates, how he became involved in the community healthcare sector and what he likes about the University.

Can you share with us a little bit about yourself?

As the public information officer for NET Health, my duties and responsibilities include scheduling NET Health employees for media interviews, communicating with the public about the public health services we provide, and maintaining of our websites and social media outlets. Some East Texans knew about NET Health before March 2020, yet many more residents became more familiar with us due to our daily and weekly data regarding COVID-19 prevalence in East Texas. Our metrics in October 2020 show a 446 percent increase just within our Facebook engagement, as compared to the beginning of this year.

The other half of my job responsibilities require administrative management of grant-funded programs that range from preventive cancer screenings for uninsured women, chronic disease self-management sessions, community utilization of obesity prevention resources and patient navigation for uninsured residents to receive free-or-reduced-cost healthcare.

Our community outreach department includes six community health workers, two of whom are also UT Tyler graduates, who assist persons to become healthier versions of themselves by offering group education sessions, one-on-one counseling, biometric health screenings, registration for mammograms and pap smears and connectivity to local community health resources.  

As listed on my job description, I also perform "other duties as assigned," which means I will help anyone with anything.

Describe your educational journey. . .How did you discover UT Tyler?

During my senior year of high school, I was offered a partial scholarship to Texas A&M and a full scholarship to TJC, but a young Terrence was eager to spread his wings outside of East Texas. 

A high school graduate with all A’s became a college dropout who then worked as an overnight stocker, a delivery driver and a warehouse employee over a three-year time frame. 

I then met a girl, and we both enrolled at TJC to support each other’s educational dreams. That girl became my wife, and we supported each other to restart our renewed educational pursuits at UT Tyler. I earned my B.A. in health and kinesiology in the spring of 2006, began graduate school immediately following the Summer I session and earned my M.Ed. in health and kinesiology in the spring of 2008.

What led you to your current position at NET Health?

Interestingly, my first job within the health world was to increase community awareness of prostate cancer in East Texas. I was a newly graduated 28-year-old student who did not initially know what the prostate gland was, what it did or that I even had one, and was being assigned to speak with men twice my age about learning how to maintain their personal prostate health. Dr. Bill Sorensen, associate professor within the UT Tyler health and kinesiology department, hired me as a research assistant for this grant in 2008, when I was one of the newest UT Tyler alumni, for I started this job with Dr. Sorenson only one month after graduation. 

When the prostate health awareness grant concluded in 2012, I applied for another grant-funded position that was made available by the Northeast Texas Public Health District (NET Health) and have remained employed with NET Health for more than eight years. 

What do you like best about UT Tyler and the health and kinesiology department?

I like how UT Tyler has new buildings, parking garages, an Alumni house and a city park that is truly creating a forward-thinking collegiate experience.

I also enjoy the multiple opportunities for H&K alumni to assist current students, whether it is as an invited presenter within H&K classes, receiving updates of the H&K’s evolution and/or overall UT Tyler invitations for campus events.

Who was your favorite professor, and why?

As a student, I did not have a favorite professor. As an alumnus, the professors who left an indelible mark on my family were Drs. John and Karen Sloan. I had Mrs. Sloan for an English class and Mr. Sloan for a H&K class. My then-girlfriend-and-now-wife was pregnant with our youngest daughter while we were undergrads, and she gave birth on the day after we completed our last final during our last undergraduate semester. 

The Sloans visited my wife and me at the hospital on the day after my wife gave birth and congratulated us, not only on our graduation from UT Tyler, but our graduation into parenthood. The mere gesture of their appearance within that family moment spoke volumes about the support that UT Tyler provides to its students outside the classroom.

How did UT Tyler prepare you for a successful career?

You know those semesters when you receive your schedule and you realize there will be days when you have classes on opposite sides of campus? Then, there are some days when you arrive for your first class later than usual?  Or, what about those days when it rains, and you forget to bring an umbrella and you have items to carry from class-to-class? How about those classes when you are assigned to a group project, but some group members may perform more work than others and everyone will receive the same grade? Those situations continue when you work in “the real world.’’ While you are still students, learn to identify the humor in unpleasant moments. That, my friends, is the essence of being a professional. There will be chaotic days peppered among the mundane moments of your future career(s), but take solace knowing that your time at UT Tyler will have already prepared you for those future situations.

How do you give back to the University, and why give back to UT Tyler in this way? What motivates you to stay involved?

I give back by jumping at any and every opportunity to return to campus, even if it just means returning to jog along the nature and biking trails or providing volunteer opportunities for student-led projects. In 2014, Dr. Sorensen and I led the first of several student-led volunteer projects in which we selected one day each semester to count the number of cigarette butts and tobacco litter in the UC parking lot, which is now covered by Patriot Plaza.

In each successive semester, the UT Tyler Cigarette Butt Pickup Event expanded to more parking lots and then included the perimeters of more and more buildings on campus. By 2016, our student-led campus organization was entitled Peers Against Tobacco. There was an equivalent entity at each UT System campus in Texas, and our momentum allowed us to recruit student volunteers and faculty volunteers from UT Tyler, as well as high school student organizations from many local ISDs, so that we have adequate hands to collect cigarette butts throughout the entire campus, including the baseball/softball complex, around Harvey Lake, through the hiking/biking trails, at residence halls, and at every parking lot on campus.

Whenever we picked up a cigarette butt on grass, under a bush, near a tree or on a nonpaved area, we marked that location with a small flag, so that we could capture photos to highlight the visual remnants of those buildings where cigarette butts were not being properly disposed within nearly receptacles. Participation at the UT Tyler Health & Wellness Expo and community events in Tyler included a large transparent container that held the collected cigarette butts from the most recent pickup event.

Our local efforts were leveraged with my public health connections in Tyler, Smith County and across Texas, and a campuswide, tobacco-free policy was enacted at UT Tyler in 2018, and is still in effect today. Student leaders of our Peers Against Tobacco student organization at UT Tyler are currently young leaders within their postgraduate professions, and I am proud to know I had some contribution within their leadership development and in the policy change that supported UT Tyler to become a tobacco-free campus.

What advice do you have for current UT Tyler students?

I did not, nor still do not, have a five-year goal and a 10-year goal. While I was a UT Tyler student, I did not dream of working for a health department during a pandemic, nor could I have envisioned my post-graduate duties would include being featured within a UT Tyler magazine. From my expertise within the health and medical world, my best advice to current and to future UT Tyler students is to develop the ability to be flexible. Physically flexible, yes, (value your joint flexibility and maintain it–trust me!), but also professionally flexible.  

At your current place(s) of employment, learn the tasks that are performed by your coworkers. Go beyond noticing the service they give to your customers/clients/patients but pay attention to the “behind-the-scenes” work – the office work that has to be completed so that the public work is even possible. Examples could include weekly and monthly documents that are prepared for your boss, HR paperwork, financial reconciliations and frequency of attending meetings.  

Elder employees at companies retire, others are promoted, some may move to a different city or state, and employment opportunities within your company might change on a weekly or monthly basis. Always stay ready so that you won’t have to get ready.

What are your hobbies/interests?

My favorite hobbies are breathing, sleeping and eating . . . in that order. I enjoy doing yard work around the house because it gives me the chance to be outside and to accumulate 30-45 minutes of moderate-vigorous daily activity. Recently, my wife purchased a smoker and we utilize it on weekends to meal prep for the week. I also enjoy having my two large dogs taking me for a run. I have the hands-free leashes that wrap around my waist and the dogs’ excitement of going for a walk also serves as my own motivation to resume training for 5Ks.

Any family information you'd like to share?

I am married with two daughters. All my pets are female, and most of my coworkers are female. I was raised by and lived with the matriarch of my family when I was a kid. Basically, I can keep my head above water in any estrogen pool.

Our 24-year-old daughter is an artist who flourishes in creating wood-based fire art; she welcomed her second daughter in late September, and our 14-year-old can literally play any musical instrument proficiently, but her musical talents did not come from her tone-deaf father. She was recently selected for All-Region in band and in orchestra.

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