BOB ORFORD
1964 - Lemoyne D'Iberville

After graduating from Lemoyne D'Iberville in 1964, with an interest in forestry, I enrolled in Science at McGill University, and subsequently, somewhat to my surprise since it had not been my career plan, I graduated with a medical degree from McGill in 1971. After a year interning at St. Joseph's Hospital in London, Ontario, where I married a Rosemount High Grad, Dale (nee Stuart), I moved to Minnesota for a residency in Internal Medicine. I received a Master of Science degree from the University of Minnesota in 1975 and a Master of Public Health degree with a specialization in Occupational and Environmental Medicine from the University of Washington, Seattle in 1976.


For a year and a half in 1976-77 I was in Sarnia, Ontario as medical officer for Dow Chemical, and my first two children (boy and girl twins) were born there. In 1977, I we moved to Alberta, where I was successfully a senior medical consultant, Director of Medical Services, and Executive Director of Occupational Health with the Government of Alberta. In Edmonton, I also served as a member of the Alberta Board of Public Health from 1979 to 1986 (Chairman 1985-86) and as Deputy Minister of Community and Occupational Health from 1985 to 1987. We had our third child, a boy, when we were in Edmonton.


Following a short period as director of occupational medicine at the University of Alberta Hospital, I joined the staff of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, in the summer of 1988, and I have been with Mayo since. I served as a member of the Olmsted County Environmental Commission from 1991-96 (Chairman 1993-94)and was Residency Program Director for the Mayo Preventive Medicine Residency Program from 1992 to 1996. I then moved to Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, Scottsdale, AZ, and am currently Chair of the Division of Preventive and Occupational Medicine, Director of the Executive Health Program, and Director of the Aviation Medicine Program there. Dale and I plan to stay in Arizona at this point in our lives, but we do get back to Canada several times each year to visit family and friends.