M. Ricardo Calderón, M.P.H.
Area Health Officer for SPA 3 & 4

Mr. M. Ricardo Calderón is a Senior International Health Programs Manager and Technical Advisor with extensive experience designing, implementing, managing, and evaluating medical, public health, pharmaceutical, and community development programs at local, national and international level.

Mr. Calderón is the principal program official responsible for providing policy leadership and promoting public health programs and services for the residents of SPA 3 & 4. He develops, administers and directs the delivery of core public health functions and clinical services to protect, maintain and improve the health of more than 3.5 million people.

Experience
Mr. Calderón has extensive work experience planning, implementing, managing, overseeing and evaluating technical assistance programs in primary health care; maternal and child health; child survival; reproductive health/family planning; nutrition and food programming; malaria and tuberculosis control; infectious and chronic disease control; injury, violence and disability prevention; epidemiological surveillance; health promotion, training, information, education and communication; pharmaceutical assistance; human resource development; and HIV/AIDS/STDs.

Mr. Calderón is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. His teaching and research interests focus on international health, health and faith collaborations, and applied public health practice through strategic leadership, planning and management of programs and services.

Expertise
His training includes executive leadership and strategic management (American Management Association 1998, 2000) and the Los Angeles Training Academy (Cal-State, Northridge, 2001). In brief, Mr. Calderon’s expertise includes top level leadership, visionary, and management skills; restructuring and reengineering of health care services; formulating strategy, managing corporate culture and change, organizing and deploying resources, developing human resources, community and policy development, and large scale international technical assistance programs.

Education
A native Guatemalan and citizen of the USA, Mr. Calderón received a physician and surgeon’s degree from the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC 1981) and a master's degree in public health from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA 1984). He received training at the doctoral level in health services management and infectious disease epidemiology at UCLA (1987), and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in preventive medicine and epidemiology research at the University of Southern California (USC 1991).