Proud grandfather of 1, Ethan & father of 2, Tara & Sean, both over-achievers & both great kids!A widower for 3 years now over the grief but never over the love. Currently just living his life as it comes & learning daily.Public Health Consultant, Medical Anthropologist & grant-writer/fund-raiser, working almost entirely in the former Soviet Union since 1988. Dr. Houston went to the Republic of Kazakhstan of the Soviet as the guest of the Ministry of Health. He accepted a contract to assist them with the development of their Institute of Cultural Medicine. It was from this initial contact that he began to work in the former Soviet Union. Food is such a large part of health that I have always been an avid foodie!During the time between November 1988 & July 2004, he consulted for various organizations, agencies & governments including: Ministries of Health for Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Uzbekhistan, Turmenistan, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Armenia, Czech Republic, Republic of Georgia, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, & Slovakia; "Kyiv Fund Diabet", "Fund Dopomoga of Ukraine", "Odessa Fund Diabet", "Chernobyl Union International", "Chernobyl Veterans Federation", "Ukrainian Military War Veterans Agency", National Institute of Cultural Medicine of Ukraine, Institute of Traditional & Natural Medicine of Kazkahstan, Institute of Natural Medicine of Ukraine, Institute of Traditional Medicine of Hungary, Institute of Traditional & Natural Medicine of Uzbekhistan, Trans-Ural Institute of Medicine, and other agencies.Dr. Houston has authored & worked upon more than 400 grant proposals, the majority of which were successful in securing funding for many projects in the countries named above. In addition Dr. Houston has worked with Yeditepe University in Istanbul, Turkey on several joint-projects. He has also worked with the German corporation Jupiter GmBh as well.In 1997 he founded Overseas Medical Aid Group (OMAG), a 501c3 Non-profit, humanitarian medical/health assistance group. This group deveoted its work to providing assistance, guidance, leadership, training and much more to the medical and healthcare community of the former Soviet Union as well as other nations of the world. Consulting in the areas of feasibitlty studies, project dynamics, project planning & implementation, staffing, training, procurement, construction consulting and much more. This organization now based in Hamburg, Germany.Dr. Houston was involved in the 1995-96 production of "CHERNOBYL: 10 YEAR AFTERMATH", a 1 hour film produced jointly by Time-Warner Video productions & Chernobyl Union International. He was one of the narators as well as the lead in organizaing the production of this historic film. This work was shown worldwide in April 1996 during the 10 Year Anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. He was awarded the prestigious Ukrainian Chernobyl Veterans Award for his work with this effort. He was instrumental in organizing the orthotics & prosthetics assistance for the Ukrianian Afghan War Veterans.Viet Nam was a catalyst for him. He came home after 3 1/2 tours, motivated to get into the realm of medicine but not as a physician. He studied long & hard in several countries to obtain his Master & Doctoral degrees in medical anthropology & public health. His professional life has often been one of travel to remote, dangerous and some very unusual places in the world.He is an avid cook, collector of recipes & runs several Internet-based cooking/cuisine groups & forums. He has a colection more than 90,000+ recipes in his computer collected from all over the world, from friends & from various cookbooks or other printed media. In the days of the bulletin board "freenets"he was an avid BBS'r with membershipsin many cooking groups. When the Internet came along he continued this activity. he also runs many groups devoted to global cuisines, diabetic cuisines & soem regional or cultural cuisines in various Net communities. Hobbies & intersts besides cooking include coin collecting, photography, camping, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, snorkling, Celtic music, blues, new age music, classical, neo-classical & ethnic music of various cultures. Collecting Russian Palekh & Fedovskina lacquerware is a interest as well.Bronze Star-U.S. Army Viet Nam 1968, Vietnamese Soldier's Medal 1st Class 1969, Civitan of The Year 1981, Civitan Project Impact Award 1981, Golden Sun Award Kazakhstan 1990, Ukrainian Chernobyl Veterans Award 1996, International Diabetes Federation Trans-Cultural Award 1997Currently working on a book devoted the cultures, cuisines & people of the former Soviet Union. www.authorsden.com/dockozzakzdenwww.kozzak.gather.com