MANDARINS, MOUNTAINS AND
MICROBIOLOGY IN PLACER COUNTY, CA
By Nancy Maddox, writer
location
In 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in the western US, and the California Gold Rush began. Just three years later, the influx of prospectors and business people prompted the establishment of
Placer County—a 1,500-square-mile area stretching from the outskirts of Sacramento to Lake Tahoe and the Nevada border.
Today, Placer County—encompassing six incorporated cities and
towns—is one of the fastest growing counties in California. Family
Circle magazine called one of its jurisdictions (Rocklin) one of the ten
most desirables places for a family to live in the United States, and
Money magazine called another (Roseville) one of the best places to
live in the US.
Musau WaKabongo, PhD, director of Placer County’s public health
laboratory, loves it here too. Having relocated from Los Angeles, she
said, “When you go outside, you may see deer or bears, depending
where you are. It’s a beautiful area.”
In addition to a thriving arts community, the county offers its 357,000
residents hiking along old wagon trails in Tahoe National Forest,
snowmobiling and cross-country skiing in the foothills of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, horseback riding in the Folsom Lake State
Recreation Area, golfing on any of two dozen courses, and all manner
of water sports on Lake Tahoe. The area is famous for its mandarins
and farmers’ markets, and, said WaKabongo, many of her staff keep
chickens, goats or horses, and bring fruit from their trees into work
to share.
Even though WaKabongo describes the county as “kind of rural,” it
is a high tech destination, with Oracle Corporation, Hewlett-Packard
Co., Sage Software, RF Semiconductor, Sierra Precision Optics and
other cutting-edge companies headquartered there. Major employers outside the technology sector include Union Pacific Railroad, Inc.,
Thunder Valley Casino, Wells Fargo & Co., and Pacific Gas and
Electric Co.
The Placer County Public Health Laboratory serves as reference
laboratory not only for Placer County, but for nearby Yuba and Nevada
counties too. It provides Laboratory Response Network services to
Placer, El Dorado, Nevada and Sierra counties.
facility
The public health laboratory takes up a wing of the former De Witt
General Hospital, now part of the Placer County Government Center in Auburn, the county seat. The single-story, brick building was
opened as a hospital in 1944 to treat war casualties and provide
medical services for area military installations, including the Reno
Army Air Base, Camp Beale and the Sierra Ordnance Depot. After
World War II, it served briefly as a mental hospital before it was
declared surplus and conveyed to the State of California in 1947,
along with surrounding buildings and 195 acres of land. In 1972, the
state transferred the entire complex to Placer County at no cost.
WaKabongo says the erstwhile hospital is “vintage, plus modern,”
with hardwood floors and rows of windows contrasting with a
720-square-foot, state-of-the-art, prefabricated bioterrorism (BT)
suite that the lifelong microbiologist calls “really beautiful.”
The 4,800-square-foot laboratory wing recently received a fresh coat
of paint—in a hue called laboratory white—and has a newly renovated
autoclave room and new security system. Two new biosafety
cabinets—for the tuberculosis (TB) and accessioning suites—and a
new fluorescent microscope are on the way.
director
WaKabongo was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in
Central Africa into a family of eight girls and two boys. “The important thing about that,” she said, “is that in those days, they didn’t
value education for the girls.” Nonetheless, her forward-thinking
parents—a Methodist minister and an elementary school teacher—
insisted that all the children go to school. WaKabongo was the only
female in her high school graduating class.
Soon after passing that milestone, she came to the United States
to live with a sister who had settled in Boston. WaKabongo earned
a bachelor’s degree in biology from Boston State College (now part
of the University of Massachusetts), and, she said, “I love microbiology so much that I went to do my master’s at Virginia State College
in Petersburg.” That degree led to a doctorate in pathology/clinical
microbiology at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) in Richmond,
followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in medical and public health
microbiology, also from MCV.
The next logical step would have been a board examination to qualify
as a public health laboratory director, but WaKabongo—then a single
mother of four—could not afford it. “I was looking for a position,” she
said. She found work as an assistant professor of microbiology at the
Osteopathic Medical Center in Des Moines, IA, where she became a
tenured associate professor and remained for 14 years.
At the urging of a mentor, WaKabongo moved to California in 2005,
earned her public health microbiologist certificate and became the
BT coordinator of the San Bernardino County Public Health Laboratory. But less than a month after her arrival, the mentor—Sue Sabet,
then director of the San Bernardino laboratory—accepted a position
as head of the LA County Public Health Laboratory. As luck would
