Director, The University of Montana Continuing Education Technical Assisance and Training center (UM-TATC)

Bernadette Bannister (B.A., English, University of Maryland) is the Director of a Technical Assistance and Training Center focusing on Public Health and Environmental Management Programs. She oversees projects in tobacco use prevention, public health emergency preparedness and response, obesity and diabetes prevention, wildfire urban interface mitigation, and leadership training. She is an experienced trainer, facilitator, technical writer, and a successful proposal and grant writer. She's acted as Project Manager on several grants and contracts, including a 3-year American Legacy Foundation grant (Many Voices, One Message – Keep Tobacco Sacred project for Native Americans), and contracts for technical assistance & training for the MT DPHHS in tobacco use prevention and public health emergency preparedness/response. Since 2001, she's provided advice and facilitation services to the USFS Region 1, Regional Training Academy (RTA) team, particularly in leadership development. As a Lead Technical Proposal Manager, she has written, budgeted, and participated in producing proposals since 1980, including multi-million dollar proposals. For NASA HQ, she wrote proposal sections, was awarded, and subsequently managed a $1Million/year task order under an SAIC contract.

Her 26 years professional experience includes: Director, Prospect Associates, Silver Spring, MD, Conference Services Department responsible for 100 nationwide health-related conferences/year; Subcontract Manager supporting an NIH/CDC national diabetes education partnership program; Assistant Project Manager, SAIC, Washington, DC, on program management support for NASA’s planetary science-related missions including international logistics for U.S./Russian collaborative space science activities; public outreach programs for EPA, NASA, and the Army; and Development Coordinator, Craighead Wildlife-Wildlands Institute, Missoula, MT.

Technical Communications

Over her career with SAIC and Prospect Associates, as a Sr. Technical Editor/Writer and Public Information Specialist, Ms. Bannister provided technical communications support to the scientific and engineering communities at NASA HQ, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Energy (DOE), Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), EPA, and NIH. This included editing, designing, and coordinating the production of award-winning publications for NASA, NIH, the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC), and the NHLBI. She developed public outreach programs and tools for NASA’s Solar System Exploration Division, EPA’s Office of Toxic Substances, and the USAMRDC, including overall public information campaigns, travelling exhibits, exhibit booths, exhibit slide-tape programs, and technical poster sessions. She was also responsible for planning, managing, and producing technical publications for conferences, symposia, workshops, training sessions, and seminars for NASA, USAMRDC, NHLBI, EPA, and DOD. She is the recipient of received several Publications Awards with her team-mates presented by the Society for Technical Communication, Washington, D.C., Chapter.

Volunteer Activities

Her recent volunteer work includes chairing the Steering Committee for the 2008 Raptor Research Foundation annual conference; co-founder and Executive Director for the Jan-Ai Scholarship Fund; participating on a Conference Steering Committee for the MT Nature Conservancy; working grassroots efforts with the Blackfoot Challenge, Greenough/Potomac, MT; and providing consultation and advice to the Board of Directors for the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance, Phillips County, MT.