“Many thanks for your professional assistance in designing and making my orthotic work.” 

This was Alan Lyles’ response to our August call for entries to win a new Dankmeyer T shirt.  He was specifically referring to his orthotist, Marlies Beerli-Cabell, CPO.  For a bonus entry to the contest, he submitted some pictures of himself wearing his orthosis – both at home, and in Finland.  Yes, that ankle foot orthosis gets around!  We asked Alan to tell us more about his travels.

As it turns out, Professor Lyles (Alan Lyles, ScD, MPH, is the Henry A. Rosenberg Professor of Government, Business, and Nonprofit Partnerships in the College of Public Affairs at the University of Baltimore) was living, travelling and working on a Fulbright Specialist project in Finland last spring, and some of the orthosis pictures were taken in the airport in Vantaa, Finland.  In his lectures as part of this project, he stressed that “managing the health and social services reform … in a sustainable way requires courage and strong will from decision-makers and management.” (Alan Lyles. Finland’s Lesson: Being Happy Takes Work. The National Interest Blog. August 16, 2022. )

(If you have access to LinkedIn, you can read a post in LinkedIn from the institution where Alan spoke. While the post is in Finnish, you can click on the Translate button to get an English translation. Click here.)

Alan Lyles has experienced social reform in a very personal and direct way.  A child of poverty in the rural South, he was surrounded by illiteracy in the majority of his family members and he had poor health – having tuberculosis at a young age.  An aunt took over his care when he was seven, and despite her own limited formal education, she realized that Alan should have what she did not.  Her persistent pushes and in high school his mother’s setting more ambitious goals, lead to his eventual advanced education.  Two years ago, Alan wrote describing his upbringing and the challenges of achieving literacy in the Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, NC). Click here to read the article.

Eventually having achieved his Doctor of Science (ScD) and his Master of Public Heath degrees, he is currently a professor at the University of Baltimore – a far cry from his rural South roots of seventy years ago. His social and economic environment as a child formed his views on the need for education, healthcare communication, and to some extent happiness.  He has come to understand that happiness takes work, compromise, trust and what the Finns call sisu – or grit.  Alan writes, “These are the same things that allow us to face the complex issues of our times, whether you are wearing an orthosis, have some limb difference, or face any variety of social or economic challenges.”

We appreciate that Alan chose to share his story with us.