The Many Faces of UTHealth Houston: Scott Patlovich, DrPH

Scott Patlovich, DrPH, is no stranger to difficult situations. The very nature of his job in Environmental Health and Safety at UTHealth Houston has him responding to emergencies when everyone else is running away. But the true test of his mettle came early in his career when he faced Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, only two months after he moved from Colorado to Houston.

Patlovich, who spent the night at the IAH airport parking lot because his car flooded, had to hitchhike back to the Texas Medical Center — a journey that took five rides. He still considers Allison the most significant and impactful emergency response event he’s encountered in his long career of preventing and mitigating difficult situations.

“McGovern Medical School was completely flooded in the basement and first floor. The Cyclotron building as well,” Patlovich said. “For the next several weeks we provided all of the emergency response for the event as we removed water and dried out the building.”   

Despite this challenging start to his new job at UTHealth Houston, this everyday hero never wavered in his chosen career path.

Finding his calling

Despite his childhood dreams of playing in the NBA, Patlovich, who was always interested in the sciences, didn’t really know what he wanted to do.

“I knew I didn’t want to be standing behind a lab bench for my days, so how could I be involved in the sciences and really make an impact?” Patlovich said. “At one point, during the pursuit of education in environmental health sciences, I thought maybe going through and environment health and safety program that I might save the world from air and water pollution.”

That desire morphed into a unique opportunity to participate in a health and safety internship at the University of Northern Colorado, where he learned a lot about the profession and how it supported important research and scientific discovery.

“In health and safety, when you are supporting people doing these great things and keeping them healthy and safe along the way, there’s a lot of job satisfaction,” he said.

Patlovich, who still plays basketball, along with participating in both men’s hockey and soccer competitive adult leagues, has come a long way since starting at UTHealth Houston as a safety specialist in the Biological Safety Program.

The stars were aligned

Patlovich admits Houston wasn’t his first choice of places to relocate when searching for a career, but the stars were aligned when the opportunity at UTHealth Houston came his way.

“My undergraduate epidemiology professor, Dr. Lorann Stallones, was not only an alumni of our UTHealth Houston School of Public Health but also the daughter of the founding dean Reuel A. Stallones, for which the school’s building is named,” Patlovich said. “She said, ‘You know, if you are considering graduate school, you might consider UTHealth Houston School of Public Health.’”

After looking further into it, Patlovich realized it not only was a “wonderful professional job opportunity” but also fulfilled his interest in pursuing a graduate education in the field of health and safety.

“UTHealth Houston has treated me very well for many reasons. It has been a phenomenal professional experience. I was able to go to school concurrently for master’s and doctoral programs,” Patlovich said. “One of the other benefits of that whole process along the way was that I took an elective class at the School of Public Health in health promotion… and I sat near this really nice young lady named Krista. Fast forward to today, we achieved 16 years of marriage and have three lovely children, all possible future public health professionals.”

A career of devotion, care, and gratitude

Anyone who knows Patlovich knows his incredible devotion to the health and safety of the university community. Every interaction with him highlights the level of care he takes when performing his job.

Patlovich’s hard work and dedication led to his advancement at UTHealth Houston. He worked his way from safety specialist to his current position as assistant vice president of Environmental Health and Safety. Along the way, he took a detour in 2009 to gain outside experience and take part in a unique professional opportunity.

“The National University of Singapore invested incredibly in their research enterprise many years ago, building many beautiful, modern labs and facilities to support basic science research. With this, they sought assistance to bolster their safety programs,” Patlovich said. “I went over and helped out for a couple of years. It was a great professional experience, and the relationships that I built are still in place today.”

Shortly after this experience, he returned to Texas, and ultimately to UTHealth Houston, when the leadership position for Environmental Health and Safety opened. “There is no question that I was drawn back to UTHealth Houston since it was such a great place to work, and because of the opportunity to work with my mentor Dr. Robert Emery again.”

The position’s predecessor, Bruce Brown, moved to UT Southwestern Medical Center to run the health and safety program there, but he still remains close to Patlovich.

Given Emery’s influence mentoring both of them (along with many others in the health and safety profession), Patlovich and Brown worked to create the Robert J. Emery Endowed Fellowship in Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences at the School of Public Health in 2018.

“Dr. Emery has helped so many people across the profession, and we knew many could help with this fellowship. We started contacting all of those we knew and consulted his CV to find others that we didn’t know from early in his career,” Patlovich said. “Every single person said, ‘Absolutely, just let me know where to send the check to start the fellowship.’”  

Emery, vice president of Safety, Health, Environment, and Risk Management at UTHealth Houston, has been an integral part of UTHealth Houston over his more than 40-year career.

The future

Patlovich has no plans to leave Houston or UTHealth Houston. This is now his home.

“There are so many things about this place that make it attractive to live. The affordability is great, and the winter months are lovely,” Patlovich said. “There are a couple of key things that have kept me here this long. They are phenomenal professional opportunities and working alongside my colleagues, particularly Dr. Emery.”

Since starting at UTHealth Houston, Patlovich has seen incredible growth — total employee headcount, square footage of buildings, research expenditures, clinical services, and more. To keep pace, Environmental Health and Safety has had to grow as well.

“We’ve got a great team. We’ve got 34 very capable individuals within SHERM. I’m very proud of our team and all that we do,” Patlovich said. “We are trying to make sure we keep up with the pace of growth, because things have changed over the course of time. We’ve grown a lot, in particular within the clinical enterprise, and so we’ve had to expand our departments to serve that area of growth, all while keeping people healthy and safe in the research and teaching settings as well.”

Away from work

When away from campus, Patlovich is a busy husband and father of three children — a 13-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 11 and 9. Despite not having an initial primary interest in baseball, he’s found coaching his sons’ little league team for the past three years particularly rewarding.

“It has been a heck of an experience. I’m coming off a championship last year. This season we are currently right at .500, so we have some work to do,” Patlovich said. But the kids all know my requirements. Safety comes before anything on the field, and then development and fun are next in line. And hopefully we get some wins along the way as well.”

However, Patlovich isn’t all straight-laced.

“Since an early age, I’ve been a huge fan of heavy metal, hard rock. To this day, I’m still as into it,” he said. “As a surprise, I’m bringing my boys to their very first concert. What better way to start than with Metallica! I’m super excited.”