Joan Zakrocki, grew up on the East Coast and is an Army veteran of the Cold War. She served in the Military Police and company NBC-NCO. After the Army, Joan lived Alaska, working in the Arctic oilfields in emergency services for eleven years. She then worked as a licensed realtor in California, but moved over to the mortgage industry, to work behind the scenes helping people. After she moved back to the Northwest, she worked as a government contractor for a national training program putting low income seniors back to work. She returned to college to finish her degree at Oregon State University, graduating in 2003 with a Bachelors of Science in Public Health Education- concentrations in chronic disease prevention, patient advocacy, and health care delivery systems. She then worked with behaviorally challenged children and adolescents in a residential mental health facility, while working as a state contractor facilitating family reunification meetings. She now helps her community, and friends with issues affecting quality of life, health and well being. She is one of hundreds of thousands of Ft McClellan veterans and families who never knew their health was at risk. She found out about the toxic exposure in May 2013, and has been researching, sharing and advocating for justice since then.