Mr. Turco has been a lecturer in the School of Public and Population Health at Boise State University since fall 2011. He served as an adjunct for 6 years prior to becoming a lecturer. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Idaho in Entomology and his Master of Science degree at the University of California, Berkeley also in Entomology with an emphasis on Medical Entomology. He is a Registered Environmental Health Specialist with the National Environmental Health Association and also holds an Associate Safety Professional certification from the Board of Certified Safety Professionals. In 2005, he retired from the Central District Health Department in Boise, after 34 years of service, where he had served as the Director of Environmental Health for the last 25 years.
Mr. Turco views his position as an opportunity to invest in the public health workers of the future by sharing his field experiences with them. His philosophy for education is to provide the students with “tools” for their professional lives and to expose them as much as possible to experiences that are in the field as opposed to purely an academic presentation. One of his interests is exploring alternative ways to provide learning opportunities for all students through the use of online, hybrid, and face-to-face options. Most recently he has been utilizing online educational resources to develop textbooks for the classes that he teaches.