Physical Activity
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Nutrition Branch

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Mary Bea Kolbe, MPH, RD

Interim Healthy Communities Unit Manager
Physical Activity and Nutrition Branch
N.C. Division of Public Health

Mary Bea Kolbe is serving as the Interim Healthy Communities Unit Manager. In this position she coordinates the administration of the program funding and the provision of technical assistance to local health departments for implementing policy and environmental changes supporting healthy eating, physical activity and tobacco use cessation. She is also the Eat Smart, Move More NC Community Grants liaison for the PAN Branch, coordinating the grant process.

Prior to joining the PAN Branch, Mary Bea worked with the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at NC State University as the training coordinator for the Expanded Foods and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP), Out For Lunch, and In-Home Breastfeeding programs. Mary Bea also has local experience, working in Vance County as a WIC nutritionist, in Wayne County as the Nutrition Program Supervisor and as a Family and Consumer Sciences Agent in Franklin County working for the Cooperative Extension Service.

Mary Bea completed her Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from Meredith College in Raleigh and her Master of Public Health with a nutrition concentration from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Mary Bea is committed to healthy eating and being fit. Having a vegetable garden has helped make healthy eating easy and staying fit is especially important as she tries to keep up with her grandsons! Each summer she volunteers to be the Camp Dietitian for Camp Needles in the Pines, a week-long summer camp for children with diabetes. She resides in Raleigh, her birthplace, with her husband, Kent. Together they work on being fit with the help of their Labrador Retriever, Max who insists they walk at least a mile every night, rain or shine, sleet or snow!