Ralph Forquera (pronounced Four-Care-Uh) is Executive Director for the Seattle Indian Health Board, one of the largest and most comprehensive urban Indian commmunity health centers in the nation. He is a member of the Juaneno (pronounced Juan-n-yo) Band of Mission Indians, Acjachmen (pronounced Uh-Hosh-Men) Nation, a state-recognized Indian tribe from the San Juan Capistrano region of Southern California.

Mr. Forquera holds a faculty appointment as a Clinical Assistant Professor with the School of Public Health, Department of Health Sciences at the University of Washington. He is President of the Community Health Council of Seattle/King County, and immediate past-chair of the American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian caucus of the American Public Health Association. He is the urban representative to the American Indian Health Commission for Washington State, and recently joined the Board of Directors for PRO-West, a private health quality review organization for the Northwest. He is active with the Washington Association of Community and Migrant Health Centers, the National Association of Community Health Centers, and other national health care advocacy groups for better health care for low-income/uninsured Americans.

Mr. Forquera has a Masters in Public Health (MPH) degree from California State University, Northridge and a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Health Science & Safety from San Diego State College.

Prior to moving to Seattle in 1990, Mr. Forquera was Executive Director for the San Diego American Indian Health Center in California. In 1985, he was appointed and later elected to the Board of Trustees for Palomar College, a large community college in the north-eastern section of San Diego County where he served as President of the Board in 1987. He lectured in the Department of American Indian Studies and in the School of Public Health at San Diego State University and California State University, San Marcos.

In 1994, Mr. Forquera was a co-author of the first and only population-based study on the health status of urban American Indians and Alaskan Natives which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. He co-authored an article entitled "A Political History of the Indian Health Service" which appeared in the December 1999 issue of The Milbank Quarterly.

In November of 2001, Mr. Forquera authored an Issue Brief on "Urban Indian Health" for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. He also authored a chapter on urban Indian health in a recent APHA publication, Promises to Keep Public Health Policy for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 21st Century.

In July of 2000, Mr. Forquera launched a new enterprise by creating the Urban Indian Health Institute as a division of the Seattle Indian Health Board. The Institute was created to provider leadership and support for national information on the health of urban Indians and the social factors, health policies, and systems of care that effect urban Indians and their health.

Mr. Forquera has spent much of his professional career working to improve the health and well-being of urban American Indians and Alaska Natives, an often misunderstood, overlooked, and gravely underserved population.