Dr. Charles Gillam
West 1978
In a career that has combined military service and medicine, Dr. Bob Gillam has used his knowledge and skills as a dentist to help people in remote areas of the world. Now a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve Dental Corps, he has spent over 20 years in active and Reserve military service.
After completing his first year in college, Gillam was awarded a scholarship in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. After graduation, he was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army. He served as a chemical officer for five years before leaving active duty to attend flight school as a Reserve officer and to pursue dental school.
In 1991, while still in dental school, his Reserve unit—the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment at Scott Air Force Base—was activated and he was sent to Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia to participate in Desert Storm/Desert Shield. At that time, he was a captain, a Blackhawk helicopter pilot and commander of the Headquarters Company. He was awarded the Bronze Star for Meritorious Achievement during Desert Storm/Desert Shield for service rendered December 1990-June 1991. In 1991, he was selected as the 102d ARCOM Aviator of the Year. During 1992-1993, he was the aide de camp for the Commanding General of the 102d Army Reserve Command in St. Louis, Mo.
From 1996-2001, Gillam worked for the Public Health Service/Indian Health Service in the Dental Corps, serving American Indians and Alaskan Natives. He lived and worked on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota until 1998, when he became the director of the dental clinic at Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital in Barrow. From 2001-2004, he was a contract general dentist at the South East Alaska Regional Health Clinic in Juneau, providing dental care to isolated villages, such as Wainwright, Point Hope and Kaktovik (ANWAR). He was twice presented the Isolated Hardship Award by the Public Health Service/Indian Health Service.
In 2005, Gillam was recalled to active duty at Camp Atterbury, Ind., where he provided dental services to soldiers traveling to and from Iraq and Afghanistan during Operation Noble Eagle. He also spent two weeks in Bulgan, Mongolia, with a medical team to provide health care to people in isolated villages.
Gillam graduated with a B.A. in biology at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., in 1982. He received his doctorate in 1995 at Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine. For his scholarship and service to public health, he was presented with the Award of Excellence from the American Student Dental Association, the American Association of Public Health Dentistry Community Dentistry Award, and the Dental Public Health Award.
Gillam moved to Florida in 2005, where he practices dentistry in Jacksonville. He and his wife, Patricia, live there with their daughters—Mallory, Shelby and Charlie Mae.