HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- He's a mild-mannered man, small, soft-spoken and serene. Behind the quiet demeanor beats the heart of fierce warrior in the battle for better health in rural Appalachia and underserved areas abroad.

That's Richard Crespo, a professor in the Department of Family and Community Health at Marshall University's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, a nationally recognized force in community health.

Inspired years ago by the high infant death rate he encountered in the mountains of Ecuador, he preaches a grassroots approach to better health built on disease prevention and instilling good health habits in childhood.

His arsenal includes rural and school-based health centers, diabetes coalitions, student dental screenings, peer-to-peer prenatal care and creative touch-screen projects to combat childhood obesity.

A self-help guru, he believes fervently in a simple premise: Healthy people take care of themselves.

He's 62.

"My parents were missionaries. My father is from Puerto Rico, and my mother is from the United States. I grew up nine years in Colombia, South America; four years in the States and four years in Puerto Rico.

"I was 6 when we came to the States the first time. When I was 10, it was back to Colombia for junior high. My parents left the mission field about the time I was in high school, so I went to high school in Puerto Rico.

"I wanted to be like my dad. Mission work was the predominant thing. Living internationally gave me a perspective about living elsewhere that I wouldn't have had if I had just grown up in the States.

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Health guru preaches personal responsibility