Memoir: Tauno Luukkanen 1933–2020

Executive Director, Master of Social Sciences Tauno Antero Luukkanen died in Helsinki on December 22, 2020. He was 87 years old, born in Jyväskylä on February 20, 1933.

Luukkanen graduated with a master’s degree in social sciences from the University of Tampere while studying in 1979. He was the executive director of the Etra Association (Lifestyles for Sober) in 1967–1992.

Luke’s during the Etra alliance, it became a respected public health actor with a particular focus on smoking prevention and cessation. The union was the first to launch a weaning course activity (Quit Tobacco in Five Days).

Luukkanen also wrote dozens of newspaper articles on the health effects of smoking and the importance of exercise and nutrition.

With a hatch had the ability to get their co-workers excited and do their best to implement their ideas. He was also a performer who knew how to take his audience.

He was a pioneer in smoking prevention work at a time when the risk factors for smoking were not yet widely recognized and smoking was very widespread among young people as well.

Luukkanen worked as a consultant for the WHO’s chronic disease prevention program Inter-Health with Professor Leo Hirvonen, Chairman of the Board of the Etra Federation, in Tanzania from 1985 to 1992 and lectured on Tanzania’s experiences at the request of the Chinese health authorities in 1993 in Tiensin.

Luukkanen enjoyed appreciation among various actors in public health work and officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

Luukkanen was also a TV job professional. He made several TV documentaries, including a documentary Tobacco in Tanzania Assisted by Yle TV2. The film crew was the first to shoot at the Tanzanian tobacco factory in Morogoro.

Another well-known documentary is When AIV was invented. It tells the story of Professor Henning Karström’s pioneering work as a working couple of Nobel Laureate AI Virtanen.

Luukkanen also worked as an assistant correspondent for BTI for some years and conducted TV interviews. Among other things, he broadcast live on MTV3 news from the Beirut war zone and Helmut Kohl’s press conference in the 1980s.

It should be mentioned as an anecdote that Luukkanen had time to work as a journalist for Helsingin Sanomat in 1958. On behalf of Minister Eljas Erko, he wrote a series of articles on the discriminatory treatment of the Skolt Sámi in Sevettijärvi in ​​a local shop.

In his spare time Tauno served as a tour guide for company trips in the Middle East, Turkey, Greece and Spain. From the travels, he is remembered as an inspiring guide and storyteller.

For the last two years of his life, Tauno was in a nursing home. There, last fall, he watched the thrilling play of the U.S. presidential election on television.

Tauno was also a considerate and supportive spouse, father, grandfather, and grandfather. The marriage with Anja-Kaarina lasted 64 years. The joy of his retirement days were a daughter and two sons, nine grandchildren and a first grandchild.

Marko Luukkanen

The author is the son of Tauno Luukkanen.



source https://pledgetimes.com/memoir-tauno-luukkanen-1933-2020/