Decades ago, in her native Taiwan, Yao Palmer dreamed of becoming a graphic designer.

Today, in Grant County, she’s deep into a counseling career devoted to improving the lives of others.

Palmer, a nineteenth-generation Taiwanese, was born and spent her childhood in the island nation’s rural Chishang Township.

“I started learning English when I was in junior high,” she recalls.

After graduating from high school, Palmer enrolled at Sheng-te Christian College in Taoyuan City — and, while there, set her sights on further study at a New York art institute. By the time she’d earned her bachelor’s degree in 1999, however, her career goals had changed.

“I’d grown up Buddhist, but became a Christian in college,” she explains, after which “I felt a calling to study counseling.”

So in 2000, Palmer came to the United States and enrolled at the University of Idaho in Moscow — where, four years later, she graduated with a master of education degree in counseling and human services.

Soon thereafter, Palmer was hired by the Oregon Department of Human Services as a vocational rehabilitation counselor, serving clients in Malheur and Harney counties.

“I worked primarily with people whose physical and mental disabilities were barriers to their employment,” she explains. “We evaluated them to assess their job interests and strengths, and developed plans as to how they could achieve their employment goals.”

Between 2005 and 2012, Palmer worked at Harney Behavioral Health (now Symmetry Care) in Burns.

“I worked as a mental health counselor,” she says, “doing crisis work, covering all kinds of mental health diagnoses. I worked with kids with developmental disabilities, with adults, with seniors.”

In January 2013, Palmer accepted a position at Community Counseling Solutions in John Day.

“I started as a clinician,” she says, and “provided therapy to people with mental health issues.”

Promoted, subsequently, to clinical supervisor, Palmer now oversees the work of six mental health clinicians.

In 2014, she married longtime John Day resident Sam Palmer, whom she’d met a decade before in Burns, where he was working as an emergency room nurse. Last year, she frequently accompanied Sam, then a candidate for Oregon’s Republican U.S. Senate nomination, on campaign swings around the state.

“Oregon is very beautiful,” she says, “and the campaign gave me a great opportunity to see it and meet interesting people. I really enjoyed it.”

In 2017, after months of study, Palmer became a U.S. citizen at a naturalization ceremony in Portland.

“It was the most exciting day of my life,” she says. “I will always be grateful to have been given the chance to earn a stake in this great country.”

To see her parents and two brothers, Palmer says, “I try to visit Taiwan every other year.”

In her free time Palmer enjoys camping, hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, babysitting grandchildren and volunteering at her church, Mt. Vernon’s Living Word Christian Center.

NAME: Yao Palmer

RESIDENCE: John Day

AGE: 46

OCCUPATION: Clinical supervisor, Community Counseling Solutions

NOTABLE: Volunteer for Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a charity that builds bunk beds for children in need