Annette Özaltin

Annette Habegger Martin Özaltin, 44, died suddenly Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, in a car crash on the Washington Beltway in Fairfax County, Virginia. A day earlier, she arrived in the D.C. area from Kingston, Jamaica, the country where her husband was recently assigned to work, to attend the 25th anniversary celebration of the graduation of her McLean High School class.
She was born April 4, 1979, to Luann Habegger Martin and Raymond Martin in Decatur, and at the age of three weeks traveled to Ghana where her father was posted in the foreign service of the U.S. Agency for International Development. She became a true global citizen, having lived in nine countries, Ghana, Cameroon, the United States, Pakistan, Zaire (now D.R. Congo), Cambodia, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique and lastly Jamaica.
In high school, she was a class valedictorian and senior class prom queen. She graduated from the University of Virginia with high distinction earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology and English. From the Harvard University School of Public Health, she earned a Master of Science degree in health care management, study design and analysis.
Harvard is where she met Emre Özaltin, who was working on a doctorate in health economics. They were married on the Turkish island of Bozcaada on June 22, 2013.
She began her career service as a management consultant for Deloitte, became a program director for Results for Development Academy for Educational Development and as a contractor for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She earned distinction in the field of health finance, helping poor countries structure their budgets for sustainable implementation of lifesaving vaccination programs against childhood diseases. Her pioneering work on a primary health care performance measurement framework is used by the World Bank, the World Health Organization and various countries around the world.
She was a skilled people and project manager, strategic and analytical thinker on complex global health programs, technical writer and effective facilitator and communicator. She made work fun for those around her and was looked up to as a mentor, particularly by young women.
In her family and social life, she was a vivacious, loving, dedicated and responsible and was a fun mother and wife, a devoted daughter and sister and a faithful and dedicated friend loved by all who knew her.
She was preceded in death by her mother, Luann in 2015.
She is survived by her husband, Emre; sons, Troy, age 8; and Phoenix, age 5; father, Raymond Martin of Springfield, Virginia; brother Gregory (Joanna) of Lancaster, Pennsylvania; aunt Terri Habegger Coolman of Fort Wayne; uncle Scott (Karen) Habegger of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin; four Habegger cousins and numerous relatives on the Martin side.
A legacy of love ceremony for her was held Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023, in D.C.