[3][failed verification] In the 1980s and 1990s Reed traveled with her husband to East Africa to study and review rural public health projects.

On one trip to Uganda, she and a team from HealthPartners worked with local dairy farmers to develop a plan that allowed them to pool their resources and provide better access to health care.

[5] She served as the interim executive director of the Parks and Trails Council of Minnesota (an environmental non-profit organization which manages a revolving land trust of 10,000 acres (40 km2) across the state) from May 2008 to November 2008.

[6] Reed is a member of the Medical Reserve Corps and was deployed in the aftermaths of the 2005 Louisiana Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the 2007 Interstate 35-W bridge collapse.

She resigned from the Forum in 2014 and subsequently joined the teaching faculty of Gustavus Adolphus College and the University of Minnesota Undergraduate Honors Program.