Sarah Gomez Erlach devoted her life to improving public health services for migrant farm workers in California. She drafted the proposal that set up 75 federal rural health clinics and additional state clinics. She was inducted in the SBVC Hall of Fame in 1995.

Sarah Gomez Erlach's distinguished career in nursing and public health led to her developing and implementing public health services for migrant farm workers in California. She was born and raised in San Bernardino, the fourth of nine children in a Mexican-American family. Gomez Erlach graduated from San Bernardino High School and earned her R.N. and Associates degree at SBVC in 1945. She joined the Army that year, serving in military nursing in the U.S. Army and Army reserves for 34 years. After her initial tour of duty, she was accepted into the University of California, Berkeley's School of Nursing with a double major in education and public health. She was the School of Nursing's first Hispanic student. Gomez Erlach received her Bachelors of Science from UC Berkeley in 1949 and went to work at the Alameda County Health Department. After her husband, Gregory Erlach, was killed in the Korean War, she returned to the Alameda County Health Department and devoted her life to improving health care delivery to the rural poor. Erlach drafted the proposal that set up 75 federal rural health clinics, which led to the creation of additional state clinics. She also graduated with a Masters of Public Health at the University of Minnesota in 1962. Gomez Erlach retired as a colonel from the California Army Reserves in 1982 and from the California Department of Health Services in 1988 as chief of the Department's Primary Health Services Unit. She has received many honors including the University of California, San Francisco's highest honor, the UCSF Medal -  the School of Nursing's equivalent to an honorary doctorate. Gomez Erlach received the medal in 1995. She was inducted into the SBVC Hall of Fame that same year.