money Oakland County names Calandra Green its first Black female health officer
Calandra Green, a registered nurse who has risen through the ranks at the Oakland County Health Division, was named its new leader on Tuesday.
She is the first woman of color to hold the health officer position, and will manage public health in Michigan's second-most populous county.
“Calandra shares our vision for having public health rooted in the community,” said Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter in a statement. “As we transition to a new phase of the pandemic, her knowledge, skills, and commitment are what we need to move public health forward to achieve our strategic goal of having healthy residents.”
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Green, who has worked for the health division since 2019, was heavily involved in the county's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2020, she became the health division's quality and process improvement supervisor and served as the COVID-19 school nurse liaison. Green hired, trained and deployed 68 nurses to 28 public school districts and 125 private or charter schools. She also played a pivotal role in launching COVID-19 testing at churches in Oakland County.
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In May 2021, she was named public health administrator. Green organized and developed mental health response both in Oxford and countywide in the aftermath of the Oxford High School shooting.
She worked for McLaren Health Care in Pontiac from 2007-18, where she was vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer. Prior to that, she worked for North Oakland Medical Centers in Pontiac as manager of obstetrics and the neonatal intensive care unit.
Green replaces Leigh-Anne Stafford, who is now director of Oakland County Health and Human Services.
Contact Kristen Jordan Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oakland County names Calandra Green first Black female health officer
