In this interview about managing executive branch transitions in state government, Debra Farrington, Deputy Secretary for Health in the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, emphasized identifying priorities, engaging with legislators, and documenting relationships with community partners, so that important initiatives are understood as shared commitments. More

In this edited Q&A and video with Milbank’s Morgan McDonald, MD, Jeff Lunardi—then interim Medicaid director at Virginia’s Department of Medical Assistance Services (Cardinal Care)—shares practical lessons on prioritization, nonpartisan leadership, and agency stability during a gubernatorial handoff. More

Last month, Milbank National Director for Population Health Morgan McDonald, MD, and Morissa Henn, DrPH, Deputy Commissioner, New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, met to discuss how Henn has applied the principles of adaptive leadership to her work. More

In January, Minnesota launched its paid family and medical leave program, making it one of 13 states with a statewide paid leave program in place or in process. For this Q&A, Milbank’s National Director for Population Health, Morgan McDonald, MD, talked with the legislation’s sponsors, Former Rep. Ruth Richardson, an alumna of the Emerging Leaders Program, and Sen. Alice Mann, MD, an alumna of the Milbank Fellows Program, about their motivations and approach to passing the bill. Both interviewees highlighted how their ongoing communication with each other and with the members of a large and diverse coalition — as well as their use of both storytelling and data — led to this investment in Minnesota’s families and businesses. (Watch a video of the interview at right.) More

The first time Utah state Rep. Steve Eliason was asked what he was going to do about a rash of youth suicides in his suburban Salt Lake County neighborhood, he didn’t know what to say.  Some of the people asking were parents whose children had taken their lives. Others were friends and classmates of the […] More

Not many people enter state government after a successful decades-long run in the private sector. Even fewer end up serving in both the state Senate and the executive branch. That’s the path of former Milbank Fellow Ann Gillespie, now serving as the acting insurance commissioner of Illinois. She’s added a whole new dimension to the term […] More

In Kentucky, state Rep. Kimberly Moser, a neonatal intensive care and flight nurse turned policymaker, managed to get sweeping legislation passed on both those issues after just a few terms in the legislature. More

Dannette Smith was not a late bloomer.  With a trailblazing mom — not many Black women were assistant school superintendents in a midwestern steel town like East Chicago, Indiana in the 1960s — she grew up confident, with a role model at her side.   And watching the civil rights movement unfold from a young age, […] More

In this Q&A, Milbank Memorial Fund National Director of Population Health and Health Equity Morgan McDonald, MD, talks with Fred Baldwin, a Republican state senator from Wyoming and a 2022-23 Milbank Fellow, about his background and how it has influenced and inspired his public service. Mr. Baldwin, a physician assistant and volunteer firefighter, discusses how some […] More

In a conversation with Milbank Memorial Fund president Christopher Koller, Fatmata Williams, director of medical administration at the Connecticut Department of Social Services Division of Health Services, reflects on how her background influenced and inspired her public service. A 2021–2022 participant in Milbank’s Emerging Leader Program, Williams discusses her shock at the racism she experienced […] More