Veverka retiring as Delaware County Health Commissioner

Delaware Health Com­mis­sioner Frances M. Vev­erka, MPH, RS, a long­time fig­ure in state and national Pub­lic Health lead­er­ship, is retir­ing after mak­ing Delaware County health­ier for 31 years.

Ms. Vev­erka has been a vis­i­ble com­mu­nity leader as the head of the Delaware Gen­eral Health Dis­trict, serv­ing sev­eral com­mu­nity and local gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions. She intro­duced state-of-the-art envi­ron­men­tal health ser­vices and Pub­lic Health assess­ments to Delaware County. She helped bring need-based health edu­ca­tion, mater­nal and child health care, and per­sonal health ser­vices to Delaware, Mor­row and/or Union coun­ties. She also has advanced a num­ber of com­mu­nity projects and causes through the Delaware Rotary Club, United Way and other orga­ni­za­tions. She has served on numer­ous state and national Pub­lic Health pan­els dur­ing her award-winning 43-year career.

In sub­mit­ting her retire­ment notice, Ms. Vev­erka noted her appre­ci­a­tion to the Board of Health mem­bers for their sup­port. She cred­ited an excep­tional staff and team­work for the progress in pro­tect­ing and improv­ing local res­i­dents’ health.

“It has been reward­ing to serve as a Board of Health mem­ber for the past 11 years with Fran as the Health Com­mis­sioner, guid­ing the many accom­plish­ments the Dis­trict has achieved,” said Board of Health Vice Pres­i­dent Pat Blayney. “Dur­ing my tenure as a Genoa Town­ship trustee before join­ing the Board, we cer­tainly appre­ci­ated the pro­grams and out­reach to our town­ship that Fran ini­ti­ated. Fran has always strived to ensure the per­sonal growth of the staff, which has led to the many achieve­ments of the Health District.”

Ms. Veverka’s career was capped appro­pri­ately in each of the last three years with Delaware County’s pop­u­la­tion being iden­ti­fied as the health­i­est in Ohio (see www.countyhealthrankings.org). Before that, in 2006, the Amer­i­can Pub­lic Health Asso­ci­a­tion named Delaware County one of five U.S. Blue Rib­bon Com­mu­ni­ties “lead­ing the nation in efforts to build healthy envi­ron­ments for kids.”

Locally, Ms. Vev­erka has served the Delaware Rotary Club in sev­eral capac­i­ties, includ­ing Pres­i­dent. She was Delaware County United Way cam­paign chair in 1996 and has received two Spe­cial Recog­ni­tion Awards from UW. She was the founder and mem­ber of the Union Recy­clers Board. She served on the Delaware County Fam­ily Ser­vices Regional Coun­cil of Gov­ern­ments, the Delaware-Knox-Marion-Morrow Solid Waste Dis­trict Pol­icy Com­mit­tee and the Coun­cil for Union County Fam­i­lies. She was a found­ing board mem­ber for the Delaware Gen­eral Health District’s Friends for Life Fund.

Ms. Vev­erka was hired as com­mis­sioner by the Delaware Board of Health in July 1981, and simul­ta­ne­ously served as part-time Mor­row and Union County Health Com­mis­sioner until 1996.

Dur­ing her pub­lic health career, Ms. Vev­erka has served as Pres­i­dent of the Ohio Pub­lic Health Asso­ci­a­tion, the Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion and the Con­fer­ence of Local Envi­ron­men­tal Health Admin­is­tra­tors. She also was elected Exec­u­tive Board Chair­per­son of the Amer­i­can Pub­lic Health Asso­ci­a­tion. She has long advo­cated for sound pub­lic health pol­icy at the local, state and national lev­els, and has been active in the National Asso­ci­a­tion of City and County Health Offi­cials and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Ohio Health Commissioners.

She has received numer­ous pub­lic health awards includ­ing Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice awards from the above pub­lic health asso­ci­a­tions. In addi­tion she received alumni recog­ni­tion awards from Bowl­ing Green State Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan School of Pub­lic Health.

Ms. Vev­erka also received guber­na­to­r­ial appoint­ments to state envi­ron­men­tal advi­sory boards by dif­fer­ent administrations.

The Delaware Board of Health is inter­view­ing qual­i­fied appli­cants to fill the posi­tion of Health Com­mis­sioner. Ms. Vev­erka will retire after the Board of Health selects her replacement.

Posted by Gary Henery on Oct 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.