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State Health Assessment Steering Committee

Steering Committee Meetings

Meeting Notice

April 10, 2024:                Materials | Recording | Minutes

April 9, 2024:                  Materials | Recording | Minutes 

April 4, 2024:                  Agenda | Materials | Recording | Minutes

Steering Committee Roster

Steering Committee Bios

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​Liberty Avila has served as Executive Director at Northeast Oregon Network (NEON) since 2020, managing the strategic direction of NEON, including staff, partnerships, and finances. In her initial role with NEON, Liberty managed the Pathways Hub program, working with Community Health Workers across Northeast Oregon and several federal grant programs. Prior to returning to Oregon, she worked in community development in Youngstown, Ohio for 7 years, managing vacant land reuse and food and nutrition programming, including partnerships with the local health system. In this role she saw the deep impacts stress, discrimination, environmental contamination, and long-term disinvestment can have on a community, including health disparities. This led to her focus on Social Determinants of Health and health inequities in her work.  

An Oregon native, Liberty went to high school in La Grande and completed her undergraduate studies at Eastern Oregon University with a focus on Sociology and Environmental Studies. Liberty holds a Masters in Sustainable Systems from Slippery Rock University, where her studies focused on Community Planning. Liberty moved back to La Grande in 2017 to be closer to family and join the NEON team. Outside of NEON, Liberty serves on the city planning commission and enjoys the outdoors with her family. ​​​

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Mica Contreras serves as Executive Director of the Linn Benton Lincoln Health Equity Alliance. In this role, she draws from extensive experience in healthcare and community organizing to bring diverse community partners together to promote health equity. Coming from a multicultural and multilingual immigrant family with roots in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Mica has long been passionate about promoting racial justice, equity, and inclusion. As Executive Director, she works to ensure that the Alliance's programs and initiatives actively work to dismantle systemic barriers and improve health outcomes for all community members. Mica brings a deep commitment to community empowerment and collaborative change, centered around the needs and lived experiences of those most impacted.​​


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Sokho Eath, J.D., brings extensive professional and lived experience to his work at IRCO engaging diverse immigrant and refugee communities. Mr. Eath works to address equity disparities and access barriers in services and systems by engaging immigrants and refugees in advocacy and leadership training through IRCO’s Pacific Islander and Asian Family Center and in his direct community outreach with key stakeholders, including coordinating policy and legislation advocacy at IRCO.
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Taw Foltz obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from Oregon State University, majoring in Human Development and Family Science with an emphasis in Human Services. He received his AAOT in Education and his AAOT in General Studies from Central Oregon Community College.  

He is currently working as the Prevention Manager for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. He is a strong advocate for a drug and alcohol-free community. He continues to promote healthy life choices for the community through outreach and education geared towards youth and adults. He currently serves on the Joint Health Commission in Warm Springs. He currently serves on the Oregon Health Policy Board's (OHPB) Health Equity Committee (HEC). 

He has coached many different sports for several years in the local community and has been a part of various community coalitions that include Native Aspirations Coalition, Education Committee, and Let’s Talk Diversity. He is currently a member of the Joint Health Commission in Warm Springs.  

His professional interests focus on the well-being of the community, helping provide healthy alternative activities with the prevention team, and advocating for youth support in all aspects of health.  

When he is not focusing on work, Taw enjoys coaching multiple sports or participating in sports himself such as so.
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My name is Britney Garcia, and I am a Community Engagement Specialist on the Community Development Team (Field Team) at Greater Oregon Behavioral Health Inc. (GOBHI). 

I have been with GOBHI since January 2023 and I serve primarily Wheeler, Gilliam, and Sherman Counties, but I also support Grant, Baker, Wallowa, and Umatilla. 

Before GOBHI, I was a social worker with Umatilla Morrow Head Start for 4 years in Umatilla County. I am originally from the Seattle, WA area where I served as a Care Coordinator, working primarily with the homeless and low income families and individuals.​

In addition, I have my Bachelors in Community Health, my master’s in healthcare administration, and I am currently finishing my Doctorate in Healthcare Administration.

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Major Bob Lloyd has been with The Salvation Army for 32 years and has served up and down the west coast in a variety of position and has served in administrative capacities at several divisional headquarters as well as the western territory corporate office in California. 

Bob has been married to his Seattle Pacific University college sweetheart for 44 years and has grown children in Washington state, (all of whom work for Boeing), and he has 4 grandchildren.  In early 2025 Bob and his wife are expecting to retire to sunny Las Vegas which will be home base for hopefully a good 20 years of travel ​

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I am a community member with more than 17 years of lived experience navigating multiple systems on the local, state, and federal levels. My background is in public policy, public health, civil rights advocacy from the perspective of those most affected by unjust and discriminatory policies and statutes, and advocacy in the areas of civil commitment, mental health, as well as visible and invisible disabilities across the lifespan. I also have a master’s degree in forensic psychology.  My active engagement in various settings, as well as my professional and personal experiences bring forth unique insights to the complexities of inter-agency communication and collaboration from the perspective of an advocate, family member, community partner, and individual accessing services and programs.  

I am a Texas transplant, an Army Brat, a wife and mother of 2 who loves living in a rural-ish area.  

One of my favorite quotes is by Glenn E. Martin, American criminal justice reform advocate:   "People closest to the problem are closest to the solution...but furthest from power & resources.”  
This is the philosophy I center every time I show up in spaces where decisions are made for those of us who will most likely be impacted but also carry the least power to affect change. ​

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Ben Sanford (He/Him/His) is a member of the Sappony Tribe of North Carolina. He serves as the Commercial Tobacco Prevention Coordinator for The Native American Youth and Family Center as part of the Health Equity Team. Ben’s work creates access to traditional medicines for Urban Native communities throughout the Tricounty area. His background includes work in Domestic Violence, Employment Readiness training, Foster Care Support and Health Equity in the Urban Native Community.  ​

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Sadie was born and raised in Medford, Oregon. She has her Associates from Rogue Community College and her Bachelors of Science in Public Health with a focus in Community Health Promotion and Development from Portland State University. 

Before diving head first into the world of public health, Sadie worked in the medical field. She saw firsthand the individual health outcomes that came from factors like being underinsured, not having enough food to eat, access to safe and affordable housing, and gainful employment opportunities. She also saw how disjointed our American healthcare system is. It was much to difficult to get community members the care they needed in a timely, affordable, and culturally appropriate manner. It was this experience that lead Sadie to explore a career in the public health field. She wanted to work on upstream interventions, and focus on prevention, to ensure that people in her community had what they needed to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. While receiving her degree, Sadie worked with Shift Health Accelerator, mainly focusing on social determinants of health research and policy. From there, she supported the OHA’s School Based Health Center (SBHC) team as a temporary employee, researching best practices for youth physical and mental health care to help inform their revisions to SBHCs state standards. 

Sadie currently works for Jackson County Health and Human Services in their Public Health Division as the Health Equity Coordinator. She is also leading the Jackson and Josephine counties Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement plan, which will be completed by the end of this year. 


Annie Valtierra-Sanchez serves as the Director of SO Health-E, the Regional Health Equity Coalition (RHEC)in Southern Oregon. The coalition aims to center community voices through building cross-sector capacity for long-term policy and systemic change that prioritize populations historically and currently most impacted. Annie strongly believes in serving her community and strengthening leadership within impacted populations to be drivers in decision making and building communities that feel like home to all people who inhabit them.  
  
Annie holds a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Anthropology, and a Regional Studies Applied Research Certificate from Southern Oregon University. Her experience is a combination of her academic discipline, professional and personal work on equity, racial and social justice. Annie has served on the Oregon Health Authority’s Health Equity Committee, the State Health Improvement Plan Committee, and Oregon Housing and Community Services’(OHCS) Grant Disaster Recovery Advisory Committee. She is a member of the Governor’s Racial Justice Council, the ACLU of Oregon Board, and Board of Directors for the S.O. Education Service Distr​ict.
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Julia R. Brown, MA Gerontology, is a Community Outreach and Engagement Manager for AGE+, a 503c non-profit championing a new vision for inclusive and equitable aging for all Oregonians, especially isolated and underserved older adults in rural areas. She currently works statewide on initiatives such as emergency preparedness, digital literacy, and immunization outreach for older adults, as well as education around our shifting age demographics towards creating a blueprint for a multi-sector, comprehensive plan on aging for the state.

 

She has 30 years of professional experience in fields such as publishing, financial administration, and retail management. An early degree in creative writing, experience as a caregiver, and a passion for connection as a crucial antidote for illness drive her work today.  She is an enthusiastic proponent of approaching the aging process with tools that address biological, psychological, and sociological aspects for overall well-being.

 

Julia is a member of the American Society on Aging and the Oregon Gerontological Association.  She also volunteers for the Eastside Village, one of the ten Villages NW which are part of the nationwide Village Movement that supports older adults aging at home in their community.

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Kathryn Hart (she/her) is the Community Engagement Manager at Umpqua Health Alliance, where she strives to improve population health by collaborating with community partners to address the social determinants of health and promote health equity. With a career spanning social services, local public health, pandemic response, public health consulting, and coordinated care, Kathryn has cultivated a deep passion for advancing rural health initiatives, ultimately striving for a healthier, more equitable future for all Oregonians.

Kathryn completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington and holds a Master of Public Health in Health Systems and Policy from Oregon State University. Kathryn is an Oregon Health Authority (OHA) certified Community Health Worker. She also serves as a Commissioner on the Oregon Traditional Health Worker Commission and holds the position of Co-Chair of the Payment Models Subcommittee. She is a Corvallis, Oregon native and proud Beaver fan.​