Department of Health and Human Services

Bio, via Department of Health and Human Services:

President Trump appointed Mary Lazare to serve as ACL’s Principal Deputy Administrator on June 19, 2017. As principal deputy, she also serves as the Acting ACL Administrator and Acting Assistant Secretary for Aging. Mary comes to ACL from St. Louis, Missouri, where she most recently served as Vice President for Home- and Community-Based Services for Lutheran Senior Services. With master’s degrees in both management and gerontology and an extensive career in long-term care and community health operations, she combines hands-on program-level knowledge with strategic planning and organizational development expertise, and has led organizations in delivering quality services and advocating for the people they serve while adhering to sound stewardship principles.

Bio, via Department of Health and Human Services:

Prior to his appointment, Lekan worked as a Business Development Manager for Informatix Inc., an information technology and business solutions company. He previously served as the Assistant Director for Arizona’s Department of Economic Security, Division of Aging & Adult Services. As the Assistant Director, Lekan oversaw a number of programs, including Adult Protective Services, Aging and Disability Services, Community Action Programs and Services, Refugee Resettlement, Domestic Violence and Homelessness Programs, and Finance and Business Operations. Lekan originally joined the Department of Economic Security as the Operations Administrator for the Division of Child Support Services. In his early career, Lekan served as a senior law enforcement official. During this time, he successfully managed several law enforcement functions. These included overseeing the daily operations and administrative tasks of a police precinct; handling employment, accreditation, and training functions; managing labor and contracts negotiations; and handling public information tasks. Lekan holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice from Northern Arizona University, and an M.B.A. from California Pacific University.

Bio, via America's Health Insurance Plans:

Director, Division of Medicaid and Long-Term Care, Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. In March 2015, Governor Pete Ricketts appointed Calder Lynch to serve as Nebraska’s Medicaid director. Prior to coming to Nebraska, Calder served in several senior leadership roles within Louisiana’s health agency, including time as the department’s Chief of Staff and Policy Director. There he participated in the formation and implementation of key reform efforts like Louisiana’s Medicaid managed care initiative, Bayou Health. A Louisiana native, Calder earned his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Louisiana State University and his Masters in Health Administration from the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB).

Bio, via CMS Leadership:

Paul serves as the Chief Principal Deputy Administrator and Chief of Staff of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that has almost 6,000 employees and provides health insurance to over 100 million Americans every year. Paul comes to CMS after a long and successful career at McKinsey & Company as a Senior Partner and also as the head of McKinsey’s U.S. Center for Health Reform. He is a veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division and a graduate of U.S. Army Ranger School; the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he was a Distinguished Cadet; and of Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He has been active in community and civic causes, and as a board member of HM3 Partner Independence Fund, a foundation helping veterans, first responders and youth. Paul brings more than thirty years of experience in the healthcare industry that will prove invaluable in his role supporting Administrator Verma in the fulfillment of the agency’s mission. .

Bio, via Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:

Elinore McCance-Katz, M.D., Ph.D. is the first Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use. She obtained her Ph.D. from Yale University with a specialty in Infectious Disease Epidemiology and is a graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She is board certified in General Psychiatry and in Addiction Psychiatry. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry with more than 25 years as a clinician, teacher, and clinical researcher. Most recently she served as the Chief Medical Officer for the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals and as the Chief Medical Officer for the Eleanor Slater Hospital system which is Rhode Island’s state resource for patients with the most serious mental illnesses and medical illnesses requiring long term, inpatient care. She was also Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. Previously, she served as the first Chief Medical Officer for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Prior to coming to SAMHSA, she served at the University of California, San Francisco as a Professor of Psychiatry, as the Medical Director for the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, and as the Medical Director of SAMHSA’s Clinical Support Systems for Buprenorphine (PCSS-B) and Opioids (PCSS-O). Dr. McCance-Katz has published extensively in the areas of clinical pharmacology, medications development for substance use disorders, drug-drug interactions, addiction psychiatry, and treatment of HIV infection in drug users. She served on the World Health Organization (WHO) committee that developed guidelines on the treatment of drug users living with HIV/AIDS. She has been a national leader in addressing the overprescribing of opioid analgesics and in providing consultation on management of patients with chronic pain and opioid overuse. She was a participant in the development of SAMHSA TIP 40 which provided the initial guidance to physicians utilizing buprenorphine in the treatment of opioid use disorder, contributed to the development and maintenance of the legislatively required 8 hours of physician training for prescribing buprenorphine products and has continued to be actively involved in the development and delivery of physician training on office-based treatment of opioid use disorders. She has been one of the architects of Rhode Island’s plan for addressing the opioid epidemic including new approaches to treatment in the form of a statewide system of Centers of Excellence in the treatment of opioid use disorder, new approaches to training in the utilization of DATA 2000 (Drug Abuse Treatment Act of 2000) to bring DATA waiver training to medical students, and going forward, nurse practitioner and physician assistant students, and legislative/regulatory work addressing safe use of opioids in acute pain. Dr. McCance-Katz lives in Cranston, Rhode Island with her husband. She has three grown children and one grandchild.