Sometimes Guilford County department directors are run out of town on a rail by the county manager or the Board of Commissioners, but it’s clear that was in no way the case with former Guilford County Health Director Dr. Iulia Vann, MD, whom the Guilford County Board of Commissioners will, on Thursday, July 18, honor after several years of service at a time when public health was as hard as ever – during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The respect is evident because the Board of Commissioners is taking the rare step of passing a resolution honoring a director who was not in that position for an extremely long time before moving on.

When Vann was first made Interim Health director – and eventually health director – she got something of a baptism by fire: She began as interim health director on the first day of March 2020 – about a week before the pandemic hit North Carolina and Guilford County full force.

Five years ago, Vann, who has now left to take a high-profile job in Pennsylvania, replaced long-time former Guilford County Health Director Merle Green, who was a highly respected director of that department for a decade and a half before Vann’s arrival.  So, Vann had some pretty big shoes to fill at a very trying time for public health officials.

She has now moved on to much greener pastures – she will be the health director for Allegheny County Pennsylvania, the home of Pittsburgh.

She’ll also be pulling down over a quarter of a million dollars in her new job.  Her salary will be $275,000 plus benefits.

The Allegheny County Board of Health voted unanimously to hire Vann, and that county’s gain is Guilford County’s loss.

Vann, a Romanian native, told media outlets in Pittsburgh that she looks forward to bringing her experience to Allegheny County and helping make that northern community a healthy, safe and thriving one.

“I’m no stranger to complex and multi-faceted public health challenges, and I’m so proud of what we accomplished in Guilford County during my tenure,” Vann said.

Allegheny County has 1.2 million residents – more than twice that of Guilford County.

The Allegheny County Health Department does many of the same things that the Guilford County Division of Public Health does – only at a much larger scale.

One issue that’s a lot bigger concern around Pittsburgh than around Greensboro and High Point is air quality.  She will have a more engaged role in that battle than she did in Guilford County where air quality issues aren’t major concerns.

Her appointment came after a national search that started at the beginning of 2024.

Before taking the job with Guilford County in early 2019, Vann worked for the Orange County Department of Public Health, where she helped form partnerships that that department established with the UNC School of Medicine, School of Pharmacy, and School of Public Health.

As the assistant public health director in Guilford County before becoming director, she was given a great deal of responsibility and she was often the main presenter on health issues to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.

In 2020, Vann was the first Guilford County health director in 15 years who held a medical degree. Her writings have been published in scientific journals like the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Vann, who’s fluent in Romanian and Spanish, received her medical degree from the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania and she earned her Master’s in Public Health Analysis and Management from East Carolina University.

When Vann was hired by Guilford County to be the assistant health director, Green said of Vann, “Her clinical and case-management proficiencies will be key to optimizing the health status of public health patients and the Guilford community in general.”

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