A little over a decade ago, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners decided to combine the Guilford County Health Department with the Guilford County Social Services Department to create one giant Guilford County Health and Human Services Department.
The county then hired a highly educated Harvard graduate with a lot of impressive degrees to fill the newly created director’s position in the summer of 2014 at a salary of $160,000 a year, which, at the time, was pretty good money.
The unwritten rule is that, when you take a job like that, you’re expected to keep it for at least two years before moving on. However, Guilford County’s first Health and Human Services director violated that unwritten rule by leaving almost exactly one year to the day after he was hired.
He had spent much of that year coming up with PowerPoint presentations and other plans for unifying the two departments. However, there was little true unification before he left for greener pastures – as in pastures where the pay was better.
What happened next was interesting.
The Republican-led Board of Commissioners realized that Guilford County had gone hundreds of years without having a Health and Human Services director. The Health Department had a director and Social Services had a director as well, and the commissioners concluded that having another director over those two was largely redundant.
After the first director moved on, the board simply left the position vacant for five years, saving the county about $1 million over that period once employee benefits and other costs were factored in.
Any duties that required coordination between the two departments – which were now called “divisions” rather than departments – were handled through the County Manager’s Office, and that arrangement seemed to work fine.
That was back when the county operated with a much leaner group of administrators at the top. Since then, county government has added more upper-level management – which is just one of the many reasons the county budget keeps growing like kudzu.
In October 2020, the commissioners finally decided to fill the Health and Human Services director’s position again. They did so with someone who was already with Guilford County.
After conducting a national search that attracted more than 90 applicants, Guilford County selected then-Social Services Director Heather Skeens to oversee the largest department in Guilford County government.
Skeens had been hired in 2014 as the Social Services Director and,, by all accounts, did an outstanding job turning that division around.
She took over Social Services after a major scandal involving a former Social Services director, who, in 2013, allowed a massive backlog of food and nutrition benefit applications to develop and then attempted to cover up the problem. The situation was so serious that it placed food and nutrition benefits for the entire state of North Carolina in jeopardy.
Skeens was selected to straighten out the troubled division, which she did before broadening her role to Health and Human Services director.
The structure and leadership of the county’s Health and Human Services operation have changed again over the years since then: Natalie Craver now serves as an assistant county manager as well as the county’s Health and Human Services director. Craver oversees the consolidated agency – which includes the Public Health and Social Services divisions along with several other county operations.
And now Craver has a new deputy director helping her oversee that giant agency.
Guilford County announced on Tuesday, July 21, that it had appointed Quintana Stewart as the new Health and Human Services Agency deputy director.
In her new role, Stewart will help lead more than 1,100 Health and Human Services employees and will manage operations involving a $140 million budget for the duel department.
According to information from the county, Stewart’s duties will include supervising departmental budgets, integrating general agency operations, ensuring compliance with federal and state requirements and managing special Health and Human Services initiatives.
Her first day on the job was Monday, July 27.
Stewart is a Greensboro native with 23 plus years of experience in local government.
For the past nine years, she’s served as the Orange County health director. In that capacity, she managed health programs and facilities that included two health clinics, a dental clinic, a mobile dental clinic, environmental health services and a number of preventive health and health-promotion programs.
She also directed data-driven, community-wide health planning efforts in Orange County.
Before going to work for Orange County, Stewart spent about a decade and a half in a variety of public health positions in Forsyth County.
“We are fortunate to have attracted someone of Quintana’s qualifications to lead HHS’ operations and service integration activities as our Health and Human Services deputy director,” Craver said in the county’s announcement of the hire.
It’s noteworthy that it’s been well over a decade since the county joined the two department and there are still a lot of integration activities that need to be handled.
Craver said that Stewart’s extensive experience in public health, government and strategic leadership made her very well suited for the position.
“Quintana’s resume speaks for itself,” Craver said. “She has extensive experience in public health and strategic leadership and is an accomplished public servant, having served in Orange and Forsyth counties for more than 23 years. I’m looking forward to collaborating with Quintana to serve Guilford County residents and families.”
Stewart said that returning to the Triad was personally meaningful to her.
“The Triad has always held a special place in my heart, and I’m excited to return in a professional capacity,” she said. “I’m looking forward to supporting the Guilford County Health and Human Services team and serving Guilford County families, community partners and stakeholders.”
Stewart holds a bachelor’s degree in public health education with a concentration in community health education from UNC Greensboro.
She also holds a master’s degree in public administration with a concentration in healthcare administration from UNC Pembroke.
Stewart is a member of the North Carolina Association of Local Health Directors, the National Association of County and City Health Officials and the North Carolina Public Health Association.
