Get to Know the Finalists for Chelan-Douglas Health Administrator

The Chelan-Douglas Health District (CDHD) will soon be appointing a new chief administrator.

The commanding heights of the CDHD have been vacant since the wintertime, when chief administrator Luke Davies resigned after three years. Davies' tenure was bumpy indeed, coinciding with a genuinely epochal health crisis (COVID-19).

But the prospect of crippling exhaustion hasn't deterred people from jockeying for Davies' old position. The once-teeming applicant pool has been winnowed down to two: Kristen Hosey and James Rivard. Both are dutiful and seemingly qualified public servants. (There was a third finalist, but they have since withdrawn from consideration.)

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Hosey and Rivard gave competing presentations on Friday, speaking at what amounted to a public forum in the Hilton Garden Inn banquet room in Wenatchee. Afterward they consented to one-on-one interviews.

Hosey has been interim administrator since Davies left. Prior to that she was deputy administrator for seven months.

"I'm a public health nurse by training," Hosey says. "I've been in public health for about 15 or so years; I started off in nursing, then went and did the Peace Corps."

The Peace Corps assigned her to Malawi, a troubled landlocked nation in sub-Saharan Africa. Hosey came into contact with many victims of the unfurling AIDS crisis. This piqued her interest in public health.

Rivard teaches at Yakima Valley College. Like Hosey, he has a heart for service, not to mention a wealth of direct experience.

"I previously worked for Kittitas County Public Health for a number of years - as inspector, director, administrator," Rivard says. "I'm well-versed in what it takes to work in a public health department."

"And the challenges, too. On any given day, you walk in and have no idea what you're going to do that day. You might have plans and then all of a sudden there's a measles outbreak or a sewer line that breaks."