The Central District Health Department Board of Health is seeking a Health Director to lead our organization through continued innovation and growth. Central District Health Department serves the 80,000 residents of Hall, Hamilton, and Merrick Counties in Central Nebraska.
Rpeporting to the Board of Health, this executive position will manage the overall day-to-day operations and personnel of the Health Department to ensure achievement of the department's vision, mission, and program objectives. The Director promotes and supports population health in Hall, Merrick, and Hamilton Counties by providing senior management, leadership, and public health expertise.
This position promotes individual and population public health by providing the essential services of public health within a variety of settings, ensuring compliance with a broad range of current local health and environmental codes, regulations, and policies; participating in multi-faceted community health and environmental projects; and providing technical assistance and information to individuals, families and groups regarding public health and environmental issues. The Health Director provides mentoring, supervision, and technical assistance to all staff.
This is a unique opportunity to:
Lead a full-service local health department in existing and developing programs and services through assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation.
Champion public health program and service delivery through collaboration and communication at the local, regional, state, and national levels.
Collaborate with healthcare providers, local and state government, organizations, and private citizens on conducting the community health assessment and planning, implementing, and evaluating the community health improvement plan.
Provide guidance and build staff skill sets to adequately address community health needs.
Local Public Health Profile Central District Health Department (CDHD) is one of Nebraska’s nineteen decentralized local public health departments. It was created by Nebraska statute in 2001 and is governed by a 13-member Board of Health. The service area for CDHD includes both rural and urban communities covering three-counties and 1,577 square miles. CDHD’s budget for the 2025-26 Fiscal Year is just under $9 million. CDHD employs over fifty staff who take pride in quality delivery of a wide variety of effective, efficient programs and services.
Primary Job Responsibilities
Overarching Health Director responsibilities include but are not limited to:
Understanding of diversified funding (federal, state, Medicaid, fee-for-service, local taxes, philanthropy)
Innovation and Resource Development
Innovation in public health delivery
Identifying creative funding mechanisms
Securing state, federal, philanthropic, and private-sector funding
Building fee-for-service or billing systems
Organizational Strategy & Change Leadership
Creating a vision for organizational growth
Leading organizational restructuring/improvement
Guiding the department through accreditation or reaccreditation
Leading technology modernization
Governance & Board of Health Relations
Presenting reports to the Board
Advising the Board on emerging issues
Developing policy and governance recommendations
Guiding board education to support evidence-informed governance
Advocacy & Policy Leadership The Health Director will proactively engage in:
Local, state, and federal policy advocacy to advance public health priorities
Representing the department in legislative or regulatory processes
Speaking on behalf of the health department to elected officials and the public
Minimum Qualifications
Bachelor of Science in Nursing or other health related field required; Graduate degree in public health or healthcare field preferred.
Five (5) years of leading community initiatives and/or facilitating teams focused on public health issues.
Experience in Performance Management Public Health Accreditation, Quality Improvement, Strategic Planning, Community Health Improvement Planning, Communicable Disease follow up, Health Hazard Investigations and Foodborne/Waterborne outbreaks preferred.
National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS) 100, 200, 300, 400 and 700.a certification within six (6) months of employment.
CPR certification within four (4) months of employment.