County health officer to leave for state job

Health Officer Frances B. Phillips has accepted a state position, leaving behind the county job she held for the past 15 years.

Starting in December, Mrs. Phillips, 57, will be the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's deputy secretary of public health services. This new job will allow her to oversee statewide efforts in AIDS, family health and other initiatives. The job pays $143,270.

"My current job is the best job of my career and I'm anxious to go forward into a new challenge," Mrs. Phillips said. "This is a wonderful, wonderful county and wonderful health department. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here as long as I have."

Mrs. Phillips came to the Anne Arundel County Department of Health as a registered nurse in 1988. She led the county's first HIV-management effort, then ran a two-year study examining the county's health needs. In 1993, then county executive Robert R. Neall appointed her as the county health officer.

During her time as the head of the health department she has guided the county through two hurricanes, two national health scares and even served a stint as county fire chief. She established the department's office of minority health to address health disparities in various diseases and infant mortality rates.

County executive John R. Leopold said he was pleased with Mrs. Phillips' contributions, particularly her efforts to stop fly ash dumping.

"She's a versatile and well-respected professional and her record is well known throughout the state," Mr. Leopold said. "I'm sure that her institutional knowledge and dedication to help solve the problems in Anne Arundel County will serve the county well in her new role with state government."

In her new position, Mrs. Phillips will be one of four deputies working under DHMH Seretary John M. Colmers. Aside from dealing with the state's AIDS and family health efforts, Mrs. Phillips also will oversee the Office of Preparedness and Response and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The position has a budget of $474 million. She is scheduled to start Dec. 1.

The Rev. Sheryl Menendez has worked with Mrs. Phillips for the past seven years to organize programs through her nonprofit, Restoration Community Development. She said she was shocked and saddened to learn of Mrs. Phillips' departure. Because of the relationship with the health department, she said she has been able to enact several programs, including tobacco-cessation efforts.

"I am happy for her promotion, but what a loss for the county," said Rev. Menendez, who also is a pastor at Light of the World Family Ministries in Annapolis. "(She had) passion and drive. She really was about business and doing her job and seeing that things took place not only in certain communities, but minority communities, too. This blows me away."

Bishop Larry Lee Thomas, of Empowering Believers Church in Glen Burnie, also had a long working relationship with Mrs. Phillips.

"She did an outstanding job as health officer," Bishop Thomas said. "(With her successor), I hope the level of community will continue to be there."

During Mrs. Phillips' leadership, the department of health launched its REACH program, which provides health care to uninsured people and emphasized the importance of cancer screenings.

The department also had a role in national health scares. For three weeks in 2001, Mrs. Phillips and her staff helped test 4,000 mailroom employees who feared they'd been exposed to anthrax spores. Two years later, a Millersville family was quarantined under suspicion of severe acute respiratory syndrome - or SARS - after they went to China to adopt a baby. They later tested negative for the illness.

When fire Chief Roger C. Simonds Sr. was forced to resign in 2004, Mrs. Phillips was appointed interim fire chief. The few months she spent in that department gave her some ideas that she focused on when she returned to her job at the health department. She required all staff members receive CPR training and focused more on smoking, after it caused fatal fires in the county.

One task that she said she hopes to continue in her new position, is tackling health disparities among ethnic groups.

"That's a piece of unfinished business in the county and it's unfinished business in the state," Mrs. Phillips said. "The problems identified here in the county, I feel very proud of. ... I'm proud to say our office took the lead in establishing an office and recognizing that these disparities are real and are growing. That's a leading priority of mine statewide because we have the same (disparities) going on around the state."