Public Health director Van Do-Reynoso praised as she leaves Santa Barbara County for new job | Government and Politics

Santa Barbara County’s normally-criticized General public Well being Department director was heaped with praise from all sides when the Board of Supervisors introduced her with a resolution of commendation July 12.

Van Do-Reynoso is leaving her task as head of the Public Well being Section to come to be an government with CenCal Health, the Medi-Cal Managed Care Well being Program for minimal profits citizens of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

As head of the Community Wellness Office and in cost of guiding the county as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, she typically took major criticism from associates of the community who disagreed with the training course staying taken by the point out and county.

But county officials observed she generally responded to her critics calmly and with grace.

Do-Reynoso grew up in war-ravaged Vietnam and escaped to the United States with her sister’s relatives when she was 9 years previous, said Joan Hartmann, chair of the Board of Supervisors.

She settled in Kansas amid a new lifestyle and a new language, Hartmann explained, noting no 1 can actually realize the decline and hardships Vietnamese refugees endured.

“But that very little girl turned hardship into triumph,” Hartmann said, by earning bachelor’s, master’s and health care provider of philosophy degrees and leading an overall county through a the moment-in-a-century pandemic.

“My household despatched me here to The us when I was 9 so that I could have a greater lifestyle,” Do-Reynoso said. “And I never consider they would have ever imagined that I would reach this issue in my daily life.”

Do-Reynoso spent 5 decades doing work for Tulare County, then 10 many years for Madera and five decades in Santa Barbara County, which she claimed have been “the apex of my career.”

Dr. Henning Ansorg, the county health and fitness officer, claimed Do-Reynoso faced “extraordinarily hard times” as the Public Well being director, citing the Thomas hearth, the subsequent 1/9 Particles Circulation and 2½ years of an at any time-switching pandemic.

Yet, he said, she was nonetheless capable to change the department by developing sturdy and resilient teams, starting up new programs and laying the foundation for the department to be greater outfitted and ready to satisfy future troubles.

“All I can say is Van has been this sort of a reward to the community,” said speaker Lee Heller. “She’s been a reward to me as a mate and anyone I could perform with and assistance in all the things from her wellbeing fairness initiatives to her remarkable commitment to Animal Services.”

Heller additional, “She is poof that individuals can arrive to this place from extremely tricky backgrounds and make wonderful lives for by themselves and be an unbelievable asset to the group.”

2nd District Supervisor Gregg Hart said he was grateful for her kindness, compassion and generosity.

“The simple fact that she would make cookies for her staff, you know, in the center of the night immediately after getting cellular phone calls from myself and Supervisor [Bob] Nelson at midnight astonished me then and nonetheless does,” Hart mentioned.

First District Supervisor Das Williams pointed out Do-Reynoso experienced persevered in which lots of others experienced not.

“I want the local community to realize that most people today that were place in this situation, and this position is 1 that required to adhere to science but also was arbitrating the contradictory yearnings of our spirit, the contradictory yearnings of the individuals of this state for the two maximal liberty and maximal security at the exact same time and was by some means intended to arbitrate that with an quantity of scrutiny that was unprecedented … and add to that, you know, commonly threats and vitriol, and most men and women in [that] posture … understandably could not see it all the way as a result of,” he explained. “But Van did.”