Kathy McGaha, who has been named Macon County’s new director of public health, is taking over a department where she has worked for 23 years in a wide variety of roles.
After about 18 months of searching for a new director to replace Jim Bruckner, Macon County Public Health picked McGaha, and the Macon County Board of Commissioners approved the nomination on April 14.
McGaha will be taking over from Carmine Rocco, who has served as interim director since September 2018. McGaha expressed gratitude for Rocco’s leadership and for “the guidance and motivation he has given our staff and myself through working at the health department and taking on this beast of a virus.”
She officially takes the reins from Rocco when he retires April 29.
McGaha has served in many capacities during her 23 years with Macon County Public Health.
“I’ve worked in probably the majority of the sections in this department,” she said. “I’ve worked up front, I’ve worked in environmental health for a few years, and then for 12 years I was director of the Healthy Carolinians program.”
Healthy Carolinians is part of a statewide effort to encourage counties to identify priority health issues and coordinate collaborative efforts to address them.
McGaha later shifted to a newly created position that put her in charge of policy matters for the health department, including monitoring various programs, assuring staff members were getting proper accreditation, and making sure they were meeting state standards.
“So I continued to do those big-picture roles for a while and then took on supervision of our dental programs, school nurses and health education,” she said.
McGaha said her broad experience at the health department has prepared her for her new role.
“I’ve gotten to know a lot of folks and had a lot of responsibilities,” she said. “I feel very fortunate to have already been exposed to so much. I have worked with county leadership and the various county department heads. I’ve had relationships with different health departments and gone to the state meetings.
“There’s still going to be room for growing and learning and improving,” she said. “Those things will come in time.”
McGaha takes over as health director, overseeing a staff of 63, during perhaps the most serious national health crisis.
“It’s a little surreal,” she said. “I would say that the health department and the staff are trained for just this. We have been preparing and planning and practicing those plans. We didn’t know what the “it” was going to be, but we have processes in place and plans in place to address these things.”
Job one is getting information to the people who need it.
“We’ve been issuing guidance to the jail to nursing homes to providers to grocery stores. We’ve got staff visiting grocery stores and talking to them to make sure they understand what they need to do.”
Part of that public information mission is to battle misinformation that is flooding social media regarding the coronavirus.
“We’re trying to be reliable source for all these different areas,” she said.
Melissa Bell, chair of the health board, said McGaha was nominated from among three candidates.
“We think she would be an excellent choice to take over guiding the county through this ongoing emergency and a good choice to lead us forward in the future,” Bell told commissioners via phone as the two boards met simultaneously.
After McGaha’s nomination was confirmed by commissioners, health board members offered their thanks to Rocco.
“Carmine, we thank you very, very much for your service and your agreement to stay a bit longer than we originally planned,” Bell said.
Rocco returned the gratitude.
“It restored my faith in county government and in public health, and the fact we have people who care about their community,” Rocco said. “This is a model health department. … I’ve worked with several health departments across the state, and I’ve been extremely impressed. And the staff, I just couldn’t say enough about … how committed and dedicated they are. They are special.”
Rocco said he hopes to do some work in mental health after leaving his post.