Closing Remarks – Secretary John Wiesman

John Weisman, DrPH, MPH, was appointed Secretary of Health by Gov. Jay Inlsee in April 2013. He’s an accomplished transformational leader with more than 22 years of local public health experience and focuses on whole systems approaches to improving health. John has been passionate about public health since reading a 1983 Time magazine article about disease detectives; it was the impetus for him to enter the profession. During his career john has transformed health departments from providing individual services to implementing policy, system and environmental, transformed health departments into first responder organizations, helped lead Washington State’s initiatives to transform the health delivery system to improve population health, known as Healthier Washington. Major efforts now underway at the Department of Health under John’s leadership include: End AIDS Washington, developing the Healthiest Next Generation, identifying and funding Foundational Public Health Services, implementing the Governor’s executive order reducing suicides and preventing firearm injuries and deaths, and addressing the public health impacts of climate change. John holds faculty appointments in the schools of public health at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and the University of Washington. He earned his doctor of public health (DrPH) from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill in 2012. He received his master of public health (MPH) from Yale University in 1987 and his bachelor of the arts (BA) from Lawrence University in Wisconsin in 1983. John was born and raised in Wisconsin. He and his husband have lived in Washington State since 1983.