Washington County names new health director

The Washington County Board of health named Emily Houston as its new director of public health Thursday afternoon.

Houston has a respectable resume, graduating from the University of Iowa with her master’s in public health in spring 2021, after completing her undergraduate in 2020.

“During my graduate and undergraduate time, I did some internships with Linn County Public Health up in Cedar Rapids,” Houston said. “Through that experience, combined with my coursework, I learned a lot about local public health departments and how they run and the impact that they have in communities, and I learned pretty quickly that that is where I wanted to be.”

Houston said she was enthusiastic to start.

“I’m excited to get to know the community better, there’s only so much that my online research can tell me,” she said. “I’m really excited to actually meet the people of Washington County, the people I’m going to be working with … and the community members that will be impacted by the work that we do.”

The announcement comes several weeks after health officials said they had settled on a candidate, who they referred to as Candidate G, but were waiting to publicly announce pending background checks, reference callbacks, an internal announcement to department staff and a finalized agreement on her salary and start date.

The motion made to hire Houston on Thursday was a 4-1 vote, with Board Member Jack Seward Jr. dissenting.

“My conscience tells me that there was a better candidate,” he said. “That, however, does not mean that I won’t do everything that I possibly can to make sure that it’s a success.”

The department will host an open house on the fifth floor of the Federation Bank building Dec. 1 for department staff and community members to get to know the new health director.

Houston will be joining the department over three months after the departure of former Director Danielle Pettit-Majewski, who left Washington County to take the same position in Johnson County in August.

Jefferson County Public Health Director Chris Estle has been serving as Washington County’s interim director during the search for Pettit-Majewski’s permanent replacement.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com