La Plata County Health staff meets director candidate – The Durango Herald

Mike Byrns attended a meet-and-greet Wednesday before his interview with board members

Staff from La Plata County Public Health and other departments met with Mike Byrns on Wednesday at the La Plata County administration building. Byrns is the sole candidate for the health director position at the department. (Reuben M. Schafir/Durango Herald)

La Plata County Public Health workers got to clap eyes on the sole finalist for the top spot at the health department during a meet and greet with Mike Byrns on Wednesday.

More than 25 people, primarily employees of the department, showed up at the County Administration Building to meet Byrns and listen to a presentation on a program of his choosing.

Byrns spent two days interviewing in Durango before he returned to Rhode Island, where he serves as the assistant director of health at the state’s Department of Health in Providence. He holds a doctorate in environmental health from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

The self-effacing candidate mingled with staff before he delivered a 10-minute presentation on opioid harm reduction programs, which was followed by a lengthy informal question-and-answer session with attendees.

Opioid harm reduction was a bold choice in some ways, given that LPCPH has a thriving program already and its coordinator, Sierra Roe, sat in the audience. Byrns has worked in harm reduction at a secondary level in Rhode Island, he said, where he helped write building regulations for safe injection sites (the La Plata County program provides harm reduction resources but does not include a safe injection site).

“It’s somewhere where you can actually see lives being saved,” Byrns said, in contrast to many public health programs, which prevent ill health in a way that can go unnoticed.

“You did amazing,” Roe told Byrns after the presentation, but not before offering a gentle correction to some of the terms and language he used.

Byrns, who is entertaining at least one other job offer, said he and his family are intent on leaving Rhode Island. He is drawn to LPCPH because of its size and the proximity he would have as director to the community and to decision-makers above the health director level.

“I don’t mind being yelled at,” he said of the politicized criticism that has consumed the public health director’s role in the past.

Often times, that criticism is more about being heard than anything else, he said.

“It’s better to be in charge and able to fix it and watching it from the outside,” Byrns said.

His work during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially around the state’s policy on reopening schools, gave him insight into how public health work can affect visible change – and it made him hungry for more (Rhode Island was comparatively bullish about reopening schools ).

Byrns described being repeatedly asked to become an “overnight expert” in topics such as school reopening and marijuana policy.

“I liked that variety, and I want to do more,” he said.

The Board of Health interviewed Byrns on Thursday morning and is expected to vote on a potential job offer during a special meeting following an executive session Monday.

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