December 15, 2020
Introducing Boulder County’s new Housing & Human Services Director Robert Williams
The position of director was left vacant in July when former director Frank Alexander left Boulder County to join the Casey Family Programs. Over the past several months, Boulder County has led an extensive recruiting effort to select Alexander's replacement.
Boulder County Residents and Community Partners,
After a rigorous national recruiting effort and a thorough interview process which involved Boulder County employees from across several county departments, our community partners, and our incoming County Commissioners (Claire Levy and Marta Loachamin), we are pleased to announce that we have chosen to appoint Robert Williams to fill the position of Boulder County Department of Housing & Human Services (BCDHHS) Director.*
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Robert Williams has been serving as the Chief Program and Policy Officer in the Bureau of Behavioral Health for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services
Introducing Robert Williams
Robert comes to us with extensive knowledge of the many areas addressed under our Housing & Human Services umbrella. He has served in state and local government offices, providing leadership and direction to child welfare and child protection programs, health and human service programs at the county level, and financial compliance oversight in a government setting. He began his career as a case worker and knows firsthand being on the front line working with children, families, and adults in complex social situations.
Most recently, Robert has been serving as the Chief Program and Policy Officer in the Bureau of Behavioral Health for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. In this capacity, he is responsible for ensuring quality behavioral healthcare coverage at sustainable costs and empowering people to make sound decisions about their behavioral health well-being.
In addition to providing direction and leadership to all Bureau operations pertaining to program and policy development and oversight of a $2.5 billion budget, Robert has focused his role on implementing solutions to providing comprehensive behavioral health services to children in out of home care, enhancing the behavioral health supports offered through Medicaid, and improving outcomes for children and youth through a multidisciplinary approach including public health and school-based interventions.
Robert has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a Master of Science in Government Accountancy from Rutgers University, and a Master of Science in Social Work from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He will be moving to Colorado from Illinois, with a specific start date to be determined, as a cross country move is especially challenging during a pandemic.
We want to thank Interim Housing and Human Services Director Will Kugel and Interim Housing Authority Executive Director Norrie Boyd for their exceptional service in keeping the department running during the transition. Their interim appointments will continue until Robert is on board.
Sincerely,
Deb Gardner, Elise Jones, Matt Jones
Boulder County Commissioners
Filling the HHS director position with someone well-qualified and highly experienced was important to all of us. What we really like about Robert is that he has a lot of experience in various roles with housing and human services programs. He started as a case worker, which gives him firsthand experience working with people on a personal level, and he is strong on the data side, which helps improve our programs. We have a long tradition at Boulder County of using data-driven criteria to inform our decisions so that we can bring all the programs together in effective, seamless service delivery. Robert adds to that strong background and with his level of experience, we should hit the ground running.
--Boulder County Commissioner Matt Jones
*The position of BCDHHS Director was left vacant in July when former director Frank Alexander left Boulder County to join the Casey Family Programs. Over the past several months, Boulder County has led an extensive recruiting effort to select Frank's replacement.
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