PHFE owes its success to a "hands on" Board of Directors nationally recognized in their respective fields and professions. The Board, like the Staff, are fully engaged in supporting every client.
Mr. Bertler has served as Preseident/CEO since May, 2008. He brings over 40 years of experience in public health, human services and non-profit management.
Mr. Bertler began his career as a community organizer in Oakland County, Michigan developing youth recreation programs, crisis centers, free clinics and programs for runaway and homeless youth.
His interest in public policy eventually took him to the state capitol in Lansing where he represented the state network of Planned Parenthood affiliates and most recently served as the Executive Director of the Michigan Association for Local Public Health representing Michigan’s network of local public health departments where among other projects he participated in the development of one of the nations first local public health accreditation programs.
Mr. Bertler’s national activities have included work with the Public Health Informatics Institute, the Turning Point Information Technology Collaborative, the National Association of Local Boards of Health and the National Association of County and City Health Officials where he most recently chaired the Public Health Marketing Strategic Direction Team.
Dr. Ascher, a native of Illinois, graduated from Dartmouth and Harvard Medical Schools. He trained in Internal Medicine, Infectious Disease and Immunology at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. He served in the U.S. Army as Chief of Medicine and in the Bacteriology Division at U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and as a traveling fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He joined the Division of Infectious Disease at the U.C. Irvine College of Medicine in 1978. In 1985, he moved to Berkeley as a Public Health Medical Officer in the Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory of the California Department of Health Services and was appointed Chief of the Laboratory in 1995. He is a Lecturer in the School of Public Health of the University of California, Berkeley and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine of the University of California, Davis. In the fall of 2001, he joined the Office of Public Health Preparedness, Immediate Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington as the special assistant for laboratory and technical issues. In 2003, he retired from the State of California and went to work in the Biology and Biotechnology Program of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory/University of California. From that position, he served on detail to the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the Executive Office of the President and as the Senior Medical Advisor of the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security. He is currently based at Livermore working on host response markers of infection.
In the area of biological defense, he has 30 years experience, starting with his active duty tour at USAMRIID. He chaired the Disease Control Subcommittee of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board during the Gulf War and served on an interagency advisory panel on Biological Warfare Preparedness for the 21st Century. He currently consults in this area of biological defense preparedness to the Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mitre Corporation, the National Domestic Preparedness Office of the FBI, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the National Research Council and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is a founding member of the Working Group on Civilian Biodefense of the Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. He is a member of the bioterrorism subcommittee of the Emerging Infections Committee of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Infectious Disease Committee of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. He is a founding member of the board of Epi-X, the electronic epidemiology information exchange of the CDC. Prior to joining HHS, he was the lead medical officer for biological defense activities in the California Department of Health Services and Principal Investigator of the CDC cooperative agreement to the state for preparedness and response to bioterrorism.
Dr. Ascher’s research interests include mechanisms of protective immunogenicity of microbial vaccines, advanced methods for diagnosis of infectious diseases and fundamental issues of HIV pathogenesis. He is a member of numerous scientific societies and has over 100 publications.
Bruce Y. Lai serves as the Executive Director of School Technology Strategy to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the New York City Department of Education (DOE). The NYC DOE is the largest public school district in the United States, serving more than 1.2 million students, 1600 schools, and 800,000 parents.
For the CIO, Mr. Lai leads the implementation of major education technology programs, the development and implementation of new technology products and services, and key strategic technology efforts.
Mr. Lai volunteers his expertise to two nonprofit boards. Currently, he is the First Vice Chairman of the board of the Public Health Foundation Enterprises, a national public health organization based in Los Angeles. He also serves on the board of the Insight Center on Community Economic Development, a national research, consulting, and legal organization dedicated to building economic health in disenfranchised communities, based in Oakland, CA.
Formerly, Mr. Lai was Chief of Staff to Council Member Gale A. Brewer, the Chair of the Committee on Technology in Government at the New York City Council. Prior to that, Mr. Lai was the Legislative Policy Analyst and lead staff person for the Council Member Brewer’s Committee on Technology in Government. He has worked in various other capacities for the City of New York since 1999.
Mr. Lai graduated from Williams College and holds a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Peter Jacobson, JD, MPH, is Professor of Health Law and Policy, and Director, Center for Law, Ethics and Health at the University of Michigan, School of Public Health. He teaches courses on health law, health care regulations. Before coming to the University of Michigan, Professor Jacobson was a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California.
In 1995, he received an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine the role of the courts in shaping health care policy. The project culminated in the publication of the book Strangers in the Night: Law and Medicine in the Managed Care Era (Oxford University Press, 2002). Jacobson co-authored a law school casebook with Lawrence O. Gostin titled Law and the Health System (Foundation Press, 2005) and is a co-author of False Hope vs. Evidence-Based Medicine: The Story of Failed Treatment for Breast Cancer (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Professor Jacobson’s current research interests focus on the relationship between law and health care delivery, law and public health systems, public health ethics, and health care safety net services. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator (PI) on studies examining how public health practitioners define and resolve day-to-day ethical challenges, the impact of state and federal law on public health preparedness, and enhancing organizational and operational efficiencies in Michigan’s health care safety net providers. He is also the PI on a new project that will examine public health entrepreneurship.
In 1967, Jacobson received his undergraduate degree in history from Dickinson College. He then received his law degree from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Law in 1970. After practicing law in Pittsburgh’s Neighborhood Legal Service Program, Jacobson spent 10 years in the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. While working at the RAND Corporation, Jacobson received an MPH from the UCLA School of Public Health in 1988.
Ms. Angel brings to the board of directors over 25 years of accounting and auditing experience. Her career path includes over 14 years in public accounting, including eight years in the audit practice of Enrst & Young, where she served large public companies in the media entertainment industry. Her public accounting experience includes audit of the financial statements of public and private companies, initial public offerings, debt offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and spin-offs or divestitures.
Ms. Angel also spent 11 years in the private sector, as controller and CFO for two public film production companies. In these roles, Ms. Angel was responsible for all accounting and financial reporting processes, systems and internal controls, as well as all periodic filing required by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, she negotiated credit facilities with lenders and participated in public debt and stock offerings.
Ms. Angel has been a Certified Public Accountant in the State of California since 1983 and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. She received her B.A. from California State University, Northridge.
Mr. Libbey is currently engaged as a consultant on several projects addressing issues of public health systems and structures. Most recently Mr. Libbey served as the Executive Director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO.) In that role Mr. Libbey represented our nation’s local health departments and their staff who protect and promote health, prevent disease, and seek to establish the foundations for wellness in all communities across the United States. During his tenure NACCHO was increasingly recognized and engaged by a range of federal, national and other organizations as a critical resource and partner ensuring the perspective of local public health practice was considered in policy and program implementation and development.
Notable among his efforts while at NACCHO, Mr. Libbey initiated and led the organization’s effort to create a uniform, nationally shared definition and standards for a functional local health development. This work, now known as the NACCHO Operational Definition, has gained national recognition and acceptance and serves as a key base for the emerging national voluntary public health accreditation effort. Mr. Libbey has been a national leader in the movement for accreditation of local and state health departments serving as a founder and incorporating board member of the Public Health Accreditation Board.
Prior to joining NACCHO in 2002, Mr. Libbey who has 28 years of local public health experience was the director of the Thurston County Public Health and Social Services Department in Olympia, WA. This Department has been recognized as an early leader in community involvement and population-based approaches to public health improvement.
In addition to being the NACCHO president prior to joining its staff, Mr. Libbey has provided leadership to a variety of professional organizations. He has served in leadership roles, including president, of both the Washington State Association of Local Public Health Officials and the Washington State Association of County Human Services. He was also actively involved in developing Washington State’s approach to public health having served as a member of the Washington State Core Government Public Health Functions Task Force, member of the Public Health Improvement Plan Steering Committee, and the initial chair of the Performance Measures Technical Advisory Committee. He was a member of the Performance Management Collaborative with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored Turning Point Initiative.
Mr. Libbey’s published works include articles in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice and as a co-contributor of chapters to several public health text books. He is a former Public Health Leadership Institute Scholar. Mr. Libbey has received several awards and recognitions over the years for his work in public health including most recently the Champion of Prevention award from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the President’s Award from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Current volunteer activities include serving as a board member basis for the Nurse-Family Partnership.
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