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Gov. Tina Kotek’s office announced two personnel changes today. Kotek named Amy Baker her new behavioral health initiative director and formalized the departure of deputy chief of staff Lindsey O’Brien.
Baker joins Kotek’s office from Clatsop County, where she served as executive director at Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, the county’s largest community-based behavioral health and substance use treatment provider. Baker has worked in behavioral health for 28 years, the governor’s office said, including for the Oregon Health Authority and community-based organizations. She replaces Juliana Wallace, who left earlier this year for a job at Central City Concern in Portland. Wallace had replaced Annaliese Dolph, Kotek’s first behavioral health initiative director.
Kotek also announced today the formal resignation of her deputy chief of staff, Lindsey O’Brien. O’Brien, who had previously worked in a variety of roles for Kotek when Kotek was speaker of the Oregon House, was one of three senior staff members who left Kotek’s office in March over what people familiar with the situation said were conflicts over the role of first lady Aimee Kotek Wilson. Two of the aides, former chief of staff Andrea Cooper and special adviser Abby Tibbs, left the office then, but O’Brien instead took a leave. O’Brien has now converted that leave to a resignation. Oregon Public Broadcasting first reported O’Brien’s resignation.
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Baker will now assume a role that overlaps with the interests of Kotek Wilson, a former social worker who met frequently with Baker’s predecessors and has helped shape the governor’s approach to improving Oregon’s delivery of services to people experiencing mental illness.