Leadership of the Clatsop County Health and Human Services Department will be shared on an interim basis following the departure of its outgoing director.

Public Health Preparedness Coordinator Margo Lalich will oversee health services for the department, while HHS Deputy Director Andrea Trenner will handle the administrative and budgetary duties.

The two will replace HHS Director Joell Archibald, who is stepping down from the job on Sept. 18. Archibald, who has held the position for three years, announced her resignation Sept.10.

During this interim period, the county administration will conduct an examination of the HHS Department’s management structure with an eye to possible changes, according to County Manager Duane Cole. But he emphasized that users of HHS programs will see no service disruptions during the transition.

The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to designate Lalich as the county’s official Public Health Administrator at its Sept. 23 meeting. State law requires counties to have a designated top health manager.

Lalich became a public health nurse with Clatsop County HHS in 1998, and has led the department’s Public Health program since 2002, managing the county’s HIV/AIDS case management, immunization program and emergency preparedness efforts. She is a registered nurse in the State of Oregon and has a Master of Public Health degree from Oregon Health and Science University

Lalich has also served for 10 years as a disaster/humanitarian nurse with Medical Teams International of Portland and done tours in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pacific.

Trenner is a licensed certified public accountant who worked in accounting and tax preparation for four years before joining the Clatsop County Finance Department in 2001 as an accounting supervisor, and four years later was named Assistant Finance Director. She was assigned to the HHS department in September 2007 as deputy director. She is also on the board of the Oregon Municipal Finance Officers Association.

Clatsop County Health and Human Services provides a wide range of services including maternal and infant health, family planning, communicable disease education and prevention, parenting education, tobacco prevention and restaurant inspections. The department also contracts with outside agencies for mental health, developmental disability and substance abuse treatment services. It has a staff of 22 and an annual budget of approximately $4.1 million.