National Alliance on
Mental Illness Southern Arizona

Heather McGovern, MPA is the Epidemiology Program Manager for the Pima County Health Department and identifies as a peer and family member and a proud part of the LGBTQ community. Heather has worked in various leadership roles within the behavioral health field for the last 12 1/2 years. Specifically working for the public behavioral health system has allowed Heather to deal with many non-traditional business situations. She has addressed these situations by utilizing her educational background, a Master’s in Public Administration and her experience in nonprofit management along with a vast network of individuals who work in public and private entities, to gain knowledge and maintain best practices related to employee relations, business operations, finance and management. Heather also has a unique advantage in that she worked her way up at agencies from the ground level. Heather’s career highlights include:

• Joining the NAMI Board of Directors
• Asserting multiple agency's presence in the behavioral health community, in order to reduce stigma around peer- and family-run organizations
• Visioning multiple agency's financial growth plan and acquiring funding streams though grants, contracts and partnerships to diversify funding over my tenure.
• Employing strong agency-wide financial internal control systems
• Hiring diverse and experienced staff
• Implementing rigorous data measurement tools to highlight accountability and efficiency with multiple departments in multiple agencies
• Creating a consultation company to assist smaller community organizations in infrastructure development
• Teaching at the University of Arizona School for Government and Public Policy for 5 years in their undergraduate public administration program