Founding Director

Steve has a breadth of behavioral health practice, policy, and leadership experience spanning the past 30 years. Most recently, Steve served as Oregon’s state Behavioral Health Director where he worked with the governor and state legislature to add $1.35 billion in additional behavioral health funding resources, worked with the legislature to deepen and diversify behavioral health workforce, implement innovative approaches to crisis care, reduce the “revolving door” for people with behavioral health conditions and involvement in the criminal-legal systems, and tripled the Office of Behavioral Health staffing, all with an intentional focus on elimination of health inequities through engagement and sharing power with community.   

Prior to moving to Oregon in 2019, Steve was a Senior Policy Advisor with the Council of State Governments Justice Center for 4 years, where he provided assessment, consultation, and technical assistance in 10 states with the goal of informing policy and funding development to improve statewide systems of behavioral healthcare for people with complex behavioral health conditions experiencing criminal legal system involvement.   

Steve also worked for the state of Minnesota for 16 years, serving as the Behavioral Health Director for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, where he oversaw all the clinical services in Minnesota’s prison system, and as Executive Director for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, where he oversaw 19 clinical facilities, including state psychiatric hospitals, residential substance use disorder facilities, a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital and transitional facilities.    

Steve is a licensed clinical social worker and has master’s degrees in religion and ethics from the University of Chicago and clinical social work from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.   

His current focus is to support community-led initiatives and create systems of care that are simpler to access, more responsive to who people are and what they need that lead to meaningful improvements in their lives.