Linn County launches search for public health director

CEDAR RAPIDS – The Linn County Board of Health will conduct a national search for a new director after Curtis Dickson abruptly retired earlier this month.

Dickson's last official day will be Sept. 30, with vacation and family leave time, but he has already moved to West Virginia, said Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston, a member of the Board of Health.

Langston said Dickson retired to take care of his wife, who has a serious health condition. Most of his family is in the West Virginia area, she said.

Deputy Director Stephanie Neff is the interim director while a search begins for a new director.

Langston said the board hopes to have a director in place by the end of the year. Its next meeting is 5 p.m. Aug 24.

Dickson was 63 and came out of retirement after serving as health director for Hertford County, N.C., when he was chosen to lead Linn County Public Health.

He started in February 2009.

Langston said he had intended to stay for five years, with an aggressive agenda for changing the role of the health department.

“He did some amazing work,” she said, citing Dickson's strategic planning, department restructuring and other efforts.

Dickson attracted attention for his approaches for addressing healthy lifestyles and obesity, which included calls for  banning trans fats in restaurant food and requiring local restaurants to include calorie counts on menus.

He was unable to put those concepts in place in the past two years, but obtained a $2 million grant last year to address tobacco use in Linn County.

Dickson also spurred an ordinance for outdoor wood boilers that rankled some rural Linn County residents, called for a joint Linn/Cedar Rapids animal shelter and led the county's H1N1 prevention efforts in 2009.

Neff said she will continue to follow the agency's strategic plan.

“We all have a role in those efforts that are multi-faceted,” she said. “I'll continue to implement the vision that Curtis has laid out.”