The Northwest Grocery Retail Association added to its lobbying staff by hiring two former employees of Oregon Business & Industry. Paloma Sparks is the association’s executive vice president of government affairs and the general counsel. Belen Koenig is the government affairs manager. The association’s current legislative director, Mia Noren, is departing at month’s end to pursue a master’s degree.
Dr. Steven Nakana will be the new director of the Oregon Health Authority’s Equity and Inclusion Division. He begins work on Nov. 24. Interim Director Alfonso Ramirez will return to his role as Behavioral Health Equity and Community Partnership director in the Behavioral Health Division. Nakana had joined CareOregon this year as director of community health partnerships. He previously worked for Portland Community College, Portland General Electric, Port of Portland and Mercy Corps.
Beth Villard is now the Youth Integrated Behavioral Health Care program and policy coordinator for OHA’s Child and Family Behavioral Health.
Winston Brown was appointed as the director of the Stabilization and Crisis Unit in the Department of Human Services’ Office of Developmental Disabilities Services. He had filled the role on an interim basis for the past year after serving as the unit’s regional oversight manager.
Stephen Nelson, chief procurement officer at the Department of Administrative Services, departed on Oct. 30 for what officials said was “a new opportunity.” The recruitment to fill the job opened on Oct. 29. DAS Deputy Director Satish Upadhyay is serving as acting chief procurement officer.
Troy Schaffner moved from the Department of Fish & Wildlife to the Marine Board, where he is a watercraft registration specialist. The 2025 Legislature created the additional position.
On a divided vote on Wednesday, the Multnomah and Clackamas county commissioners appointed labor union official Lamar Wise to finish the House District 48 term of Rep. Hòa Nguyễn, D-Portland, who died Oct. 9. A Democrat, Wise is political director for AFSCME Oregon Council 75. The other finalists nominated by Democratic precinct committee members were José Gamero-Georgeson, vice chair of the David Douglas School Board, and Terrence Hayes, a business owner and community advocate.
Ken Hector, a longtime member of the Chemeketa Community College board, received the 2025 M. Dale Ensign Trustee Leadership Award from the Association of Community College Trustees. The award is the organization’s highest national honor for outstanding leadership among community college trustees.
Time magazine named Port of Portland Executive Director Curtis Robinhold to its third annual TIME100 Climate, a global list of 100 “influential leaders driving business climate action.”
House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, this week appointed House members to several boards and commissions:
— Capitol Planning Commission: Kevin Mannix, R-Salem.
— Commission for Women: Lisa Fragala, D-Eugene, replacing Dacia Grayber, D-Portland.
— Electronic Government Portal Advisory Board: Darcey Edwards, R-Banks, and Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, replacing Mannix and House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, Tigard.
— Invasive Species Council: Mark Owens, R-Crane.
— Oregon Charitable Checkoff Commission: Jules Walters, D-West Linn, replacing Nathanson.
— Oregon Geographic Information Council: Nathanson, replacing Paul Evans, D-Monmouth.
— Oregon State Capitol Foundation: Mannix and Tom Andersen, D-Salem.
-— ask Force on Removing Barriers to Jury Service: Andersen and Kim Wallan, R-Medford.
— Task Force on Municipal Solid Waste in the Willamette Valley: Ed Diehl, R-Stayton, and Sarah Finger McDonald, D-Corvallis.
— Trust for Cultural Development Board: Shannon Isadore, D-Portland, replacing John Lively, D-Springfield. Lively also announced to constituents this week that he would retire from the Legislature in January 2027 after serving for 14 years.
If you have an update on who’s coming or going – or taking on a new assignment – in state government or organizations involved with it, email Dick Hughes at TheHughesisms@gmail.com.