By CHARITY SMITH
csmith@yourdailyglobe.com
WAKEFIELD – Melissa Hall has been named to new chief executive officer of the Gogebic County Community Mental Health Authority. “Melissa is a motivated professional with a 20-year tenure that spans progressive leadership positions, from human resources coordinator to chief executive officer,” said Steve Thomas, chairman of the Gogebic County Community Mental Health Board in a press release.
“She is an articulate communicator who will be focused on building and strengthening relationships across the diverse range of staff and peers of GCCMHA, as well as community stakeholders and medical groups. She has a back- ground as an established skilled leader in mentoring, mobilizing, and directing teams, and we trust Melissa will serve our community with a focus on continued quality delivery of care through visionary and strategic leader- ship in order to enhance the delivery of mental health services. We are very excited to welcome her to the CMH team.”
Hall has a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Northcentral University, a bache- lor’s degree from Northern Michigan University, and an associate degree from Bay de Noc Community College in Escanaba. She is a member of the Superior Chapter of Human Resources Professionals and serves as a Superior Central School Board member. She formerly served on the Alger Regional Community Foundation board and the drug and mental health court advisory board.
Hall spent the majority of her career working her way up the ranks at Munising Memorial Hospital. She said she started as executive secretary in 1998 and was the chief executive officer and chief operating officer when she left the hospital 21 years later. She said she left to try some- thing different and went to Dickinson Center in Iron Mountain as the director of the Cancer Center there. “I spent two years there and then this opportunity came up, and I realized it was time to get back to my roots of being a leader in a smaller organization,” said Hall.
Hall said although she just moved a week ago, she is very interested in being present and involved in the community. She said she loves the small town atmosphere as she was born and raised in Chatham about 15 miles southwest of Munising. She said her hometown has a population of about 200 people. “I’m not looking to come in and blaze new trails on everything, but I think it’s time to just see what we can do,”
Hall said of her goals with CMH. “We have to fight hard for community mental health, because there is a lot of legislature right now trying to go after it.” According to Hall there are two bills in the state Senate and House that are trying to shift Michigan Department of Human Ser- vice funding of CMH to medicaid health plans. She said she doesn’t see that happening anytime soon, but possibly in the next couple years. “It’s certainly a challenge that I look forward to taking on,” she said.
Hall said she has always been passionate about rural health care and the challenges that people in rural areas face, such as finding providers and qualified people to run pro- grams, and transportation to health care facilities. However, she said that since the pandemic hit, more people have been moving to rural communities.
Hall, is a mother of three adult children and a grandmother of two. She lives in Wakefield with her husband. Despite being a self-proclaimed “work-a-holic,” she and her husband do enjoy taking their Jeep out on trail rides. Hall said she would like the community to know that she has an “open door” and looks forward to getting to know everybody.