CMHA Grey Bruce has a new interim leader.
The board of directors says that Claudia den Boer comes into the position with more than 35 years of experience in healthcare.
Originally from Calgary, she came to southwestern Ontario 36 years ago and found that it was a great place to raise her two sons.
The family settled in the Windsor area, where den Boer worked in acute care for 25 years, before making the change to mental health.
Wanting a shift in her career, a colleague had told her that the CEO position for the Canadian Mental Health Association’s branch in Windsor-Essex was available, and she decided to go for it.
She brings her 10 years of experience from Windsor-Essex to Grey Bruce while the organization searches for someone to permanently fill the leadership role.
“CMHA Grey Bruce is part of a greater mental health and addictions system, and so we really want to work on continuing to develop some of the key partnerships that we have in the community,” she says.
In making the move to the region with her Shih Tzu in tow, den Boer says “People here in Owen Sound have been extremely welcoming, and here in the organization [as well].”
She says of her new colleagues in Grey Bruce, “The leadership team is solid, and they have some really great ideas about what the next priorities should be, and we’ve termed this work as ‘Designing the Next Chapter Together.’”
Den Boer says to think of it like a novel.
“You keep going, you keep turning the page, and all of the things that have happened to this point are a part of that foundation, and we’re just going to build on that.”
CMHA Grey Bruce welcomes den Boer following the resignation of Clark McFarlane, who had been CEO of the local branch for five years.