Running the Louisiana Department of Social Services is a job fraught with challenges: pervasive statewide poverty, a general lack of resources and the awareness that results of hard work often don’t manifest until a generation later. It doesn’t diminish the hopes—or focus—of Secretary Kristy Nichols, who was appointed by Gov. Bobby Jindal in 2008.
In less than two years, she has chalked up several accomplishments, including establishing a new disaster-sheltering plan, launching the nation’s only online pre-application process for disaster food stamps, revamping child and adult residential licensing and announcing a plan to reform child care.
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Nichols moved to Louisiana from her native Tennessee to attend graduate school in communications at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. That’s also when she made a pivotal career decision. “I felt that, personally, the real value was in making difference in people’s lives,” she says.
She accepted an 18-month position coordinating a large community-wide initiative called the Partnership for a Healthier Lafayette that addressed economic development, education, health care and teen pregnancy in the area. It gave her a window into the intricacies of community organizing and the value of citizen input.
From there, Nichols spring-boarded to several public posts where she learned to narrow her focus and get things done. “You have to approach it like a business or a science,” she says. “Otherwise, it can be very overwhelming.”
As the development director for a rural-community health network, she established four networks in southwest Louisiana, securing more than $4 million in funding. Later, as director of the Bureau of Primary Care and Rural Health for the Department of Health and Hospitals she increased grants from $3 million to $36 million over four years.
In 2006, Nichols was a recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Health Leadership Award, a national honor that includes a $125,000 prize, part of which a recipient uses to further their community work. Nichols donated $100,000 to establish a fellows program at DSS.
“We want to inspire new ideas and quality training and education among staff,” she says. “That’s what will drive change.”
Age: 36
How do you make yourself heard in the discussion on how to move Baton Rouge forward? “Engage with the school board.”
Click here for the complete list of 2009's Forty Under 40 winners.
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