Gov. Pritzker Announces Appointments to State Boards and Commissions

Building on a strong team of diverse experts in their fields, Governor JB Pritzker announced the following appointments in his administration:

 
HEALTH FACILITIES AND SERVICES REVIEW BOARD

 
Sandra Martell will serve on the Health Facilities and Services Review Board.* Dr. Martell has been the Public Health Administrator for Winnebago County Health Department for the past four years. Her current work in Winnebago County has been focused on addressing the health priorities of Maternal and Child Health, Mental/Behavioral Health, and Violence through a lens of health equity. Dr. Martell has spent the majority of her career focused on public health. She worked for the Cook County Department of Public Health in Illinois for over 25 years progressing from the position of public health nurse to interim Chief Operating Officer. She has served as adjunct faculty at both the Loyola University and the University of Illinois. Dr. Martell has been the recipient of the March of Dimes Perinatal Nurse Recognition Award and the Cook County Distinguished Service Award. She has been acknowledged as an emerging public health leader through a fellowship from the National Association of City and County Health Officials/Robert Woods Johnson and De Beaumont Foundations. Dr. Martell received her BS in Nursing from the Loyola University of Chicago and her master's and Doctoral Degrees from the UIC with a concentrated focus on public health.
 
Linda Rae Murray will serve on the Health Facilities and Services Review Board.* Dr. Murray has spent her career serving the medically underserved and is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health. She most recently practiced as a voluntary general internist one of the county's health centers until December 2018. Dr. Murray has worked in a variety of settings including practicing Occupational Medicine at a Workers Clinic in Canada, residency director for Occupational Medicine at Meharry Medical College, and bureau chief for the Chicago Department of Health under Mayor Harold Washington. She worked as medical director of the federally funded health center serving Cabrini Green Public Housing Project in Chicago. She has been an active member of a wide range of local and national organizations including serving as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for ATSDR, the Board of Scientific Counselors for NIOSH and the Board of Directors of Trinity Health, a large Catholic Health system. Murray received her Master of Public Health, M.D. and B.S. from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
 
Debra Savage will serve on the Health Facilities and Services Review Board.* Since 1990, Savage has been a Registered Nurse practicing in hospitals and home health agencies in Illinois and various other states as a staff nurse, charge nurse, nurse manager, nurse director and clinical application specialist. She now serves a nursing professor and Assistant Dean at Chamberlain University since 2013 in addition to experience as an adjunct nursing instructor for Governors State University. Savage is elected as a Will County Regional Office of Education Trustee and is a member of the Exchange Club of Northern Will County, the American Organization of Nursing Leadership and the American Nurses Association as well as the past Section Chair for the Association of Women's Health, Obstetrics & Neonatal Nurses. Savage holds a Bachelor of Science in nursing from Rush University and a Master of Science in nursing administration and education from the University of Phoenix. 

 
STATE MINING BOARD

 
Bernard Harsy will serve on the State Mining Board.* Harsy began working for Consol Coal in April 1973. He worked at the Burning Star #4 Strip Mine Operation to its complete closure in July 2002. Bernard has 29 years of mining experience in all aspects of surface coal mine operations. Harsy served as President of UMWA Local 1825 for 22 years and was Chairman of the Mine Safety Committee.
 
Michael Huff will serve on the State Mining Board.* Huff served in the United States Army from 1969 to 1972, spending one year in Vietnam. He started working at Peabody Coal after being honorably discharged from the Army and then worked at Amax Coal in Keensburg, Ill. until it closed in 2007. Huff served on the Illinois State Miners' Examining Board from 2003 until 2015. He now owns and operates a farm market with his son in Southern Illinois. He attended Maunie and Carmi schools, graduating from Carmi Township High School in 1968.
 
Ronnie Huff will serve on the State Mining Board.* Huff began working for Peabody Coal Company in 1977 and the following year took a job with Ziegler Mine #11 in Coulterville, Ill. He worked 28 years underground where he obtained his First Class Papers and Mine Examiner Papers. Huff spent six months in West Virginia with the UMWA investigating the Upper Big Branch Disaster. He has been the Secretary-Treasurer for Local 2161 for 15 years, served on the Mine Safety Committee for five years and the Miners Examining Board for two years.
 
* Appointments pending confirmation by the Illinois Senate.