Hiring for Good is a podcast presented by Acumen Executive Search exploring the transformative power of leadership and what happens when the right person takes the job. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Hiring For Good Ep 42 with Eve Gray, Director of Health and Human Services at Lane County.
Topics Discussed:
-Career Path and Mentorship Eve shared her journey from nursing school to becoming Director of Health and Human Services for Lane County. She emphasized the importance of mentors and colleagues who recognized her potential, opening doors to opportunities she hadn’t envisioned for herself.
-Leadership Lessons and Team Building Drawing from her early experiences leading large teams, Eve described how she shifted from being outcomes-focused to relationship-focused—building trust first, empowering her teams, and cultivating diverse leadership styles to create stronger, more resilient organizations.
-Community Partnerships and Values-Driven Leadership Eve discussed how addressing complex issues like homelessness and behavioral health requires public-private collaboration. She also spoke about embedding values such as equity, respect, and work-life balance into leadership, showing how modeling flexibility and authenticity can strengthen organizational culture.
Eve Gray’s LinkedIn: / eve-gray-21bb16132
Hiring For Good Website: https://www.hiringforgood.net/
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Acumen Executive Search Website: https://www.acumenexecutivesearch.com/
Suzanne Hanifin: President at Acumen Executive Search Email: su*****@*******************ch.com
Hiring for Good is presented by Acumen Executive Search. Acumen Executive Search is the leading certified woman-owned Executive Search and advisory Firm on the West Coast. Acumen sources, attracts, and qualifies world-class executive and management talent for organizations to support them in achieving their organizational goals. Due to their focus and local network, which is both broad and deep, they are able to leverage best practices across a broad range of industries. They employ an equity lens throughout the recruitment process.
Hiring for Good Transcript
0:00 Well, welcome. I am Suzanne Hanifin with Acumen Executive Search and I am
0:04 here today with my lovely co-host Tanis Morris. Good morning, Suzanne.
0:09 We are super excited today to have Eve Gray join us at Hiring for Good. Eve is
0:15 the director of health and human resources or human services. There you
0:20 go. For Lane County. So, Eve is driven by helping and supporting people. She
0:25 cares deeply for Lane County and our Oregon communities as a whole. She works
0:31 towards the motto of get back to service, especially while working firsthand in healthcare integration and
0:38 believes in wraparound services. Throughout her work history, Eve has built strategies upon solid
0:45 methodologies for driving connections between people and services while managing and developing a team towards
0:53 those goals. Eve comes from a unique background with a really great career
0:58 progression. After nursing school, she was recruited to Peace Health’s quality
1:04 department. Here, she worked across the organization with other leaders and
1:08 engineers to look at processes and systems and even became a lean green belt herself.
1:16 From there, she was tasked to create their first patient safety program under
1:21 the quality department. and she learned to look at root cause analysis and not
1:26 to blame people but to look at how we can change to fix a problem. She
1:31 continues to progress at at Peace Health and moved into leadership positions. She
1:38 then joined Oregon Medical Group similarly to Peace Health. Eve’s leadership progression continued. Today,
1:45 Eve lives every day as an industry leader in leadership with strong methodologies, ability to build teams,
1:54 recognize the humanity of people. Eve states that her strengths include team building, listening, and connecting the
2:01 dots. So, welcome to Hiring for Good, Eve. Thank you, Suzanne. Yeah, and I know I kind of did just a
2:08 really brief highlight of your background, and at this point, we always like to start to hear from you. tell us
2:14 about your journey and how you became the director of health and human services.
2:21 Sure, happy to do that. And I think you know an important theme with anyone who
2:26 ends up in an executive role are is the people who helped you along the way.
2:31 Um so I’ll highlight that as well in talking about my journey. I I started out as a professional student in my 20s
2:41 not knowing really what I wanted to do. I dabbled in uh my first degree was in psychology. I went to part of a master
2:48 of social work program. I studied dietetics. Um and then took a little bit of time off and uh got a job in
2:57 education research which gave me this great opportunity to uh travel to New York on a pretty regular basis doing
3:06 work in uh underserved schools and trying to promote uh curriculum related to college readiness.
3:13 And uh though that didn’t last as a career, I gained a lot of important skills there in how to connect with
3:21 people, how to listen to needs, how to be creative and innovative. Ultimately decided to go back to nursing
3:28 school and uh and was uh planning to go into clinical care when I got a call from a family friend who ran the quality
3:38 department at Peace Health who said, you know, I think this might be a good place
3:43 for you. And that was that first opportunity for me where someone uh saw
3:50 in me something that I didn’t see in myself reached out and gave me an opportunity that has done so much to
3:58 launch the foundation for me in terms of my career in the quality department. We were half nurses and half engineers
4:05 which was a really interesting mix. So I learned uh to view the world from an
4:11 engineer’s perspective also and uh that has certainly helped me gain process
4:16 improvement skills uh understand data be very outcomes focused all of those are
4:22 important leadership skills. When I got into leadership though uh from quality
4:28 and patient safety the the thing that I really got to learn was the people side.
4:34 That’s the side that the engineers didn’t teach me and um probably the hardest side.
4:40 That’s right. That’s right. So, I think we’ll talk a little bit more about that
4:44 and that transition later on in the podcast, but uh had a few opportunities to lead teams in inpatient hospital
4:53 care. Um got to the point where 247 on call didn’t work with my family. So uh that’s where I went to uh the outpatient
5:06 world with Oregon Medical Group and acquired that job because I had worked with the chief operating officer of
5:13 Oregon Medical Group at uh Peace Health in the quality department. Uh so again,
5:18 just building those relationships and those networks over time is really, really helpful as we’re trying to
5:26 advance our careers and find that next best thing. And at Oregon Medical Group, I went from being a manager to a
5:35 director. And I had actually started to look for other job opportunities. Felt like I was starting to outgrow that
5:42 role. Uh, and I saw this position, the director of health and human services, and I thought there’s no way that they
5:50 would hire me. I have no government experience at all. And I didn’t apply. And then Molly from Acumen reached out
5:58 to me and said, “Hey, are you interested in this position?” And just another opportunity for someone who saw
6:06 something in me that I didn’t see in myself uh to be able to take that next step in my career. And I’m so thankful
6:12 that that happened. Uh this has turned out to be a really nice opportunity for me. It’s kind of funny because I think
6:18 that you might we have a number of folks that we’ve interviewed on the podcast over the year and a half or two years
6:26 that we’ve been um recording and um you know we we don’t really lead with the fact that this is a talent that that
6:36 Acumen placed but it’s really um very fun for us to get to interview you because you are a great success story of
6:44 of um you know one of one of the fantastic placements that Acumen did. And I um I came to work at Acumen after
6:52 you had already gone to work for um the county. But um I had the privilege of um meeting you through u on a public health
7:02 panel that um I had coordinated and was just kind of blown away at how some of the ways that you had kind of um created
7:12 systems that reinforced the mission of the of the work that you had been assigned and in new and imaginative
7:19 ways. And I I hope that you’ll have a chance to kind of discuss some of those those um experiences as well because I
7:26 think they’re really valuable. But um you’ve kind of alluded to maybe a few formative experiences, but if you look
7:32 back over, you know, your career and this journey that you’ve kind of briefly given a a snapshot of, what are things
7:42 that you went through that really shaped what you believe about leadership, how you lead? um you know how you approach
7:51 your work. What would you say are a couple of those or just one if you want? Sure. I think I came into leadership
7:59 very outcomes focused, very much the person who wanted to demonstrate results and that came from kind of the quality
8:09 background, the research background. And as I um started into leadership, my first role I had 90 direct reports.
8:21 Oh my gosh. Yes. Um they they don’t uh you know they kind of drop you in the deep end in the
8:28 hospital. Yes. Uh but in getting trying to figure out how to get 90 people who work seven days
8:38 a week, 24 hours a day to all be operating with the same um you know with the same outcomes in mind uh
8:49 with focused on the same process improvement goals doing getting those outcomes that I was seeking. The only
8:57 way to get there, I discovered the hard way was to build trust first, to build relationships first, to help each and
9:08 every person in that department understand that I cared about them as a human. And I think that that that
9:17 experience of trying to drive results initially before I had developed trust um and watching folks reject that
9:28 then in as I developed as a leader building the trust and watching the results happen was really important and
9:37 transformational for me in understanding that the role of a leader isn’t so much in doing the work. It’s in building the
9:47 relationships. It’s in building the trust. It’s in motivating people who then do the work. And I think that’s a
9:55 that’s a transition I see a lot of leaders kind of go through when they go from being an individual contributor to
10:01 a leader is a sense of maybe I’m not doing enough. I’m not accomplishing enough. And I I sit down with leaders
10:09 and I say, you know, it’s not about what you accomplish. It’s about whom you influenced today and how
10:17 did you spend time to build the relationships within our um department, within our broader organization, within
10:25 our community that will lead to the positive outcomes and the results down the road. So we do a lot with
10:33 partnership in our organization. We do a lot with empowering people and that’s
10:38 all from this early time in my leadership where I recognized that the results that I got were much much better
10:47 when I didn’t actually lead with the results. I led with the people and the relationships.
10:54 Absolutely. And you brought up something that I thought was kind of funny that
10:58 you were thinking, “Oh, I’ll never get this job.” But part of it was definitely they wanted that outside perspective and
11:07 those new thoughts. And then Tannis just alluded to being on this public health panel and hearing. I would love to hear
11:14 some of the different approaches that you’ve taken because this is a big responsibility and people all over are
11:23 struggling with this. Sure. Um, you know, I think focusing on the fact that none of us can solve the
11:33 big societal problems that we face independently. Government can’t do it on our own. Private sector can’t do it on
11:40 their own. Philanthropists can’t do it on their own. We all have to figure out how to partner together for the greater
11:47 good. And uh and so some of the opportunities that I’ve had in this role are things like public private
11:54 partnerships. So, um, we have a project going right now actually in partnership
11:59 with Peace Health. That may not have happened had I not worked there and known the the person who grew up into
12:07 their chief administrative officer there now where uh we are building a crisis stabilization center. We’ve been
12:15 planning to build one in our community which uh is essentially an urgent care and emergency services for people in
12:23 behavioral health crisis and uh Peace Health needed to build a new impatient hospital and uh they identified a
12:31 property that they couldn’t buy on their own and I got a phone call about hey
12:38 what if we go in on this together and it’s been this really incredible journey
12:42 where we’ve been able to uh share each other’s strengths uh in terms of our
12:48 ability to manage some of uh the the land use pieces and legislative policy
12:54 pieces that we’ve needed. Their ability to influence uh in the private sector in
13:00 a way that’s different from how we can kind of influence elected officials sometimes uh as a government entity and
13:08 and all of that. uh ultimately one of the biggest behavioral health campuses
13:13 in our state will be created because of the relationships and the trust and the partnerships that I had cultivated over
13:22 a decade or more with the people who are involved in this project. And I think in looking at how
13:29 we solve the problems that we face, uh even looking at uh a very big problem in my community of Eugene, also certainly
13:38 one that impacts Portland significantly, homelessness. Uh we know that
13:45 the biggest reason that we can’t uh address the problem of homelessness is that we don’t have enough housing
13:53 available to put people into that they can afford. Uh people don’t become stable when they’re on the streets. They
14:00 tend to become addicted. They tend their mental health conditions tend to worsen.
14:05 And um when we put people in housing, we can help them to get better. And we see
14:09 it over and over again with successful results. Addressing the housing challenges that we face is not something
14:15 that government can do alone. This is where we need to bring in private
14:19 developers. We need to bring in housing authorities and everyone who has a
14:24 variety of different perspectives and be comfortable in that muddy messy space of
14:30 people coming with their different priorities and different goals and outcomes but figuring out what is the
14:36 best role for each of these entities to take so that we can collectively make progress on this problem. uh so I think
14:46 that’s uh largely how I view the the big problems that we face and uh then for the the day-to-day work that we do I
14:57 focus heavily on empowering people and letting the experts take on the operations and do the work which helps a
15:06 ton too because it frees up my time to be able to do these big picture items and and build big community partnerships
15:13 and that sort of thing. Well, and you just alluded to that because that really is a great segue
15:18 about leadership and how do you lead and bring your values into everyday operations.
15:27 I think my values uh are very very consistent with the values of Lane County. You know, certainly being clear
15:34 that I’m speaking for myself now and not as a a representative of Lane County. Uh
15:40 but uh the the focus on uh serving those who are underserved, which is really what we do in health and human services,
15:50 is a significant value system of mine. It is one that um that the county uh holds very closely. We have a core value
15:58 of equity and respect. I’m very proud that we’ve maintained that core value over the last year and that our board of
16:05 commissioners reaffirmed that equity and respect continues to be one of our core values in our most recent strategic
16:12 planning process because it’s really about everyone having access to services and um and to opportunity. Uh I think a
16:23 value that I’ve brought into the organization which has been supported but didn’t fully exist before I was
16:30 there is really around um a value of work life balance thinking about that differently and from the perspective of
16:40 how it benefits an organization not how it’s a drain on an organization. So I am
16:46 I am a millennial leader. I am a very geriatric millennial. So, just so everyone knows, but I uh I am a
16:53 millennial and I do bring some of those values with me about not wanting to separate my personal life and my work
17:03 life. And uh when I came in, I started talking to people. I saw how overwhelmed they were coming out of COVID. You know,
17:11 you can imagine because public health is one of the areas I oversee. uh and they uh they were hit even harder with the
17:20 demands of co. So, um, saw just how tired folks were. And I started to say, I need everyone here to go on a two week
17:28 vacation. You know, not all at the same time, of course, but everyone needs to
17:32 get away. And people’s eyes got really big and they thought, well, what’s going
17:36 to happen for 2 weeks when I’m gone? And I went, well, if we haven’t built
17:42 succession planning here to the point that a leader can walk away for two
17:47 weeks and feel confident that the people reporting to them can make good solid
17:50 decisions in their absence, we have a problem. Yeah, we have single points of failure here.
17:57 Um, so just beginning to get people to think that taking time away isn’t a
18:02 drain on the organization. It actually helps prepare us. It helps create leaders in our organization. It empowers
18:10 people who otherwise wouldn’t have that opportunity for an extended period. And
18:16 you know, big bonus, it helps us renew as leaders when we leave and uh we focus
18:22 on life. And I think that that’s true just in every part of flexibility. You know, I came in and I said, “I’m going
18:29 to work, but sometimes I’m taking meetings from soccer practice, and sometimes I’m taking meetings because
18:35 I’m carting my kids around from place to place, and I’m still fully present. Uh,
18:40 but I’m not going to give up uh that opportunity to be a mom.” And I’ve really worn that on my sleeve. And it’s
18:48 been uh it’s been supported by my leadership, which I feel really great about. And the number of people who have
18:55 come to me and just said, you know, people have told me that it was okay to
19:01 be flexible or to, you know, prioritize my family, but I haven’t seen that at the top. And I didn’t really think it
19:09 was safe because I didn’t see it modeled for me by the top leader in the
19:14 organization. And now I know it’s safe because I see you doing it. That was an outcome that I didn’t necessarily
19:21 expect. You know, I kind of expected that people would look at me and go, “Oh, she’s not really committed here.”
19:28 But it’s been the opposite where folks have felt uh like they can be their full self more uh and they can uh focus on
19:38 everything that’s important to them in life, which has helped gain commitment to the organization. It’s helped reduce
19:45 turnover and helped for folks to be um more fully present in the work when they’re there.
19:51 And it helps their mental, you know, cuz cuz as a mom and a business owner and
19:57 you know, somebody who works, it’s there is no separation. It’s not like work is over here, family’s over here.
20:05 It’s all about integration and then what are the priorities and then that’s how how you succeed.
20:12 Yeah. I I’m there’s so much there. I I love this line of um discussion because
20:18 I think we don’t necessarily examine it enough. It’s fun honestly and very
20:23 affirming to hear to hear your story and I love how it impacted um you know everybody at your organization. It
20:30 sounds like you know you’ve you’ve been very clear on what your values are. when
20:37 you add to your team, you know, when you build or when you hire, how do you go
20:43 about that? You know, with with you, do you keep those values in mind or are you
20:47 building based on skills? How do you how do you typically build teams in your role?
20:51 Sure. I think there are some foundational pieces that everyone who works for me needs in order to be
20:58 successful. So, you have to be committed to the mission. Uh you you have to be focused on uh the
21:05 service to others and in uh creating a better community. Uh and you have to
21:11 have humility because without humility you don’t have the ability to examine
21:17 your blind spots and um and that is so critical for a leader. Then from there,
21:24 when I’m hiring for a position, I look at the rest of the people on the team, and I identify where we may be off
21:34 balance. Um, so looking at things like task orientation versus people orientation. Um, someone who moves fast
21:44 versus moving slow. someone who is highly analytical versus being a little less analytical, viewing the world uh in
21:56 in in a way that is maybe not quite as scientific but story-based. All of these are characteristics that
22:03 bring value to an organization. And though it is hard to operate on a team where you have people with all of these
22:12 traits on it, there’s definitely, you know, the the forming storming that happens. Um it I find that uh that by
22:23 supporting diverse leadership and really looking for where are the holes on our
22:28 team, we can solve problems so much better. So I know about myself, I’m a fast mover and I’m more of a task
22:36 oriented leader. I can I can show up with heart and empathy. I can do that. Uh when I am
22:43 very stressed, it is harder for me to do that. There are people on my team though
22:48 who lead with their heart. And I know sometimes gosh, if I’m really stressed
22:53 and overwhelmed and there’s a problem over here that requires intense people orientation,
22:59 I can pull from another leader on my team in order to fulfill that role. Whereas if I hired everyone who was just
23:06 like me, this is another thing that I see leaders do. They um they hire people who are like them. Uh that then creates
23:15 sometimes it can create a team of yes people, which is very dangerous for a leader. uh because we all have blind
23:21 spots and we all need to surround ourselves with people who will push back on us. Uh but it also then limits our
23:28 ability to connect with unique individuals within the organization uh or make decisions that have the needs of
23:36 the the diverse population within our organization in mind. Um, so as hard as
23:42 it is and as much as we have to work through every time we add a new member
23:46 to our team, how are we all going to norm and um and get into that performing stage? It uh I I have so valued having
23:57 people with a variety of different strengths. Um, and I’ve found that I’ve grown from it. I’m much much better
24:05 today in identifying what people need in a situation and how they’re going to
24:12 feel about something. Uh how they’re going to respond to it because I’ve got
24:17 people first people on my team who have provided me that feedback over the years. So, I’ve developed that skill.
24:25 And for them, maybe they’re at the beginning, it’s harder to hold people accountable when
24:31 you’re really focused, right, on making on building and making those relationships. And so, I’ve been able to
24:36 share that with them. And I’ve seen them grow. Uh so, all of us have grown into
24:41 much better rounded leaders uh also because of those diverse skill sets. Uh, so that’s I I think there’s there’s not
24:49 really any characteristic that I look for exclusively. Um, it it really is just when I have a hole on the team,
24:57 what is it that I need in order to fill us out? Yeah, absolutely. And looking at both the hard skills as well as the soft
25:04 skills and we believe in that. It’s all about, as you mentioned earlier on, it’s
25:09 about that alignment between those goals and values. You can learn the others, the other pieces, right? Absolutely.
25:18 So, Evie, here you’ve had this incredible career. Looking back, what advice would you have given your
25:26 20-year-old self or what advice do you give your own daughter? Uh, I think the advice that I would have
25:35 given myself and that I give my daughter is don’t be so hard on yourself. Yeah. You know, I think um so many of us
25:43 who are high achievers have really high expectations of ourselves coming in and it can be hard then
25:50 to um to admit when you make a mistake um to reflect upon that and to not just
25:58 beat yourself up over it. And I think if I would have had a greater openness to
26:05 the fact that I was going to come in and bungle things up and that was going to
26:08 be okay and that was normal and I was going to continue to grow, I think it I
26:15 I it would have just been easier on me and a whole lot less stressful. And I I
26:21 want for leaders who work for me also to feel like it’s okay to make a mistake
26:28 that uh it’s okay to live and learn that uh you know that’s one of the nice things about having worked in a
26:34 hospital. If someone comes to me and they say, “Oh my gosh, this terrible thing happened, I my first question is,
26:41 okay, if we don’t act right now, is someone going to die?” Because that’s what I came from. And the answer is
26:48 always no. In this environment, it’s wonderful, you know. Um, so then I say, “Great, we can fix that.
26:56 It’s it’s not a big deal.” Yeah. And that just lets people be freer to take risks and to be creative and to not
27:06 worry that their head’s going to be on a shopping block because they made a wrong
27:12 a wrong move when actually when they’re doing those sorts of creative, innovative, and risk-taking things,
27:19 that’s how we can advance much faster as well and solve the problems that we
27:24 face. So, I think that’s um if I had someone speaking to me in that way, it probably would have been helpful.
27:32 Excellent advice for Yeah. And yeah, very I think um something that probably
27:38 all of us need to hear no matter what age, but better to learn early, right?
27:43 So, the last question that we always ask our guests is, you know, what hiring for
27:48 good means to you. we chose that title for the podcast because it is iterative and um I’m curious to hear your
27:55 interpretation. Sure. I think in in my setting, hiring for good is about bringing people into
28:03 our organization who want to make a difference and uh particularly people who want to
28:09 make a difference for those in our community who haven’t had opportunity or
28:13 who don’t have access to resources. And I think more so than any organization I
28:21 have ever worked in, this is one where every person I talked to who works in my
28:27 department has that feeling of wanting to serve the community, wanting to make it a better
28:34 place and particularly wanting to make the community better and more accessible
28:38 for people who don’t have what they have. Uh so that is I think for me the best thing that we can do as an
28:48 organization is build that culture where everyone’s in it for the right reasons
28:53 and from there we can figure out the details. That’s wonderful. I was going to say
28:58 that’s so beautiful because I think for doing this almost two years when you look at the impact that that as
29:07 a hiring manager, you impact the individual, you impact the team, the
29:12 department, and you all are really impacting the community. And so, thank
29:19 you as not only an Oregonian, but thank you for for what you do. Thank you and for sharing your wisdom.
29:28 Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks for joining us today at Hiring for Good. If you were inspired by our
29:33 conversation, don’t forget to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get
29:37 your podcasts. And if you want to learn more about our executive search services, check us out at
29:43 www.hiringforgood.net or our company website, Acumen Executive Search. Thanks so much and don’t forget
29:51 to join us next time for another in-depth conversation about transformational leadership.