Champion of the underdogs, Church retires

SALT LAKE CITY — As she cleans out her desk in the corner office at the Department of Human Services, retiring executive director Lisa-Michele Church says she won't forget Utah's neediest citizens.

They've taught her things she never learned in law school or a corporate board room. After talking with them personally and observing some of their lives up close, she's felt their pain.

She'd picture them individually in her mind during legislative funding battles and walk the floor during sleepless nights wondering about how they would manage with fewer services, when so many were already at the end of their ropes.

Now, she'll wonder about them as she returns to practicing private law with her husband, David, and watches from the sidelines as former Salt Lake City Mayor Palmer DePaulis takes the helm.

"I have loved every day of it, even the really tough days," she said, reflecting back on five years of leading an organization charged with caring for the state's most vulnerable residents. "I'll remember the people that shared their stories with me. My predecessor told me to get out in the field, and she was right."

She said the best thing she did after she got the job was spend four to five weeks talking with some of the department's 5,200 employees, randomly selected. She asked three questions: What do you like, what is your biggest challenge and how can the executive director help you?

"I didn't have one person say they were underpaid. The vast majority of people said they loved making a difference in their clients' lives. Our biggest challenge was a lack of resources."

A former corporate attorney for Sinclair Oil, Church said she had a social conscience to go with her business background. And that's exactly what then-Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. was looking for.

Church said she brought good analytical and advocacy skills to the table, and applied them to budgets, as well as broader philosophical issues. "I started questioning what our outcomes were producing: things like, 'How are we getting mentally ill people back into the work force?' " rather than simply focusing on providing services.

She looked at the dynamics of what happened when children entered foster care, and asked what percentage chance they had of being re-abused, and what percentage would come back into the system. Then she looked at why.