The sign outside the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority office in Midtown Anchorage is seen on Tuesday. The state corporation has a new chief executive officer. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
A state-owned corporation that manages roughly $800 million in assets for the benefit of Alaskans with mental health issues has a new leader.
Dr. Mary Wilson, a pediatrician who grew up in Anchorage, was chosen by the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority’s board to be the new chief executive officer. Wilson has worked in leadership positions with the Permanente Medical Groups in Georgia and California.
The board announced Wilson’s appointment at a special meeting on Tuesday. She officially starts her new position on Wednesday, the board said.
Wilson succeeds Steve Williams, a longtime Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority official who served as chief executive from 2022 until last July. In the intervening months, Allison Biastock, the trust’s chief communications officer, served as an interim CEO while the board conducted its hiring search.
Wilson worked for six years as executive medical director and president at the Southeast Permanente Medical Group in Atlanta. In that position, she managed the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the organization’s approximately 1,000 employees, according to local news accounts.
Before that, she held senior positions at the Southern California Permanente Medical Group.
“On behalf of the board, I’m very excited that Mary is joining our organization. Her leadership experience and knowledge of our healthcare system will be invaluable as our organization continues to strategically invest in projects and initiatives that lead to improved outcomes for vulnerable Alaskans,” Brent Fisher, chair of the board of trustees, said in a statement.
“I am honored with the opportunity to lead an organization that has such a unique and important role in supporting Trust beneficiaries and the organizations that serve and support them,” Wilson said in the statement.
Wilson is a graduate of Dimond High School in Anchorage, Colorado College and the University of Washington Medical School. She also has a master’s degree in public health from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has retired from her medical practice and returned to Alaska in 2021, Biastock said.
The Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority administers assets of a trust fund that is unique in the United States.
The fund was created in 1994, the result of a lawsuit filed by advocates for mental health patients and people with developmental disabilities. The trust’s assets, which started out $200 million and 1 million acres of land granted by the state, are managed by the authority, generating income that is used for mental health and disability programs. Beneficiaries include Alaskans affected by mental illnesses and intellectual or developmental disabilities, substance abuse disorders, dementia and traumatic brain injuries.
The trust is operated in a manner similar to a private foundation, and the authority that manages it is a state corporation.
Each year, the fund authority administers about $25 million in grants to programs that serve beneficiaries. It also engages in direct advocacy for Alaskans who need program services.
In October, the authority and the Alaska Department of Health and Alaska Department of Family and Community Services jointly released a five-year plan to guide services from 2025 to 2029.
The Comprehensive Integrated Mental Health Program Plan, issued periodically, is required by state law. The newest plan puts an emphasis on prevention and early intervention, according to state officials.
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