GLEASON TO LEAD HEALTH DEPARTMENT

His first priority will be to help stop methamphetamine abuse, he says.

Stephen Gleason, a Des Moines doctor who has advised President Clinton and
other top federal officials on health-care policy, is to be named today as
the director of the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Gleason, 52, currently is vice president of medical operations for Catholic
Health Initiatives, the parent of Mercy Hospital Medical Center. His
appointment would be subject to approval by the Iowa Senate.

Gleason said Gov. Tom Vilsack approached him about the state post after
Vilsack was elected in November.

"I hadn't really thought about doing a job in the administration, but the
more the governor and I talked, the more it made sense for a variety of
reasons," he said.

The chief one, he said, was personal. Gleason, a father of five with his
wife, Lisa, including two teen-agers at home, was constantly on the road as
a consultant and vice president for Catholic Health Initiatives. "It was
just time to come home," he said.

"I think I can have an impact on the health of children in the state of
Iowa. I think I can have an impact on the health of my children by being
here," Gleason said.

Gleason said Christopher Atchison, who left the director's post to join the
University of Iowa's new School of Public Health, left the agency in good
shape.

He said his first priority will be to help stop methamphetamine abuse.
"That is a critical issue for the state of Iowa," said Gleason.

Gleason, a Democrat, also said he supports a patients bill of rights
proposal that the Iowa Legislature is expected to approve this year. He
wants to raise the profile of prevention programs and support the Healthy
and Well Kids of Iowa insurance program to provide health care to the
state's poorest children.

John Norris, Vilsack's chief of staff, said Gleason is a nationally
recognized leader in health-care policy who will help the governor meet his
goal of boosting preventive medicine in Iowa.

Gleason graduated from Iowa State University and the University of
Osteopathic Medicine and Health Sciences in Des Moines. He has worked
toward a doctoral degree in business management.

He served in the U.S. Public Health Service in the 1970s and went on to
head Mercy Clinics Inc. in Des Moines.

In 1993 Gleason headed a committee of practitioners that helped formulate
the Clinton administration's failed health-care plan.

He's also served as senior health policy consultant to the assistant
secretary of health in the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

In 1997 he was senior medical adviser to the administrator of the Health
Care Financing Administration, the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid.

Gleason said his salary is expected to be about $100,000 annually. "It's
not as lucrative as the private sector, that's for sure," he said.

Reporter Thomas R. O'Donnell can be reached at (515) 284-8449 or
odonnellt@news.dmreg.com