Barbie Robinson, MPP, JD, CHC, is the executive director for Harris County Public Health (HCPH) – the nationally accredited county public health agency for the nation’s third-largest county serving a population of approximately five million people.
Robinson has been recognized for leading collaborative efforts to address health disparities, health improvement and health equity throughout her career. She currently sits on a number of national and regional governance bodies including the Co-Chair Representative on the Steering Committee of The Way Home Continuum of Care, the lead agency to prevent and end homelessness in the Greater Houston Area.
Prior to her appointment with HCPH, she served as director of Sonoma County Department of Health Services (DHS) for five years while concurrently serving as the interim executive director of the Sonoma County Community Development Commission for the last 16 months of her tenure with the county.
Robinson has over 27 years of experience in health care administration, policy and research. Before Sonoma County, she worked at the Federal level at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for 15 years overseeing the administration of Federal healthcare programs, including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Medicare Fee-for-Service program, and the Affordable Care Act.
She held numerous leadership positions at CMS, including associate regional administrator (ARA) of the San Francisco and Atlanta Regional Offices Division of Financial Management & Fee-for-Service Operations and lead ARA for Program Integrity for the 10 operating divisions of the Medicare Fee for Service Operations. Her leadership earned her the Administrator’s Achievement Award in 2014.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts with a triple major (Political Science, Spanish and International Sociology) from Middlebury College, her Master of Public Policy, Health and Social Policy from Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, and her Juris Doctorate from the George Washington University Law School. She was admitted to the California Bar in 2000.
Original Appointment: June 2022