[NYAPRS Enews] Albany Times Union Profiles OMH Commissioner Hogan

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Profile on Michael Hogan  

 

Albany Times Union   June 18, 2007 

 

Commissioner, Office of Mental Health

59; still looking for a home in the Capital Region 

 

Personal: Married to Barbara Stoutenburg Hogan, a Syracuse native; she
is in Ohio, winding down her job in administration of early childhood
education. They have three grown sons. 

 

What he does: Leads the state's mental health department, which licenses
more than 2,000 mental health agencies, operates more than two dozen
hospitals and serves more than 500,000 patients annually. The budget is
close to $5 billion. 

 

How he got there: Graduated from Niskayuna High School and Cornell
University. Received a master's degree in education administration from
State University College at Brockport and earned a doctorate in
administration of special education from Syracuse University. Interned
at the state Department of Mental Hygiene, and then worked in various
jobs at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, including a stint
as supervisor of Northampton State Hospital. Became commissioner of
Connecticut Department of Mental Health and then director of Ohio
Department of Mental Health, where he served for 16 years. In 2002,
President Bill Clinton (NYAPRS Note: actually it was President George W.
Bush) named him chairman of the President's New Freedom Commission on
Mental Health. 

 

Salary: $136,000 

 

Why did you choose this career path? 

"Every extended family is touched by these illnesses; mine is as well.
Both from that perspective and from the perspective of working with so
many people over the years that are struggling to find their path to
recovery, it's an area that is very challenging and can be very
rewarding. I'm fortunate enough to have my career span the time when
this country has finally started to come to grips with mental illness
and what to do about it in a reasonable way." 

 

What was it like serving on the President's Commission? 

"It was an incredible experience. ... They assembled a really talented
group of people, consumers, family members, advocates, clinicians. They
really gave us a lot of support. They did not censor our work at all. We
traveled around the country and listened to people's concerns and
suggestions. We heard stories that would break your heart and others
that would make you sing, they were so inspiring." 

 

Did anything come out of the commission's recommendations that you are
proud of? 

"Today, we understand that any person can recover. That really is a sea
change, and we understand it partly because of research and partly from
movies like 'A Beautiful Mind.' We have a deeper understanding in this
country now that it's possible for any individual, even when their
condition seems helpless, to get better. Just articulating that, I
think, was really the first public document of the United States
government that said this." 

 

What is your philosophy for caring for the mentally ill? 

"I would think of people as people first, that everybody is an
individual with their own sets of strengths, with their own history,
their own family and with their own hopes and aspirations. ... there is
something about the people themselves that is the most important factor
in their recovery.

 

What are the major issues facing the NY mental health system? 

"Although there's more talent in New York than I've seen anyplace else,
there's also more bickering in the mental health world. The challenge is
to see if all those talented and committed people can find a common
ground." 

 

What are your goals for OMH? 

"We should manage prudently. We should expand an agenda that is
collaborative among all of the players and as we find that common agenda
we should try to work together to raise our sights to what is possible.

"The psychiatric research institutions are unparalleled, and New York
state formally supports several of these: the psychiatric institute at
Columbia and the Nathan Kline Institute at NYU. We have not always found
a way to have the research priorities as well as the results of the
research to really be informed by practice. "We have terrific energetic
leadership at both of those places so we should be building bridges
between what the needs are in the field and what the researchers can
tell us about what works, and then we should put it to practice. That's
one of those areas where if we work together we have great potential."

 

-- Cathleen F. Crowley 

 

  

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