Connie Mendel, MPH, Interim Chief Health Strategist
On May 31, 2023, Connie Mendel was appointed Interim Chief Health Strategist of the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness by Mayor Craig Greenberg.
Connie is focused on building a sustainable public health workforce, operationalizing health equality in the department’s daily operations and removing barriers which prevent people from attaining their highest level of health.
She has devoted her career to public service beginning in 1997 when she joined the Jefferson County Health Department as an environmental health specialist in the Hazardous Materials Emergency Response, Food Safety, and Mosquito Control programs.
She steadily ascended the ranks and prior to her appointment by Mayor Greenberg served as Senior Deputy Director where she led the department’s COVID-19 response, administrative and finance operations, regulatory operations and enforcement, emergency planning and preparedness, and the Public Health Laboratory.
Connie’s accomplishments include overseeing the city’s COVID-19 response, implementing LMPHW’s vector-borne disease surveillance program for West Nile virus, assisting in the creation of the CDC’s Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER) Course following Hurricane Katrina, developing guidelines for Louisville Metro and Kentucky’s public health response to methamphetamine-clandestine drug laboratories, Ebola decontamination, multi-chemical train derailments and post 9/11 anthrax incidents. Connie serves as chairperson of the Louisville and Jefferson County Hazardous Materials Ordinance Appeals and Overseers Board and has been a member of the Louisville/ Jefferson County Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) since 2007 and served as Secretary from 2010-2016, leading the organization’s planning and facilitation of emergency response training exercises and conference events.
Connie is a fellow with the Kentucky Public Health Leadership Institute and actively participates with the Kentucky Health Departments Association, as a member of the Executive committee. She earned her Bachelor of Science from the University of South Carolina and Master of Public Health from University of Louisville.
Away from the job Connie spends time with her husband and fifteen-year-old daughter, their two dogs and three cats, enjoying the outdoors boating on the Ohio River. She can also be found cheering on her beloved Gamecocks during college football season and passionately following UofL women’s basketball and volleyball.
