Erica Fishman is the Affiliate Representative to the APHA Governing Council from the Minnesota Public Health Association. She has been a member of APHA and MPHA for 40 years. In APHA, she has been active in the Sexual and Reproductive Health Section. She is currently the chair of the Great Lakes Public Health Coalition and represents them on the APHA Council of Affiliates. In MPHA, she has held elected and appointed leadership positions. Erica is a founding member and co-leads the MPHA Health Equity Committee. She retired from the Minnesota Department of Health but continues to be a public health advocate!

Mark Stevens currently works for the Illinois Department of Public Health as a Regional Health Officer. Before that, he was a local health department administrator for 29 years. Mark is currently the Affiliate Representative of the Governing Council for Illinois for APHA. He served on the COA and the Action Board with APHA. Mark is the past president of the Illinois Public Health Administrators Association as well as having served on many workgroups. Mark is the Past President of the Illinois Rural Health Association. He is currently an Executive Council member of the Illinois Public Health Association and has served as a member for his entire 30 plus year career in public health.

Ella has an extensive background in public health advocacy, public health policy, Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), and programming, spanning over the past fifty years in the City of Flint and surrounding areas. Specific efforts in public health ethics have focused on providing an awareness at the community level, developing and elevating the community voice and advocating for community inclusiveness. Ella’s areas of expertise include facilitating community/academic/practice partnership building and sustainability; developing, managing, and evaluating community-based projects; and training programs for graduate students, community members, as well as middle and high school students partnering with community-based organizations, schools, and public health agencies. In addition to serving as a community-academic bridge on the local, state, and national levels, Ella currently serves as the Community Based Organization Partners (CBOP) Community Ethics Review Board (CERB) Administrator and the Michigan Affiliate Representative for the Governing Council (ARGC) of the American Public Health Association (APHA).

Since 2017, Kristen Grimes has served as the Director of Prevention Services at Vivent Health (a new organization founded on the combined expertise of AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, Rocky Mountain CARES, St. Louis Effort for AIDS and AIDS Services of Austin) providing leadership and direction for Wisconsin prevention services statewide. Ms. Grimes is the current APHA Representative and a past president of the Wisconsin Public Health Association. She also served on the board as an at large representative and co-chaired the Joint Public Affairs and Workforce Development committees. Ms. Grimes received her bachelor’s degree in Community Health Education in 1999. She earned her master’s degree in Organizational Management in 2004. Ms. Grimes has been a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) since 1999 and received her Master CHES in 2011.

Kelly is a Program Manager with the Center of Public Health Practice in the College of Public Health at The Ohio State University. She leads organizational development projects, coordinates CPHP's Public Health Training Center (PHTC) grant activities, and is a Youth Mental Health First Aid instructor. Before joining CPHP in 2016, Kelly worked in local public health in both Ohio and North Carolina, where she was a health educator and a community health planner. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Physical Education and Health with a concentration in Community Health Education from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, a master’s degree in Public Health Headership with a focus on Public Health Practice from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is a certified health education specialist.

Joan Trendell is a retired public health professional with 35 years of experience in local, state and national public health. She is a board member of the Indiana Public Health Association and serves as Indiana’s representative to the American Public Health Association’s governing body. Joan received a BS from Cornell University and a MS from Case Western Reserve University. She is a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist and Licensed Dietitian in Indiana. Her work in the field of public health included service delivery and management in local and state WIC programs (Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program), grant management at the Indiana State Department of Health, and senior leadership at the Marion County Public Health Department, from which she retired in early 2019.