Kathy Flores is looking forward to a few things when she retires as director of the San Benito County Health and Human Services Agency on May 7. First, she wants to spend some time visiting her mother who lives in Southern California.
She also wants to spend time visiting her two adult children, who live two hours south and two hours north of San Benito County. And as a detailed-oriented person who has spent 32 years working in the public sector, she has another challenge she will tackle at home.
“I want to clean and organize my closets,” Flores said. “I know it sounds really boring.”
Flores, 60, a graduate of the University of California, Irvine, took her first job with San Benito County in 1986. She started as an accountant with the Community Action Agency, a department that evolved into Community Services and Workforce Development.
One of the things that helped her move up the ranks in the county was the mentoring from her first supervisor Herman Fehl. When Fehl was promoted to a higher position, he encouraged Flores to apply for his former job.
“He was an excellent mentor,” she said. “He would give people projects to push them to go a little further.”
When he retired as deputy director of CSWD, he encouraged Flores to follow in his footsteps once more.
“I wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility,” she said. “But we had an excellent staff” and community partners with the Community Action Board and Workforce Investment Board.
Flores recalled how involved such residents as Marley Holte, who founded the Holte Holiday dinners, was in making sure the needs in the community were met.
In 2004, when the director position opened up at HHSA, the then county administrative officer asked her to consider an interim appointment. Again she wasn’t sure if she wanted the responsibility.
“It is a really big department and a really big job,” she said. “But the CAO said, ‘Let’s try it out.’”
Flores found that she enjoyed the challenge of the job, but more than that she liked mentoring her staff.
“I love seeing personal growth in people,” she said. “If you take the time to listen and hear out their fears, you can ask, ‘What would you do? What do you think?’”
The Health and Human Services Agency oversees a variety of programs, many that are mandated by the state. Flores is responsible for such departments as Community Services and Workforce Development, Public Health, Environmental Health, Behavioral Health, Child Protective Services and more. She has a team of deputy directors who work closely with her to maintain services that often help the most needy residents in the community.
Some of the services provided under HHSA include Cal-Fresh, the state’s food assistance program, unemployment services and job training programs.
“I really value the programs and how they can be a help in a transition when a family has lost a job or has a financial emergency,” she said.
When Flores hears from people who don’t see the values of the programs, she has a story she likes to share.
“There was a young family some years ago – the dad lost his job and they were expecting a baby and had one baby already,” Flores said. “The family got the unemployment services and food stamps.”
Flores said the family was college educated and they used the services for a few months before they got back on their feet.
“That family was mine,” she said. “It helped us for a couple months to get us through the crisis.”
She remembered also the support they received from a local church that gave her and husband Cesar Flores a food basket.
“I still get choked up,” she said.
She described her parents as very proud people who worked hard. They are the ones who instilled a work ethic in her and a devotion to her family.
Though she took a several years off to stay at home with her children when they were young, Flores put in 32 years in the public sector since she landed her first job out of college in 1976. She worked with the public health department in Orange County, where she helped to register residents for what was then a new program, Women, Infant and Children, which provides some types of food to pregnant women and children up to age 5 to promote good nutrition.
“It was helpful in understanding what public health does,” she said.
She and Cesar moved to San Juan just before their daughter was born in 1977, when their son was a toddler. When her kids were a few years older, she started working at San Juan School.
The family moved to Death Valley for a few years when her husband worked for the National Parks Service.
“That was a really special time,” she said. “We were so close to nature – geology, astronomy. It was at the time of Haley’s Comet.”
The living arrangements were remote in the desert park and the children had to ride hours to get to the one-room school room they attended.
“It made us really strong as a family,” Flores said.
She said she sometimes uses that analogy when she deals with her staff.
“This is like a family at the kitchen table,” she said of a conference table set up in her San Felipe Road office. “Sometimes also as a parent you have to be a little stern to establish parameters and remind staff of the common goals.”
Flores let her staff know that she would be retiring in 2012-13 a year ago. She started using up some vacation time through the year and left deputy directors in charge as manager on duty. The process helped to reassure her that the department is in good hands.
“It is a letting go process,” she said. “I had to recognize this is the end to a phase, but there is another phase that I don’t know what it will be.”
The County Board of Supervisors decided a few months back that they would seek an interim appointment of a county employee to replace Flores. They have met several times in closed session to discuss the appointment, but have not made a final decision.
“I respect whatever decision they make,” Flores said. “Once the person is named, we will have a couple long meetings (to prepare for the transition.)”
She said the biggest challenge for her replacement will be dealing with changes that are coming down from the state and funding cuts for many programs.
“The new person will need to find their style of doing things,” she said. “I don’t believe there is a cookie cutter approach. As long as you are courteous, diplomatic, calm and compromising, you can create harmony.”
While she says she will be accessible to her successor since she lives locally, she and her husband do have a trip to visit her mother and then they will attend his mother’s 85th birthday. The couple is also hoping to take a summer vacation, perhaps to Mexico. Flores said she wants to get more involved in volunteer work in the community. Her husband, Cesar Flores, who is 9 years older, has been retired for a while and is involved in many nonprofits such as the San Benito Arts Council.
“We live here and have a vested interest in giving back to the community,” she said.
