DHEC health chief quits as new agency director settles in

One of the highest-ranking officials at the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control has quit the agency, less than six weeks after her new boss took office.

Jamie Shuster, director of DHEC's public health division, leaves her post July 15, according to a late afternoon email Friday to employees from department director Catherine Heigel.

Neither Heigel nor Shuster, a former budget director for Gov. Nikki Haley, were available Friday night to explain why Shuster resigned. It was not known if Shuster has another job. But in her email Heigel said she wishes Shuster “the best of luck in her new endeavors.’’ Heigel said she wanted to thank Shuster for “the many contributions she has made to the agency over the past three years.’’

Shuster, 34, was earning $132,600 as director of public health at DHEC, one of South Carolina’s largest agencies. She took a $90,000 position at DHEC in 2012 as part of a new management team brought in by then-director Catherine Templeton. In the years following, Shuster became a key cog in Templeton’s efforts to make changes at the agency. Shuster eventually replaced longtime health division director Lisa Waddell.

But Templeton, who praised Shuster as “wicked smart,’’ quit the department in January after three years on the job. That led to the departure of some members of the management group she brought with her in 2012. Shuster’s resignation is the latest.

It was unclear Friday how DHEC will proceed now that Shuster has resigned. Heigel, who replaced Templeton in early June, did not say when she would name a replacement for Shuster, but she said several top health division staff members would report directly to her.

Heigel, who has proved popular in her short time at DHEC, has said she needs to put together a leadership team during her first 90 days in office.

Shuster, a former North Carolina resident who has a masters degree in health policy from Johns Hopkins University, ran into criticism in 2013 over a tuberculosis outbreak in Greenwood County. Parents were outraged that DHEC had failed to tell them for months about the tuberculosis threat in their children’s school.

Templeton said she knew little of the problem until May 20-21, 2013. But documents later obtained by The State newspaper showed that Shuster, one of Templeton’s closest advisors, knew about the problem weeks before that.

Columbia public health advocate Lynn Bailey, a critic of Templeton’s three years at DHEC, said Shuster was not a good fit as health director.

“You don’t get a Johns Hopkins’ masters in public health and not be smart,’’ Bailey said. “Her challenge was in ....people skills.’’

Bailey said she hopes Heigel will move to improve the department’s health division, which Bailey said is suffering from the loss of many experienced employees under Templeton.

DHEC, with more than 3,400 employees, has two main areas: a health division and an environment division, which functions like a state version of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

DHEC regulates a wide array of environmental and health services that touch most people’s lives at one point or another. The department monitors for water quality, issues pollution discharge permits to industry, oversees hospital expansions and administers public health programs across the state.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 11:21 PM with the headline "DHEC health chief quits as new agency director settles in."