After long, secretive search, DHEC board names one of its own as new agency director
After more than a year searching, a S.C. board chose one of its own Wednesday to lead the state’s largest regulatory agency.
The board of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control selected fellow board member Richard “Rick” Toomey to lead the agency. Toomey’s salary was set at $178,126 a year.
“He can be a leader of leaders and (that) was evident in the interview process,” said DHEC board member Jim Creel Jr., who made the motion to name Toomey as DHEC director.
Toomey must be confirmed by the state Senate to head DHEC, which has been without a permanent director for 17 months.
S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster said he is “confident” Toomey will be confirmed “quickly.”
“The ... board conducted a professional, thorough and deliberate search for their next director that produced the best candidate,” McMaster said in a statement. “Rick Toomey’s extensive experience in the health-care industry, combined with his proven success leading large organizations make him uniquely qualified to serve as the director.”
A former hospital executive, Toomey was nominated by McMaster in February to fill a vacant seat on the DHEC board and confirmed by the Senate in March.
While McMaster praised Toomey, conservationists were wary, saying they are unfamiliar with his environmental record.
State Sen. Darrell Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, called Toomey’s selection “surprising.”
“I don’t know if there is an agency more important to the success and well-being of the state than DHEC,” said Jackson, who sits on a Senate screening committee that must confirm Toomey. “It’s a huge agency that touches the lives of all South Carolinians, one way or the other. And It’s one ... we need to get right.”
A Greenville native, Toomey was president and chief executive of Beaufort Memorial Hospital from November 2007 to September 2016, according to his biography on the DHEC website. He also has been a health-care consultant and executive in Chicago, Tampa, Fla., and Rocky Mount, N.C.
Echoing McMaster, DHEC board chairman Mark Elam said Toomey’s years of leadership in the health-care industry, coupled with his familiarity with DHEC, make him well-qualified to lead the agency. Elam said Toomey’s selection was made after DHEC’s board considered several highly qualified candidates.
“We’ve got the best possible candidate, and I think Rick will be an outstanding and knowledgeable, perfect candidate for the role — definitely not a fallback and definitely not a second choice,” Elam said. “He was chosen wholeheartedly by the whole board.”
Toomey was one of six finalists for the position.
DHEC did not provide information requested by The State about the other finalists, except their names. The other finalists were: Michael E. Easterday of Nevada; Matthew M. Cobb of Virginia; and Jeff T. Borowy, Thomas F. Carrato and Stacy Taylor, all of South Carolina.
Easterday is a former S.C. lawmaker, who is now a health-care consultant, and Cobb is a health-care attorney. Carrato is an Isle of Palms health-care consultant.
Borowy is chief operating officer for the Charleston County School District, and Taylor is an attorney at McNair law firm in Columbia, according to The Post and Courier of Charleston.
More than 130 individuals applied for the post, and nine were interviewed, DHEC spokesman Tommy Crosby said.
Board members reopened their search for a successor to former DHEC director Catherine Heigel after interviewing several candidates earlier this fall.
Crosby said Toomey applied when the position was reposted and recused himself from the board’s selection process.
The board hired a Greenville search firm, Find Great People, and spent 13 months searching for someone to run the sprawling state agency. The company will be paid 20 percent of the new director’s salary for the first year, in exchange for its help.
The new director faces the task of moving DHEC forward after 17 months without a permanent chief.
Since Heigel’s departure in July 2017, the agency has been run by an interim director, veteran regulator David Wilson. Now, the agency must decide whether to push for tighter regulation of shaky dams, more public health nurses and an array of other issues that critics say need resolution.
With more than 3,000 employees, DHEC is one of South Carolina’s largest state agencies. Its mission is complex, serving as both the state’s health department and its environmental protection agency.
The department, among other things, oversees hospital expansions, provides public health services, issues birth certificates, considers environmental permits, studies water and air quality, and regulates garbage dumps.
Under Heigel, DHEC had been more aggressive than under past directors, seeking millions of extra dollars for programs that she said had been underfunded for too long.
Asked what direction he plans to take the agency, Toomey told The State it was “premature” to outline his goals and priorities before he is confirmed by the Senate. But he said he intends to focus on working with state officials to boost the recruitment and retention of experts to help the agency fulfill its missions.
DHEC’s director search was secretive.
The agency never listed the finalists for the job before picking a director. The agency also blacked out a log sheet of visitors to the agency so The State could not see who interviewed for the job last September.
“A medical professional and health-care management experience is certainly one appropriate qualification (for the job). But we have no particular insight with this individual’s qualifications or experience with environmental protection,” said Bob Guild, conservation chairman of the S.C. chapter of the Sierra Club. “That’s a limitation of a non-public, closed process.”
South Carolina’s environment is under more threat today ever before, Guild added, citing climate change, extreme weather events and the loss of habitat due to development.
“The agency’s mission of environment protection is more important than it’s ever been, and we’re left to wonder what this individual’s commitment is to that mission,” he said.
Toomey, who said he lives by the water in Beaufort County, said he is committed to conservation.
“My goals, aims and beliefs will align with environmentalists. ... It’s an asset we need to maintain and protect,” he said of the state’s natural resources.
Jay Bender, an attorney who represents The State and other media outlets, said DHEC should have released names and information about other candidates it considered before Wednesday’s meeting.
The State submitted a Freedom of Information Act request Oct. 1 seeking the list of candidates that DHEC was considering. Under S.C. law, public bodies are required to release the names of no fewer than the three finalists for a position, as well as all supporting material about the candidates.
“They no doubt have violated the law by withholding the information,’’ Bender said. “By delaying the response, the board deprived the public of an opportunity to comment in advance of the selection ... about who is under consideration.’’
Bender also questioned the secrecy of the hiring process. The DHEC board should have voted to narrow the list of candidates from the original 108 it had considered, he said. It is not known if the board took such action.
But DHEC chairman Elam said there will be plenty of opportunity for the public to examine Toomey’s qualifications during the confirmation process. “Once done, everyone will be quite happy and satisfied with our selection.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2018 at 9:00 AM.
