Born November 7, 1950, Hyde attended Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, Missouri,  for a little over a year before moving on to Southwest Missouri State University, earning her Bachelor of Arts in December 1972. She attended law school at the University of Michigan and received her JD in May 1976.

 

She joined the Ohio State Legal Services Association in September 1976 as a VISTA Attorney for one year. Her responsibilities included following and analyzing legislation, regulations and public hearings relating to Social Security Title XX block grants .

 

In September 1977, she joined the Ohio Legal Rights Service, a state government agency that protects and advocates for the rights of adults and children with disabilities. As a staff attorney and chief of the mental health unit, Hyde hired and supervised legal, paralegal and social services staff, and provided written and oral testimony on proposed legislation affecting persons with mental health needs. She represented individual and class-wide clients in civil commitment hearings, employment discrimination cases, and civil rights cases in administrative hearings and state and federal courts.

 

Three years later she was promoted to executive director of the Ohio Legal Rights Service, which came as an appointment from the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. She was in charge of the agency’s overall administrative, fiscal and policy direction. 

 

Hyde’s time with the agency came to an end in April 1983 after Governor Richard Celeste appointed her director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health (ODMH). For the next seven years she oversaw a cabinet-level agency that operated 16 institutions with 6,000 employees and had an annual budget of more than $500 million. ODMH also provided psychiatric services to more than 2,000 inmates in Ohio’s prisons. 

 

In October 1990, Hyde shifted to the Ohio Department of Human Services, serving as director for only four months, before moving to Seattle to take over the city’s Department of Housing and Human Services in January 1991. Her new agency was responsible for the city’s involvement in housing development and supportive services, housing affordability strategies, community services facilities development, block grant administration and human services; family, children and youth services; poverty programs including service for homeless persons, food programs, energy assistance and survival services; Seattle and King County services for older persons (Area Agency on Aging) including the Mayor’s Office for Senior Citizens and citywide coordination and implementation of health and human services for children in Seattle public schools through the city’s Families and Education Levy.

 

Hyde moved again in January 1994, this time to Arizona, to become president and CEO of ComCare. The non-profit organization had a budget of $175 million and focused on providing mental health and substance abuse services for children, adults and families in Maricopa County. ComCare was created from a merger of three organizations, and, under contract with the state of Arizona, was the regional behavioral health authority for 2.6 million people living in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Avondale, Glendale, El Mirage and other urban and rural areas. The agency managed Medicaid, state, local, and federal funding as well as private insurance and self-pay funding sources.

 

In October 1996 Hyde left ComCare to become a senior consultant for Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. , a national non-profit consulting firm that provides human services, behavioral health, and housing expertise for state and local governments and community organizations. Among the non-profits clients she worked with were the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (Medicaid Subcommittee), and the U.S. Department of Justice.

 

Then-Democratic Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico selected Hyde in January 2003 to take over his state’s Human Services Department. She remained in this capacity until receiving her appointment from President Obama. As New Mexico’s secretary of human services, Hyde was responsible for a $2 billion state agency that handled Medicaid, TANF, child support enforcement, food stamps, welfare, the Commodities Distribution Program, and several other federally funded programs for low-income and disabled individuals.

 

Hyde, who is gay, lives with Maggi Konzen, whom she met in Seattle in 1993.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Official Biography (SAMHSA)

Pamela S. Hyde (WhoRunsGov)

NMHSD Sec. Pam Hyde Takes Issue with Dishonesty Accusation (by Heath Haussamen, New Mexico Independent)

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (AllGov)