A native of Ardmore, Oklahoma, Terry Cline has served as the administrator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration from November 2006 until July 2008. He attended the University of Oklahoma, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1980. Cline earned a master’s and doctorate in clinical psychology from Oklahoma State University. 

 

He served as the clinical director of the Cambridge Youth Guidance Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts and as a staff psychologist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. Following that, he received a six-year appointment as a clinical instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and chairman of the governing board for a Harvard teaching hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

 

In 2001, he served as Oklahoma’s Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. In 2004, Cline was appointed by Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry as the state’s Secretary of Health. During this time, he created Oklahoma’s Integrated Services Initiative, which emphasized a holistic approach to treatment needs and a focus on recovery and support services.

 

After resigning from SAMHSA, Cline served as the health attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad until May 2009. In July 2009 he took over as the Commission of the Oklahoma State Department of Health.