Ms. Hester accepted the temporary detail to the Deputy Director on November 18, 2023.
She currently oversees a portion of the Health Care System’s operations services including Fiscal, Police, Health Administration, Strategic Planning and Center for Development and Civic Engagement. Her primary focus is to support and enforce the Facility Budget Deficit Plan for FY24, high reliability and supporting patient care and outcomes.
Ms. Hester is the permanent Senior Strategic Business Partner (SSBP) for the VA Sierra Nevada Healthcare System, which she began on August 28, 2022. Her goals in this role have been to provide a team of staff to improve process efficiencies and great customer service to enhance staff engagement and patient outcomes.
Prior to joining Reno and VISN 21, Ms. Hester was an Associate Human Resources Officer (AHRO) for VISN 20 which includes eight health care systems, five inpatient medical centers, forty-seven community-based outpatient clinics, six domiciliary programs and six community living centers. In this role, she had direct oversight of the following human resources teams: recruitment and placement; compensation; technical review; classification; manpower; human resources information systems; and position management. These staff were all in Shared Service Units that serviced over 8,500 employees throughout the Network. Positions before the AHRO in VISN 20 were SSBP, Portland VA Health Care System; SSBP, Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston; SSBP, Alexandria VA Medical Center; and Staffing Supervisor, Eastern Oklahoma VA Health Care System.
Ms. Hester attended the University of Tulsa after high school and later joined the U.S. Army, retiring after 21 years. After military service, she graduated from Columbia Southern University and ITT simultaneously with degrees in Marketing and Software Development. She later earned her master’s degree in human resources management from Columbia Southern University after beginning her career in the VA.
