Mary Riley, MPH, RN, CPH served as the Director of the Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness Response (OHSEPR) in the Administration For Children & Families (ACF). The ACF OHSEPR program provides leadership in human services preparedness, response, and recovery, and promotes resilience of individuals, families, and communities prior to, during, and after nationally declared disasters and public health emergencies. OHSEPR coordinates ACF activities in disaster human services, enabling ACF to fulfill its requirements as part of the integrated HHS mission for response to and recovery from disasters. OHSEPR's coordination role facilitates strategic leveraging of ACF-supported programs to support States, Tribes, and Territories in meeting the needs of disaster survivors — through efforts such as, reconstitution of child care and Head Start services post-disaster, ensuring the delivery of domestic violence services through disasters, and addressing the needs of children, youth, and low-income families impacted by disasters. The OHSEPR program has successfully developed and administered the Federal Disaster Case Management Program (DCMP) in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). CAPT Riley co-leads the HHS Disaster Human Services Coordination Group and the Children’s HHS Interagency Leadership on Disasters (CHILD) workgroup. Accomplishments under her leadership include the release of clearance documents including: the HHS Human Services Concept of Operations, Child and Youth Task Force: Guidance for Development, and disaster human services After-Action Reviews with recommendations for improvement.
CAPT Riley has been active duty in the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) for over 28 years. She received her Bachelors of Science in Nursing at Augsburg College and a Masters in Public Health from the University of South Florida. Her PHS career includes over 20 years with the Indian Health Service (IHS) in the field of Public Health Nursing (PHN) in collaboration with several Tribal communities. Key accomplishments in her tenure with IHS includes: grant awards that enhanced community health and wellness efforts; facilitating a model community health assessment and community breastfeeding coalition with Tribal partners; vast improvement in immunization rates; building the rural healthcare facility emergency management plan and leading joint exercises with the Tribes; providing technical expertise to Tribal Emergency Management programs; provide leadership in facility accreditation; authored PHN program policy, and; held leadership roles at IHS Nurse regional and national levels.
Three years of CAPT Riley’s service with the PHS was assigned duty to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) health and medical branch. Accomplishments included the development and implementation of a medical supply procurement system for the research ships, establishing wellness initiatives for the Wage Marines and NOAA Officers, and multiple sea duty assignments in international waters. Across her career, she responded and deployed in eight PHS disaster and public health emergency missions, and was assigned Team Lead for the Region 9 National Nurse Response Team (NNRT).
Prior to commission into the PHS, CAPT Riley worked with the Minnesota Migrant Health Services, and abroad at the American hospital in Cairo, Egypt.