Governor Sean Parnell announced appointments to several positions in the state of Alaska last week. The governor appointed a long time Veterans Affairs health care director to the Alaska Health Care Commission.
Susan Yeager has worked in the federal government for 34 years. She began her career at the navy base in San Diego. Yeager worked her way up and eventually began working for Veteran’s Affairs.
“I started working for the VA in 1982, and that was in Long Beach, California. That was part of me finishing my masters degree in health facilities administration. My first role at the VA was like an administration assistant.”
Yeager bounced around the country while working for the VA. All the while she focused on health care for veterans. For Yeager, health care was a personal issue that motivated her.
“First of all my dad was in World War 2 and he was in the Army Air Core. And he flew all his missions, then came back to San Diego where we all grew up. So he was a veteran. Then my brother, when he was 17 joined the army in the 101st Airborne Paratroopers and he went to Vietnam. And he was shot with an M16. The Army told him he was too injured and pushed him out. He wanted to stay in the army, that’s what he wanted to do his life, from childhood. But he was hurt, with a serious injury with that bullet spinning through his body. And then he later was killed in an ambush in Africa.”
She says she knew the sacrifice that her family members gave and she wanted to help make the lives of those serving better when they came home.
Yeager and her husband moved to Alaska when he began working for health organizations in rural Alaska in 1990. Yeager became the administrator of the IHS hospital in Barrow. A year later she began working for the VA in Anchorage. She worked for several other organizations and moved around until her most recent position in Anchorage as the health care systems director for the VA.
“For the last, since March 24, 2013, I’ve been responsible for the health care benefits for all the eligible Alaska veterans. My husband, he actually worked in Dillingham for a while, as a doctor at the hospital. And now he’s back in private practice in Anchorage where my job is. So he loves Alaska too.”
Yeager was recognized by the National Indian Health Board for her work in advancing Alaska native health. She was awarded the AstraZeneca-Partnership Award from the National managed health Care Congress.
The Alaska Health Care Commission recommends statewide plans to address quality and accessibility health care for all residents of Alaska. Yeager was chosen to represent the federal beneficiaries such as VA and active duty members. She says she is excited and ready to help the state realize its mission: that by 2025 Alaskans will be the healthiest in the nation and have access to the best health care.