A California native, Belinda Hernandez was born and raised in the agricultural migrant town of Salinas, California. As a first generation Mexican American, and the first in her family to attend college, Ms. Hernandez has over fifteen years of experience advocating for improving the health and well being of our underserved communities. Graduating from UCLA with degrees in Sociology and Chicana/o Studies, she went on to earn a Master’s degree from the School of Social Welfare, Management and Planning at UC Berkeley. For almost 10 years, she has focused her efforts in the field of public health, working in human service administration throughout California including Monterey, Los Angeles, Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties.
Ms. Hernandez’s experience includes working in private nonprofit healthcare, public health and social welfare for the government sectors. She also has contracted with Bay Area counties with the responsibility for the planning and implementation of marketing campaigns for public health programs, which has eventually lead to their expansion in neighboring counties. Ms. Hernandez combines her enthusiastic passion for improving the health and well being of underserved communities with a directed business-minded approach utilizing the concept of quality management that continues to bring sustainability and success to her organization. One of her most notable successes, within two years, she created a vision for a Health Education department, which is now staffed by 12 members. The department is responsible for liaise of all external community partnerships and collaborations, and most internal non clinical educational programs: chronic disease case management, mammography, outreach, perinatal services, oral health, and community projects and campaigns such as Get Fit EPA, the East Palo Alto Community Health Roundtable, and the San Mateo County Childhood Obesity Taskforce to name a few.
Ms. Hernandez continually strives to improve her practice by asking “Are we doing the best we can, with what we have, for our patients/clients?” Her future aspirations include becoming a more experienced leader of a healthcare organization without forgetting where she came from, nor where and who inspires her passion.