Current Kendall County health director named state agency's assistant director

SPRINGFIELD – The current Kendall County Health Department executive director is soon about to take on a statewide roll in public health.

The Illinois Department of Public Health announced in a Monday, June 1 news release that Dr. Amaal Tokars, current executive director for the Kendall County Health Department, will be assistant director of the state health agency. Tokars will begin her role with the state agency on June 8 and succeeds Evonda Thomas-Smith, who is retiring from the state.

“[Tokars] brings a wealth of public health experience with her, including working closely with IDPH for more than a dozen years," IDPH director Ngozi Ezike said in the news release. "Her extensive work in all hazards planning will be extremely valuable as we continue to work through one of the biggest health challenges of our time.”

The update comes after Kendall County officials said during the May 19 County Board meeting that Tokars had accepted another position elsewhere and that she will leave her role as executive director for the county health department June 5. Immediately following that announcement, Tokars declined comment on where she had accepted that position.

Tokars did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Record Newspapers on Monday.

Tokars was executive director for Kendall County's health department since 2005, the state health department news release said. She is a certified public health administrator and has experience in adult education and experience in community engagement, culturally competent service design, planning, performance management, social change, and human services, per the news release.

With the new role in the state agency, Tokars will represent IDPH with external partners and serve as the primary liaison with its 97 certified local health departments, according to the news release.

Tokars has served as the Northern Illinois Public Health Consortium President and is actively involved in the Illinois Public Health Association and Illinois Association of Public Health Administrators, according to the release.

Tokars said in the news release she is pleased to be working with the new state department.

"We need humility during this world pandemic,” Tokars said in the release. “I am always interested in examining data to identify who is being hardest hit. This can inform our community education, health strategies, and even the way we do contact tracing, which will be so important as we continue to battle this pandemic.”