Welcome to Jaime Aanensen!

Please join CLHO in welcoming Jaime Aanensen as Columbia County’s new Public Health Director!

Jaime was born and raised in Rainier, Oregon. She attended college in Idaho, first at Lewis-Clark State College, where she played volleyball, and then at Boise State University. She majored in health promotion and athletic training at Boise State University. While completing a health promotion internship at a local health system in Boise, she discovered a passion for public health after engaging with infection prevention hospital staff. She decided to pursue her Master of Health Science with an emphasis in health policy.

While completing her graduate degree at Boise State University, Jaime worked in Idaho’s Medicaid program and then for the state public health division in areas ranging from diabetes prevention and control, physical activity, older adult fall prevention, and chronic disease self-management. She then joined local public health, serving in a Program Manager role at Central District Health in Boise before becoming the Division Administrator of Environmental and Community Health at Southwest District Health (Caldwell, Idaho) in 2019. As an Incident Commander, she helped lead Southwest District Health through the COVID-19 response before returning to Central District Health as a Division Administrator in December 2021. During this time, Jaime also served as an adjunct professor for Boise State’s Master of Public Health program teaching a graduate course in managing human resources within health-promoting organizations.

In mid-2022, Jaime decided it was time to return to Oregon to be near her family in Rainier. When she is not working, she can be found reading, being active, and spending time with her husband, parents, sister, niece, and two dogs (a black lab named Duke and a boxer named Rossi). Welcome, Jaime!