Lance Robertson
Administrator and Assistant Secretary for Aging
Lance Robertson was appointed to serve as Assistant Secretary for Aging and ACL's Administrator on August 11, 2017.
His vision for ACL focuses on five pillars: supporting families and caregivers, protecting rights and preventing abuse, connecting people to resources, expanding employment opportunities, and strengthening the aging and disability networks.
His leadership in the fields of aging and disability began in Oklahoma, where he served for 10 years as the Director of Aging Services within the state’s Department of Human Services. Prior to that, he spent 12 years at Oklahoma State University, where he co-founded the Gerontology Institute and served as the executive director of the nation's largest regional gerontology association.
Asst. Sec. Robertson earned his undergraduate degree from Oklahoma State University and a master of public administration degree from the University of Central Oklahoma, and he is a veteran of the United States Army.
Mary Lazare
Principal Deputy Administrator
Mary Lazare was sworn into office as the Principal Deputy Administrator for the Administration for Community Living (ACL) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on June 19, 2017.
Ms. Lazare comes to ACL from St. Louis, Missouri, where she served from 2004 to 2006 as Vice President for Home and Community-Based Services for Lutheran Senior Services. As Vice-President, Ms. Lazare reorganized and developed a structure to streamline the operations of home health, hospice, and private duty services. She also reorganized older adult outreach social services such as SHIP, the Good Neighbor Program, and elder fraud prevention.
Prior to this role, Ms. Lazare served as Vice President of Senior Care Facilities and Community Health Ministries at Ascension Health, the nation’s largest health system. As Vice-President, Ms. Lazare provided community health center oversight; and advanced advocacy work with government relations officials.
Ms. Lazare also served as Vice-President of Senior Services and Home Care Services at BJC Health Care for 13 member hospital systems and 6 skilled nursing facilities. She developed one of the first housing with support services program at a retirement campus in St. Louis.
She also served as Executive Director for the Jewish Center for the Aged, for a 280 bed Medicare/Medicaid Skilled Nursing Facility. As Executive Director, she worked with the Ombudsman Program and enriched shared living for developmentally disabled older adults.
Ms. Lazare’s extensive senior health experience reaches into the community, where she served as Chair of both the Missouri Association of Homes for Aging and the American College of Health Care Administrators. She is a 2000 graduate of Leadership St. Louis and was a member of the Leading Age House of Delegates.
Ms. Lazare received her undergraduate degree in therapeutic recreation and recreation therapy from the University of Missouri in Columbia. She later received Master’s Degrees in Gerontology from Lindenwood University and in Business Administration and Management from Maryville University of Saint Louis.
Julie Hocker
Commissioner, Administration on Disabilities
Julie Hocker joined ACL as the Commissioner of the Administration on Disabilities on October 1, 2018. Hocker brings to the role extensive experience in operational process improvement, risk management, and effectiveness assessment.
Hocker joins ACL from the Charles Koch Foundation, where has served as a senior manager since 2016. In that role, she has led several key initiatives to improve the foundation’s operations, including development of an integrated technology and data solution for fundraising, grantmaking and expenditures; redesigning process to improve investment tracking and enable better analysis of effectiveness; and creation and implementation of risk-management processes.
Previously, Hocker served in a variety of roles with The Vanguard Group and as an analyst for the Administration for Children and Families. In addition, she has been a senior policy fellow for the Center for Human Dignity at the American Conservative Union Foundation since 2015.
Dr. Whitney Bailey
Deputy Administrator for Regional Operations and Partnership Development
Dr. Whitney Bailey was appointed to serve as ACL’s Deputy Administrator for Regional Operations and Partnership Development on December 11, 2017.
Dr. Bailey’s career work includes behavioral health, education, community engagement, and research. As a former professor, clinician, and community-engaged scholar, Dr. Bailey brings a broad range of expertise to ACL. Throughout her career, she has provided direct mental health services in community and medical settings. She has worked closely with the aging and disability networks, leading led multiple competitive grant projects. Such projects included evaluations of state-funded Medicaid Waiver programs, innovative projects that involved Assistive Technology (AT) and nutrition education. She is passionate about ensuring research directly informs and improves the ways in which individuals and families experience community living.
Dr. Bailey leads ACL’s Regional Operations, including a team that provides technical assistance, training and monitoring of grants to each state, territory and more than 270 Tribes. Her service to ACL also includes Partnership Development, leading strategic efforts to ensure ACL is engaged with a diverse range of partners to best advance its critical mission. Finally, Dr. Bailey is currently serving as lead for the Department of Health and Human Services’ efforts to establish two new advisory councils; one to address the needs of family caregivers and a second to focus on the needs grandparents raising grandchildren and older relatives caring for children.
Dr. Bailey holds a Ph.D. in Family and Child Ecology from Michigan State University, a Master of Science degree in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Arkansas, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Family and Environmental Resources from Northwest Missouri State University.
Dan Berger
Deputy Administrator for Management and Budget
As Deputy Administrator for Management and Budget, Mr. Berger serves as the Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and oversees the administration of ACL’s financial resources; discretionary and mandatory grants; information technology and telecommunications; procurement and facilities services; personnel and human capital development; and internal control activities. Under his leadership, the Center for Management and Budget is responsible for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of ACL’s operations and providing effective administrative services to support ACL’s programs.
Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Berger served in a variety of budget and management positions in HHS. Management positions at AoA included Director of the Center for Management and Budget, Director of the Office of Management Analysis and Resources, and Director of the Office of Information Resources Management. He entered federal service as a Presidential Management Fellow in 1997 and spent 8 years as a budget analyst in the Office of the Secretary and AoA.
He received a Master of Public Administration degree from Northeastern University and bachelor’s degrees in history and politics from Brandeis University. He resides in Fairfax, Virginia, with his wife and three children.
Vicki Gottlich
Director, Center for Policy and Evaluation
As the Director of the Center for Policy and Evaluation (CPE), Vicki Gottlich oversees the coordination of effort across ACL program offices to manage the evaluation of, and reporting on, the performance of ACL programs; the provision of technical assistance on performance measurement to ACL grantees; and assisting ACL’s organizational units in developing operational plans that include measurable objectives and performance indicators.
Prior to serving as the Director of CPE, Ms. Gottlich served as a senior advisor to Sharon Lewis, Principal Deputy Administrator (ACL), focusing on policy issues involving health insurance and Long-Term Social Services (LTSS). Ms. Gottlich came to ACL from the Centers for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where she headed the Consumer Support Group (CSG). CSG certified assistance counselor programs for the private Marketplaces; implemented and oversaw external appeals procedures; and implemented and oversaw the summary of benefits and coverage, which provides consumers with standardized information about private health insurance plans.
Before joining HHS in 2011, Ms. Gottlich worked as an attorney and beneficiary advocate for older people and people with disabilities, engaging in policy work, litigation, and administrative advocacy. She focused on issues related to Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, LTSS, adult guardianship and end-of-life decision making. Ms. Gottlich is the author of numerous articles regarding Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and private health insurance.
Ms. Gottlich has a Juris Doctor degree from New York University and a Master of Laws in urban legal studies from George Washington University Law School.
Josh Hodges
Acting Deputy Administrator, Center for Integrated Programs
As the Acting Deputy Administrator for the Center for Integrated Programs Mr. Josh Hodges oversees ACL’s administration of programs and initiatives that serve both older adults and people with disabilities, as well as their families and caregivers, including consumer access and protection programs, as well as programs and initiatives that promote the use of self-directed and person-centered service models.
Mr. Hodges joined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2010, and most recently served as Director of the Office of Healthcare Information and Counseling, overseeing the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, the Senior Medicare Patrol program, and the Medicare Improvements for Patients & Providers Act program. Earlier in his career, he worked as a management consultant across more than a dozen federal agencies assisting them with reorganizations, strategic planning, and business process improvements.
He earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Science in political science from West Texas A&M University.
Dr. Robert Jaeger
Director, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research
Dr. Jaeger's research experience spans more than four decades. Much of his work has been focused on disability and rehabilitation research. He came to ACL in December 2017, following 10 years with the Office of Research and Development at the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), where he first served as Scientific Program Manager for Prosthetics and Rehabilitation Engineering, and then as the Director of Post-Deployment Health Research. Prior to his time with the VA, he was the Program Director for the Research to Aid Persons with Disabilities Program at the National Science Foundation. He also served as a Special Volunteer (adjunct research biomedical engineer) with the Rehabilitation Medicine Department at National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center.
In 1987, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR, the precursor of NIDILRR) awarded Dr. Jaeger a Mary E. Switzer Fellowship. In 1997, he entered government service and came to NIDRR to serve as a Program Specialist, with responsibilities for the Peer Review process, the Field-Initiated Grant Program, and the Small Business Innovation Research program. From 2000-2006, he served as NIDRR’s Director of Interagency and International Affairs. In that role, he also served as the Executive Secretary of the Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR).
His earlier roles included 17 years as a Professor at the Pritzker Institute of Medical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. While he was at IIT, he also had adjunct faculty appointments at the medical schools of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.
He earned the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Jaeger is a Vietnam Era Veteran, having served in the Human Factors Branch at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base (CA), and then in the Radiobiology Division at the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base (TX).
Edwin Walker
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aging
As the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aging of the Administration on Aging (AoA) within the Administration for Community Living, Mr. Edwin L. Walker serves as the chief career official for the federal agency responsible for advocating on behalf of older Americans.
In this capacity, he guides and promotes the development of home and community-based long-term care programs, policies, and services designed to afford older people and their caregivers the ability to age with dignity and independence and to have a broad array of options available for an enhanced quality of life. This includes the promotion and implementation of evidence-based prevention interventions proven effective in avoiding or delaying the onset of chronic disease and illness.
Prior to joining the Administration on Aging, Mr. Walker served as the Director of the Missouri Division of Aging, responsible for administering a comprehensive set of human service programs for older persons and adults with disabilities.
He received a Juris Doctor degree in law from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Media Arts from Hampton University.
Bob Williams
Director, Independent Living Administration
Bob Williams joined ACL in January 2016 as the Director of the Independent Living Administration.
Active in disability rights since high school, Williams came to Washington, DC, to go to college and has lived and worked here for over three decades. Most recently, he served as the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for Retirement and Disability Policy at the Social Security Administration. In that role, he led several interagency initiatives to create greater opportunities in career paths, employment, and economic mobility for people with significant disabilities. He continues to advance those goals here at ACL.
In earlier roles, Williams headed SSA’s Office of Employment Support Programs and has advised the Kaiser Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, and other organizations on policy issues affecting the health, independence and economic well-being of people of all ages with disabilities. He also served as the Commissioner on Developmental Disabilities and then as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy at HHS. He also helped gain the passage of the ADA and to create community living services and supports to children and adults once consigned to Forest Haven, the District of Columbia’s institution for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.