Terrence Shanigan Appointed to Human Services Division Manager Post at AHD

For Immediate Release

Health

4/15/2022

AHD_Press_Release.png

22-005

Terrence Shanigan Appointed to Human Services Division Manager Post at AHD

April 15, 2022 (Anchorage) – Today, the Anchorage Health Department announced that Mayor Dave Bronson has appointed Terrence Shanigan to the vacant Human Services division manager post. Terrence comes to the health department with a wealth of firsthand and professional experience in homelessness, government policy, and public health.

“Terrence's unique lived experiences and long history of service to his community will be invaluable as we continue to address homelessness in Anchorage," said Anchorage Public Health Director Joe Gerace. “With this appointment, the department's senior team is now fully staffed and ready to maximize the important services we deliver to the Alaskans living in our city."

An Alaska Native of Aleut descent, Terrence was born in Kodiak and spent his childhood summers in his family's home of Ugashik in Bristol Bay. He went on to obtain an MBA from Louisiana State University as well as graduate certificates in finance and alternative investments from Harvard Business School. Education policy remains an important part of Terrence's life thanks to his role on the Bristol Bay Native Corporation Education Foundation board.

In the 2000s, Terrence founded Operation PAWS with a friend from his days as a student at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka. PAWS leveraged Terrence's role as a veteran and Alaska State Trooper to mush sled teams along the traditional Serum Route to Nome where he would provide suicide, substance abuse, and homelessness prevention training to local villages. He would later build off those experiences in his efforts with VIPER Transitions – a group that helps prevent veteran suicides – and his extensive work with Alaska Native veterans.

Terrence's human services qualifications include more than 20 years of work on homelessness issues in Alaska as well as time on the Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation Board. Having briefly lived through homelessness while watching close family members struggle to maintain housing, his firsthand experiences continue to inform his work with the Houseless Lived Experience Advisory Board and the Housing, Homeless and Neighborhood Development Commission.

More recently, Terrence has managed public policy efforts within the Alaska State Legislature, both as a legislative chief of staff and as the legislative director for the Bronson administration.

###

Media contact: Tyler Sachtleben, AHD PIO, tyler.sachtleben@anchorageak.gov, 907-343-4670