Secretaries' Innovation Group

Contact us:

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Jason Turner, Executive Director, rusticator@gmail.com

Michelle Hays, Membership Director, michelleh.sig@gmail.com

The Secretaries' Innovation Group is a membership organization of state human service and workforce secretaries, founded in 2011. We exchange state program innovations and press for national solutions which favor healthy families, work, economic self-reliance, budget responsibility and limited government. 

Who are the members?

Our members are made up of activist Secretaries of human service and workforce agencies (sometimes titled directors or commissioners).  Members gather to learn of successful innovations which have been executed “on the ground”;  to hear of new opportunities to design or replicate initiatives which advance the goals of family health and self-reliance;  to formulate options for waivers and other administrative vehicles for state freedom of action;  and to consider and approve joint moves which advance the policies of limited government and state autonomy, including recommendations to the Congress and the Administration. 

Steve Corsi, Chair & Chief Executive Officer, Nebraska Dept. of Health and Human Services

Dr. Steve Corsi is the newly appointed Chair of the Secretaries' Innovation Group as of 2025. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Department of Health and Human Services for the state of Nebraska on August 16, 2023.  Corsi's most recent role is acting CEO of the Central Wyoming Counseling Center. He has been director and/or CEO of the Missouri Department of Social Services, Wyoming Department of Family Services, High Country Behavioral Health (Wyoming) and the Cornerstone Behavioral Health Group in California. In 2019, Corsi became president/CEO of Volunteers of America Western Washington, where he significantly recruited and retained the workforce, expanded early childhood offerings and grew the organization's revenue from $17.2 million to $115 million during his nearly four years of tenure.  Corsi earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees from California Baptist University in psychology and counseling psychology, respectively. He received a Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) in clinical psychology from Alliant International University – San Diego.​

 
Jason A. Turner, Executive Director

Jason A. Turner formerly served as Mayor Giuliani’s Commissioner of New York City’s Human Resources Administration for his entire second term through 2001.   The agency is responsible for welfare, employment, Medicaid and child care programs, and has seventeen thousand employees with a budget of fifteen billion dollars.   Before New York, Turner worked for Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (1993 – 1997) where he led the state team to develop a fully work-based alternative to welfare (Wisconsin Works).  Earlier, Turner served as the federal director of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) at HHS during the first Bush administration.