Orange County supervisors Tuesday hired a new public guardian.
By a 4-1 vote, with Orange County Board Chairwoman Michelle Steel dissenting, the board selected longtime Orange County Health Care Agency employee Jenny Qian for the post, which oversees conservatorships for individuals who are unable to care for themselves.
Qian also previously worked at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
In related personnel news, Margaret Bredehoft was introduced to the board Tuesday as the new deputy public health director for the county. She takes over for David Souleles, who abruptly retired amid the coronavirus pandemic in April.
Bredehoft, of Tustin, previously worked for Providence St. Joseph Health and earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in public health from Loma Linda University. She earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine.
Bredehoft said she helped St. Joseph open “28 clinics in 10 months and then COVID-19 happened, so we had to shift gears and figure out how to do this… and what we were able to do was pretty remarkable.”