Health dept. leader retiring

SANDUSKY — Longtime Erie County health commissioner Peter Schade will retire soon, probably in June. The announcement, at Tuesday's public health board meeting, launched a search for a new health commissioner, board president Linda Miller-Moore said. Job advertisements will be posted immediately with applications due Oct. 26. The hope is to hire someone by the end of March, Miller-Moore said. A task force running the search process is chaired by Miller-Moore and includes three other board members: Dr. Dina Bauer, Ron Brown and Dr. Richard Keller. Schade, 62, cited exhaustion and said he also looks forward to seeing what the young leadership team he has assembled can do. "I wanted to enjoy some things in life that I haven't been able to," Schade said. "I want to take a break and rest. I'm tired, like mentally." Schade said he has never taken more than four or five days of vacation and said he took four days off in August to test what retirement might be like. "It was really great. I gardened. I cooked on my patio with charcoal," he said. Schade became the health commissioner in 2005. At the time, the department had a budget of $2 million and about 46 employees. It now has about 180 employees and a budget of about $30 million but has not raised property taxes since 2005. New programs Schade started include a detox center and other substance abuse treatment, a community health center, multiple branch clinics in Erie County and Huron and Ottawa counties, a vaccine program for people traveling to other countries and a regional water laboratory. Schade and his wife, Colleen, live in Huron and have three grown children.