MICHELLE MELÉNDEZ
Enhanced Referral Program Manager
Michelle Melendez is the Enhanced Referral Program Manager at St. Joseph Community Health. She leads the effort to connect families with community resources, and identifies systemic barriers that inform St. Joseph’s policy advocacy agenda. Michelle focuses on identifying new and nurturing existing St. Joseph Community Health relationships with community organizations, government and other partners in the non-profit and private sectors. Since coming to St. Joseph Community Health in 2007, she has planned, led and evaluated many programs and projects. She is the project visionary behind Albuquerque Women earn (entrepreneurial artisans resource network), an enterprise project of St. Joseph in partnership with the South Valley Economic Development Center.
She’s been a member of the UNM Hospital Board of Trustees since 2006, and previously served on the Governor's Committee on Health Coverage for New Mexicans. She is on the advisory board of Move the Mountain Leadership Center, whose aim is to end poverty; and on the community advisory committee of Con Alma Health Foundation. She is a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Ladder to Leadership Program with the Center for Creative Leadership. She is active in a number of community advocacy efforts, serves as an anti-racism co-trainer, and is the co-author of Chicanas in Charge: Texas Women in Politics, with Gutierrez, Jose Angel. Alta Mira Press, 2006.
She began her career as a newspaper reporter after graduating from UNM with a degree in journalism. Michelle was a staff reporter for the Albuquerque Journal for six years, did freelance writing in Mexico City for a year and worked for the Ft. Worth Star Telegram for five years. Upon returning to New Mexico, Michelle spent five years as a Health Promotion Specialist at the State of New Mexico Department of Health. At DOH, she provided technical assistance to nonprofit organizations and community groups in the areas of community organizing, communication and media strategy development. For other groups, she assisted with developing strategic planning and program implementation strategies.
Michelle is the mother of two girls with her husband. She is completing her Master’s degree in Public Administration from UNM, with an emphasis in non-profit management. Michelle believes that when people work together, they can improve their own and their families' and communities' health. She envisions the day when every child in every neighborhood in New Mexico has access to quality, affordable, culturally-responsive health care, education, and housing, and to enjoy safety, employment and the other foundations for a beautiful, long life. She brings this optimism to her work at St. Joseph Community Health.