SAMHSA Region IX
90 7th Street, 8th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-437-7600
Emily.Williams@samhsa.hhs.gov

• National Resources

CAPT Emily Williams, LCSW-PIP, BCD is the Regional Administrator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Region IX. Her career has focused on underserved populations and has spanned more than 20 years of service delivery of Behavioral health services within the Indian Health Service and DOD. From working as a clinician in remote clinics to standing up an telephone Outreach Center for Active Duty family members and Veterans her ability to work with individuals and communities has strengthened the suicide prevention and crisis response in local, state and national arenas.

Since her commission as a United States Public Health Service officer in 2004, CAPT Williams has served a central role in conceptualizing, developing, and training federal mental health disaster response teams within the USPHS. She has served as a team leader and deployed to numerous public health emergencies including hurricanes, multiple Tribal behavioral health emergencies, the 2010 American Samoan Tsunami and coordinated deployments to assist hospitals with accreditation support.

Assistant Regional Administrator, Region 9
Hal Zawacki
Hal.Zawacki@samhsa.hhs.gov

Hal has been working with underserved populations in the health care/behavioral health/homeless fields for over 27 years. He worked for 8 years in drug treatment programs, homeless shelters, suicide/crisis intervention, and county jail in the San Francisco Bay Area in the capacity of a case manager, substance abuse counselor, and group facilitator. He attended graduate school at the University of California Berkeley (MPH & MSW) where his graduate work included research on health insurance policy, homelessness, and intravenous drug use.

In 2000 he began his Federal Service as a Presidential Management Fellow with the National Institutes of Health, working on projects with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute of Mental Health. Following this, he moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and began working for the Social Security Administration (SSA) as a Policy Expert for the Supplemental Security Income program, which provides income support for aged and disabled, low-income populations.

After five years with the SSA, Hal began work with the Health Resources and Services Administration, where he was the Region 9 liaison for Behavioral Health, Border Health, Homelessness, Migrant & Seasonal Farmworker Health, Rural Health, and Telehealth issues. He was the Regional representative to national work groups on Behavioral Health, Border Health, Homelessness, and Rural Health; and served as the national chairperson of HRSA's Regional Operations Homelessness Workgroup, which coordinated HRSA Regional responses to the inter-related issues of healthcare and housing/homelessness.