Longtime Allegheny County Human Services Director Marc Cherna announces retirement

On the first Saturday in March, people might have a tough time reaching Marc Cherna.

It’s the first day Cherna, who will be 70 by then, won’t be the leader of Allegheny County Human Services department.

“After 39 years of dealing with crisis after crisis, it will be good to turn off the phone,” Cherna said Wednesday.

He’s been human services director since the department was created in 1997, a year after Cherna was hired as county Child Welfare Director after a national search.

“I was hired 25 years ago to fix child welfare. We were known as a national disgrace,” Cherna wrote in a letter emailed to colleagues Wednesday. “With the help of our community partners, we stabilized and started on the road to improving services to children and families.”

Jim Roddey, now 88, was tasked with leading the search that ended with Cherna’s hiring.

“Marc impressed us. He had a great background,” said Roddey, a Republican who led the move to Allegheny County’s home rule charter and was the first county executive. “It’s a big job and it got much bigger when he came.”

The Department of Human Services now includes child protective services, aging, employment and other social safety net services like mental health, drug and alcohol treatment and homeless programs in one department.

Cherna, a New York City native, was assistant director with the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services at the time.

Roddey described Cherna as “the most nonpolitical person I have ever known,” and his career in the county is a testament to that. Before the county moved to its present system in 2000, Cherna worked with the three county commissioners, a mix of Republicans and Democrats. Dan Onorato, a Democrat, succeeded Roddey as county executive and current county Executive Rich Fitzgerald, also a Democrat, was elected in 2011.

“To have survived in that position that long is pretty amazing,” Roddey said.

Fitzgerald echoed those sentiments.

“I have mixed emotions. While I am delighted for Marc and his plans for his retirement and some well-deserved rest, his loss at the county will be substantial,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “We are grateful to him for his legacy and for the care and attention that he has given Human Services and the population it served over the past quarter-century and are certain that he leaves us in good stead.”

The county hasn’t detailed how Cherna will be replaced.

“Basically, my motivation is to make a difference in people’s lives,” Cherna said, and that’s been his mission.

His efforts at Human Services have been collaborative and he’s partnered with the foundations and other social service agencies to best serve the people, he said.

“I went out there and asked for help” is how Cherna puts it, and he received that help.

“From the most powerful people in this county to the least empowered, we came together for the benefit of our residents,” he said. “We need to be dedicated to trying to improve the system.”

The strong community support and a dedicated staff have made his job easier, he said, and he’s been overwhelmed by the response as news of his retirement came out.

Cherna has built a staff of people who have “lived experience” that better equips them to help.

“The key is having people who have been there to do a lot of this work,” Cherna said.

The way Cherna has transformed the department has garnered national attention, Fitzgerald said.

“When I meet with my peers, I am undoubtedly asked about how the department does something as other communities want to learn from us and model their own operations after our successes,” Fitzgerald said.

Cherna has been pondering retirement since a health scare a few years ago. It turned out fine, but while he was in the hospital for tests, he thought about life.

“It struck me that there’s a reason no one my age around the country was still doing this work,” he wrote in the letter announcing his retirement. “All things come to an end and if I didn’t take control of my own destiny, eventually I would be either carried out or told to get out. So, I decided to start planning for the transition to occur in early 2021, when I turned 70 and had my 25-year anniversary.”

Roddey was surprised by the decision.

“I can’t imagine he’d retire. I thought he’d be there forever,” Roddey said. “If I had to pick one person that was the number one public servant I’ve ever known, it would be Marc Cherna.”