Ms. Mayela Castañon serves as Chief Executive Officer for Community Health Development, Inc. (CHDI) in Uvalde, Texas. Prior to becoming CEO in December 2019, Ms. Castañon served as the organization’s Chief Financial Officer for over nineteen years. Her experience in health center, general, financial and grants management operations are a tremendous asset in her role as CEO. Ms. Castanon has led the agency through the COVID-19 public health emergency by maintaining a firm vision on the health and safety of the agency’s patients and staff. Under her leadership, CHDI has been at the forefront of screening, testing, and working with community leaders for the well-being of the community.

Ms. Castañon earned a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration, with a major in Accounting and a minor in Economics from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas in 1993. Ms. Castañon also worked full-time and, along with her husband, raised two children while attending college.

Prior to joining CHDI, Ms. Castañon successfully managed the fiscal operations of multiple manufacturing companies in the Uvalde area, implementing cost controls, aggressively pursuing and securing operational and capital revenue, and serving as an Internal Auditor.

As CFO, Ms. Castañon was dedicated to ensuring the agency’s financial stability through on-going refinements of the agency’s internal controls and financial reporting system. She developed and implemented effective general accounting procedures, introduced various programs to monitor cost controls, improved staff and operational efficiency, and enhanced the agency’s staff recruitment and retention efforts. Ms. Castañon oversaw the agency’s successful MIS conversion to NextGen in 2010 with minimal interruptions in cash flow.

Ms. Castañon is very committed to staff development and continuously seeks out educational opportunities for all staff. Ms. Castañon also works closely with the Board on strategic and long-range financial planning to ensure that the agency remains financially viable.

With her personal philosophy of giving back to the community, Ms. Castañon is dedicated to a number of volunteer and faith-based efforts aimed at improving the lives of the area’s less fortunate.

David A. Valdez, M.D. is a Board Certified Family Physician who serves as Chief Medical Officer for Community Health Development, Inc. (CHDI) in Uvalde, Texas. Dr. Valdez has worked part-time with CHDI since 1997 in various capacities. Dr. Valdez is a graduate of the UT Health Science Center School of Medicine and completed his residency in Family Medicine in 1994.

Dr. Valdez has over 27 years of experience in managed care in Commercial, Medicare and Medicaid health plans. For the last 10 years he has focused on high risk case management/long term services and support programs for disabled (ABD) Medicaid clients. His responsibilities have included utilization management, management of large multi-state clinical and quality teams as well as network development and clinical liaison for the physician and provider network. Dr. Valdez served as the clinical lead in a number of NCQA accreditations and state assessments and has developed and implemented innovative approaches to addressing access and quality of care challenges for the State’s most vulnerable Medicaid clients.

Through his work with CHDI, Dr. Valdez has continued to stay directly involved in the critical day-to-day utilization activities and has leveraged this knowledge to identify and implement successful quality improvement and cost saving initiatives. His work as a provider and Chief Medical Officer with CHDI has been an ongoing passion of that keeps him clinically grounded and aware of the realities of caring for the underserved. His professional goals are to make a positive and measurable impact on clinical operations, quality improvement/ public health initiatives and medical cost savings and to continue mentoring other clinical staff to key leadership positions.

Dr. Kristine Hynes, DDS serves as the Chief Clinical Innovation Officer for CHDI. In this role, she leads the Quality Team and will advocate for the translation of innovation into clinical healthcare applications. Dr. Hynes previously served as CHDI’s Chief Dental Officer from August 2019 to February 2022. Dr. Hynes will continue to provide dental services at Rolling Hills Health in Leakey and will also serve as Deputy Chief Dental Officer. 

Dr. Hynes obtained her AAS in Dental Hygiene from Coastal Bend College in Beeville, TX in 2001 and her Doctor of Dental Surgery Degree from University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio in 2009. After graduation, Dr. Hynes served as Lieutenant in the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) practicing with the Indian Health Service (IHS) in the Navajo and Cherokee Nations from 2009-2013. After her four-year commitment ended, she returned to her home state of Texas and practiced in various locations until the call to public service led her to Durango, CO. Collaborating with the San Juan Basin Health Department and a local community health center, Axis Health System, she assisted in opening a new FQHC Dental Clinic, the Axis Oral Health Clinic, where she served as Oral Health Director from 2015-2018.

In 2018, Dr. Hynes transitioned back to Texas to raise her family. In her role as Chief Clinical Innovation Officer, Dr. Hynes is looking forward to taking CHDI to the next level to ensure improved health services for the community.

Aurora Parra-Suarez joined Community Health Development, Inc. in November 2021 as Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining CHDI, she served as Director of Financial Planning & Analysis with CommuniCare Health Centers in San Antonio, Texas. She has worked in the financial field for federally qualified health centers over 25 years with experience as an Accountant, Accountant II, Accounting Supervisor and Budget Manager. She is 1993 graduate of Our Lady of Lake University earning a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting.

Ms. Dolores O. Quiroz has served as CHDI’s Planning and Development Officer since 1996. She was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. Ms. Quiroz received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1986 and a Masters in Public Health in Community Health Practice from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health in 1989.

Ms. Quiroz has over 25 years of experience in grant writing, grant compliance and monitoring and program development. As Planning & Development Officer at CHDI, Ms. Quiroz is responsible for the design and development of the agency’s programmatic activities in addition to serving as the grant writer. Ms. Quiroz takes the lead in preparing CHDI’s annual UDS report, working the clinical and fiscal staff to ensure the report accurately reflects the agency’s activities. She works with the CFO on all grants management activities.

Ms. Quiroz has successfully overseen CHDI’s two capital improvement projects, both resulting in “debt-free” facilities. Her vast knowledge and experience have served the agency well – identifying, obtaining and ensuring good stewardship of resources; effective planning and implementation of services/programs; timely reporting to stakeholders and funding sources on outcomes and objectives achieved. An ardent believer in community health, Ms. Quiroz has earned the respect of colleagues from across the country for her contributions to ensuring access to quality health care for those less fortunate.

Ms. Abby Vela is the newest member of CHDI’s Management Team. She has served as Chief Operations Officer since April 2019. Prior to joining CHDI, Ms. Vela worked at Uvalde Memorial Hospital for 35 years serving in various capacities. Her last position was as Quality Resources Management Director and in this position, Ms. Vela was responsible for the following areas: Performance Review; Lean Six Sigma Training; The Joint Commission; Compliance / Risk Manager; Safety Officer; HIPAA Officer; Utilization Review; Social Services; Infection Control Services; Employee Health; Statistician; and Quality Review Nurse.
While with UMH, Ms. Vela also held the following positions: Clinic Manager for the Uvalde and Sabinal Health Care Clinics; Registration Supervisor; Quality Review; Billing Supervisor; Accounts Receivable Supervisor; Data Processing Clerk; File Clerk; and PBX Operator.

In her time with CHDI, Ms. Vela has worked on improving patient flow and operations at the agency’s main site: Our Health/Nuestro Centro de Salud, applying her knowledge base in delivering quality services. In her role as COO, Ms. Vela is responsible for the clinical and administrative operations of the organization that includes all activities related to the delivery of services, assuring the adequacy of the delivery system, monitoring provider productivity, responsible for patient flow and general operations. Ms. Vela coordinates with Chief Financial Officer to ensure appropriate internal controls reporting and monitoring system, as well as with the Chief Medical and Dental Officers and the Director of Nursing to ensure the delivery of high quality services. The COO further coordinates with the CPI Manager to ensure quality and effectiveness of services.

Ms. Vela holds an Associate’s degree in Applied Sciences from Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde.

George Suarez, Chief Information Officer has worked at Federally Qualified community health centers for over 30 years. He started his career as a CMA and used that knowledge to grow into data collection and computer related fields.  After having worked at CentroMed for 5 years in front desk and supervisory positions he moved to CommuniCare Health Centers where he worked for 25 years also doing front desk, insurance, and supervisory positions before becoming the MIS administrator and eventually being promoted to the Chief Information Officer position. He joined Community Health Development, Inc. in 2020 and has been instrumental in helping the organization to develop a robust technology infrastructure. He is a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect and has extensive experience in networking, virtual data centers and cloud management solutions. George is also certified in Nextgen EMR, EPM and System Administration.

Ms. Kimberly Jaquez is currently CHDI’s Director of Nursing. She began her employment with CHDI in September 1994, after receiving her Medical Assistant certificate in 1993. Ms. Jaquez is originally from Houston, Texas but has been a resident in Uvalde for 25 years. She is a Licensed Vocational Nurse with plans to become a Registered Nurse. While in Nursing School, Ms. Jaquez maintained a 4.0 GPA and was on the Presidents/Deans list. She also received the “Who’s Who Award” from Southwest Texas Junior College.

She originally began assisting on the medical floor and in 2005 she became the Administrative Assistant to the Director of Nursing. In 2007, she took on the role of Director of Nursing. At this time she served as the CPI Coordinator and continued in that role until 2008 when a full time CPI Coordinator was hired.

As the Director of Nursing, her duties include oversight of nursing staff at all three medical sites, lab, x-ray, and immunization services and the Care Coordinators. Ms. Jaquez works very closely with the medical providers to ensure that quality care is provided, monitoring this through clinical audits. Ms. Jaquez is on CHDI’s Management Team providing valuable insight and perspectives on agency operations.