John Colmers
(Vice Chair)

John Colmers currently serves as Secretary of Health & Mental Hygiene for the State of Maryland.

Formerly, he served as program officer for the Milbank Memorial Fund, a New York-based endowed national foundation that provides nonpartisan analysis, study, research, and communication on significant issues in health policy.

He spent 19 years in Maryland State government where he held various positions, including executive director of the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) and the Health Services Cost Review Commission, the agency overseeing Maryland’s all-payor hospital rate setting system.

Mr. Colmers is a contributing editor of the American Journal of Public Health and was recently named as a director of CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield. He served as chair of the steering committee of the Reforming States Group, a bipartisan group of executive and legislative leaders. He has been a member of AcademyHealth for many years and has served on the Nominating Committee
(2002–4), the Health Services Research Information Advisory Committee (2003), and the Academy Fellows Committee (2002–3).

Mr. Colmers has a B.S. from the Johns Hopkins University and an M.P.H. from the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.