Chief, Bureau of HIV/AIDS

Thomas M. Liberti

Thomas Liberti has served the state of Florida in the public health arena since 1974, beginning his public health career with the STD programs in Dade and Monroe counties. During the 1980's, Mr. Liberti was the STD and AIDS regional director for Tampa Bay. In 1990, he moved to Tallahassee to work with the AIDS program and in January 1997, he was appointed the Chief of the Bureau of HIV/AIDS with the Florida Department of Health.

As Chief of the Bureau of HIV/AIDS, Mr. Liberti is a dedicated and outstanding leader, providing direction to the program in the face of this ever-changing epidemic.  He has worked closely with other public health officials and community representatives to design and implement effective HIV prevention programs and, as a result of his leadership qualities, has developed one of the nation's most comprehensive programs for HIV/AIDS surveillance, education, prevention, early intervention, counseling, testing, care, and treatment.  Mr. Liberti also administers the overall functions of the Hepatitis Program within the Bureau of HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Liberti is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Medical Humanities, College of Medicine at Florida State University.

At the national level, Mr. Liberti currently serves as a member of the Executive Committee for the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD). Mr. Liberti served on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Health Resources and Services Administration Advisory Committee (CHAC) for six years.  He has developed a unique perspective on HIV/AIDS, enabling him to put Florida’s experience in the context of the national epidemic. Mr. Liberti was awarded the Nicholas Rango Leadership Award for his national and state involvement and recently was given a leadership award by Florida’s AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETC) where he is a member of the Management Committee.

Mr. Liberti is an ex-officio member of the Florida Supportive Housing Coalition Board where he serves as a key resource for people with HIV/AIDS in need of greater supportive housing opportunities.

Mr. Liberti is highly respected among his peers and possesses a spirit of compassionate involvement in his work with HIV/AIDS. He is an extraordinary individual whose HIV/AIDS expertise is invaluable.

Marlene LaLota, M.P.H.: Ms. LaLota serves as the HIV Prevention Director for the Bureau of HIV/AIDS. Ms. LaLota has a BS in Biology/Chemistry/Anthropology from the State University of NY at Albany and a master's degree in public health from Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Public Health. She became interested in HIV/AIDS in 1986 when she conducted a knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs survey in New Haven, Connecticut for a school project. Her training in epidemiology has led to research on influenza in New Haven, Lyme Disease in Cairo, Egypt, and HIV in Florida. She began her career at the Florida Department of Health in 1988 as an epidemiologist conducting HIV seroprevalence surveys in a variety of settings in Miami-Dade and Duval counties, and the statewide Survey among Childbearing Women. These studies provided some of the earliest data on the scope of the epidemic in Florida.

Ms. LaLota became the Program Administrator for the Early Intervention Section in 1997, managing the HIV testing program, the perinatal HIV prevention program, corrections initiatives, linkage activities, and a variety of research projects, including behavioral surveillance. In 2008, the Early Intervention and Prevention sections merged and Tom Liberti appointed Ms. LaLota as Florida's prevention director. In addition to the activities listed above, the Prevention Section is responsible for community planning, behavioral interventions, the faith initiative, social marketing, capacity building, technical assistance, evaluation, educational materials, community mobilization, the hotline, and contracts with community-based organizations. The prevention section also oversees the Enhanced Comprehensive HIV Prevention Plan (ECHPP) project, which is part of the national 12 cities initiative.

Ms. LaLota is a member of several organizations, such as the American Public Health Association and the Florida Public Health Association. She is active in several CDC and NASTAD workgroups at the national level, and has co-authored several national guidelines related to HIV. She is widely published and is considered a national expert in several areas related to HIV/AIDS.

Joseph May is a graduate of the University of Florida and began his career with the state in 1987 with the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. He worked as a public assistance specialist assisting clients with accessing AID to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) services as well as Medicaid. Mr. May then moved to the Office of Child Support Enforcement where he assisted with the enforcement of child support orders and later worked with the courts to establish both paternity and support orders.

In 1990, Joe experienced his first exposure to public health when he accepted a position with the Leon County Health Department. While primarily being a contract manager, he also learned a lot about health department operations and acted as a back-up to a variety of staff. After a couple of years, Mr. May accepted a position with Developmental Services as district contract manager.

In 1994, Joe joined the Bureau of HIV/AIDS and has worked with all of the Patient Care programs during his tenure here. For most of the time, he was the AIDS Drug Assistance Program Manager and in 2005 he became the administrator over the Patient Care Section.

Philip E. Reichert, M.P.H.:  Mr. Reichert is the program administrator for the Florida Department of Health’s Hepatitis Prevention Program in Tallahassee.  He has worked in the public health field in STD and HIV/AIDS prevention and control for nearly thirty years.  He earned his bachelor’s degree in communications from Florida State University and his master’s degree in public health from the University of South Florida.

Kate Goodin, M.P.H. is a graduate from Arizona State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Microbiology. While there she studied many health-related topics and completed her senior thesis on community health controls for disease transmission among rural communities in Uganda. She then enrolled at The George Washington University where she obtained a Master's of Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. While in Washington, D.C. she completed a rotation at the District of Columbia Department of Health in the Data Analysis and Biostatistics Section. Ms. Goodin moved on to employment at the City of Alexandria Department of Health establishing a West Nile Virus surveillance system. She then worked with the City of Alexandria to complete her Master's thesis titled: Complaints against food service establishments in the City of Alexandria, VA and their implications on subsequent restaurant inspections. After graduation from her Master's program, Ms. Goodin accepted a position with the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center (formerly the Naval Environmental Health Center) where she worked on pandemic influenza preparedness, electronic laboratory report and pharmacy transaction data analysis, cancer trend analysis, heavy metal exposure evaluations, and many other topics related to troop and dependent wellness. Ms. Goodin moved to Tallahassee in 2007 and began her career with the Florida Department of Health in the Bureau of Epidemiology. While there she managed the Respiratory Disease Unit which was responsible for surveillance of several respiratory pathogens including influenza and RSV. As of October 2011 Ms. Goodin has moved to the Bureau of HIV/AIDS and now works as the Senior Epidemiologist.