PEORIA MAGAZINE July 2022

A s COVID-19 shook the world, Monica Hendrickson was hurt led into the Peor ia spotlight. Until then, Hendrickson diligently but quietly had been serving as public health administrator of the Peoria City/County Health Department. But as COVID hit, she realized that central Illinois needed straightforward updates about the burgeoning pandemic. Hendrickson quickly became a familiar face on local TV as she delivered daily reports to the public and media with the latest data and advice. Amid the tempestuous and unnerving unknown of a pandemic, she became a steady and reliable voice for the community. “I think a leader is one who tries to bring everyone up,” she said. “Just because you’re head of an agency doesn’t make you a leader.” The l eader sh ip l es sons for Hendrickson began in her childhood. Now 39, she was born in Michigan to Ujwala and Bhausaheb Shete, both immigrants from India. The latter continued his education in America and became a nuclear engineer, a job that prompted multiple moves amid three states. The relocations helped Hendrickson learn flexibility. “When you move enough times, you have to be adaptable,” she said. One stop also taught her resiliency. She spent much of her childhood in Augusta, Ga., where she sometimes encountered racism in an area with few Asian immigrants. Though most of her classmates treated her as just another kid, others would curse at her and yell, “Go back where you came from.” “You gauge how to communicate in those different types of avenues,” Hendrickson said. Other teaching moments came from family. Her father, who never stopped marveling at the notion of borrowing books – all free! – at public libraries, forever pored over words and pictures with Hendrickson. They especially enjoyed National Geographic . “We looked at places we’dwant to visit,”

she said. “It made the worldmuchmore understandable.” One family trip took them to China, where they viewed the Terracotta Army, the famous collection of sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. Her wide eyed father gushed in wonder, “I saw the image in National Geographic , and now I’m standing here.” Her budding curiosity extended to science. One day, she impetuously took apart the household rotary phone. Her mombarely blanched before telling her, “Put it back together” – which the young girl did quickly and with aplomb. Hendrickson also enjoyed parsing math and science equations, so much so that she planned to study medicine when she left home to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. But during a trip to India, she observed the health woes caused by poverty, hunger and poor housing. Wanting to address those challenges on the front end of the equation – why see just a handful of patients a daywhen you can prevent illness among the masses? — she decided to pursue epidemiology. She later earned her master’s degree in public health at the University of Michigan, learning to use statistics and data to analyze and prioritize health policy. “I started realizing that (public) policy matters,” she said. Sheworked inpublichealth inmultiple places in Illinois before becoming the public health administrator of the Peoria City/County Health Department in 2017. She coordinated the policies and activities of the department, in connection with state and federal mandates, all along crunching numbers in her self-described role as a “data nerd.” Like most public administrators, she largely functioned in anonymity. Until COVID-19. In March 2020, Hendr ickson became the leader and linchpin among representatives of multiple agencies and organizations that came together to form a cohesive front against the virus. Though lacking experience in

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