In Her Local Government Role, Physical Therapist Makes Seniors a Priority

As a full-time physical therapist, Julie Rogers was bound to be passionate about health care. Since 2012, she has worked to provide her constituents in Kalamazoo with discounts for prescription drugs and fought for them to have full access to their Medicare benefits. Now she’s working on programs to help seniors age in place and retrofit their homes to make them safer. 

Health care isn’t the only issue where Rogers is making a difference. To improve road safety, she has fought for wider shoulders, improved signage and more trail connectors. She’s helped create more than 1,500 jobs by working on environmental cleanups, serving on the Kalamazoo County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority Board. 

In January, Rogers became the chair of the county board, after a near-unanimous vote by her fellow commissioners. 

Her top priority is to get plans for a new courts and administration building “back on track.” Plans for the $100 million project had languished in 2018 after the county received preliminary designs. Additionally, Rogers has said she wants the county to join a class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers, and to reconvene a criminal justice council focused on young adults.

 

Read about the Women in Government program and the rest of the honorees.