Sandy Matheson announced Friday she is resigning as chief executive officer of Hanford Environmental Health Foundation at the end of the month.

She is ready for a career change, she said, after working for HEHF for 812 years, most of that time as CEO and president.

"She has led HEHF through extraordinary and challenging times, and created the changes we needed to become the strong organization that we are today," said Dr. John Lein, chairman of the HEHF board. "This is a real loss for HEHF, but we also understand and support Sandy's desire for change."

HEHF holds the Hanford contract to provide health services such as medical monitoring and surveillance, work conditioning, behavioral health, health education and infection control at the site.

The HEHF board plans to name Lee Ashjian, who joined the foundation as president in April, as president and CEO. The foundation also has recently named a new medical director, Dr. Bill Brady, who previously owned an occupational health business in Utah.

She's had inquiries about working as a consultant or on other projects. She plans to combine work on some new projects and some time off over the next few months as she considers her next career step.

"I'm open to new possibilities," she said.

She plans to remain in the Tri-Cities, where she's heavily involved in community activities, including the Tri-City Industrial Development Council.

Matheson managed HEHF through significant changes at Hanford. In recent years, with the government under pressure to operate more efficiently, HEHF has reduced costs by a third and dropped the number of employees from 135 to about 89.

HEHF has held the Hanford contract for health services since the 1960s.

Under Matheson's leadership, HEHF has consistently won excellent and outstanding performance ratings from the Department of Energy. HEHF also has led other DOE sites in some improvements in recent years, implementing a sophisticated database that measures, records and stores information on health risk exposures for workers.

The information can be used to determine medical monitoring needed for individual workers to prevent health problems.

Most of HEHF's work is for the Hanford site, but in recent months Matheson has started looking for opportunities to expand.