ADMINISTRATIVE/TECHNICAL SPECIALIST
Naval Sea Systems Command
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Administrative Assistant 5 DOH8785
State of Washington
Dept. of Health
Job Description
Summary
This job is for an experienced administrative assistant who supports the top leader of a public health division by handling scheduling, communications, and projects that keep the team running smoothly.
It involves coordinating meetings, guiding other staff, and helping with urgent health issues, all while working in person at the office in Tumwater, Washington.
A good fit would be someone highly organized, calm in stressful situations, and skilled at managing confidential information while working closely with executives.
Key Requirements
- At least five years of progressively responsible administrative experience, including executive support roles
- Strong organizational skills for managing complex schedules, travel, and time-sensitive tasks
- Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with discretion and sound judgment
- Experience leading administrative projects and initiatives across a team or division
- Proficiency in coordinating meetings, correspondence, and leadership communications
- Skills in coaching, mentoring, and guiding administrative staff to improve processes
- Familiarity with legislative coordination, rulemaking, or public health emergency response
Full Job Description
Administrative Assistant 5
Disease Control and Health Statistics | PERMANENT APPOINTMENT | Onsite/In-Person
This is an in-person position that will report onsite to the DOH office located in Tumwater, WA, daily.
THE OPPORTUNITY:
The Division of Disease Control and Health Statistics plays a central role in disease surveillance, public health laboratories, data, and policy that inform real decisions affecting communities every day.
This role serves as the principal executive assistant to the Assistant Secretary for the Division.
It is a high-visibility, fast-moving position at the center of division leadership, supporting complex operations, sensitive issues, and time-critical decisions.
You will be a trusted partner to executive leadership, a connector across teams, and a steady presence that keeps the division running smoothly and strategically.
Key Responsibilities:
- Provide direct executive support to the DCHS Assistant Secretary, including complex scheduling, travel coordination, correspondence, and issue tracking.
- Manage and prioritize confidential, time-sensitive communications and materials with discretion and sound judgment.
- Serve as a project lead for division-wide administrative initiatives and short- and long-term projects.
- Act as a central point of coordination for leadership meetings, executive correspondence, and official visitors.
- Lead and support the division’s administrative operations, ensuring consistency, quality, and timely delivery of work.
- Coach, mentor, and guide administrative staff across the division to strengthen service, collaboration, and process improvement.
- Support legislative coordination, rulemaking activities, and executive preparation for testimony or briefings.
- Contribute to special projects and support response efforts during public health emergencies when needed.
Why You’ll Love This Role:
- You are close to the work that matters, supporting leadership decisions that shape public health across Washington.
- You have real influence, not just task execution, with a voice at leadership tables and in division planning.
- You work with smart, mission-driven people who value collaboration, trust, and professionalism.
- No two days look the same, offering variety, challenge, and continuous learning.
- You get to build systems, improve processes, and leave things better than you found them.
- Your work is visible, valued, and directly connected to the division’s success.
The Ideal Candidate
You thrive in complex environments where priorities shift and details matter. You are calm under pressure, highly organized, and trusted with sensitive information.
You enjoy working closely with leadership while also supporting and guiding others.
You see the bigger picture, anticipate needs before they surface, and communicate clearly with a wide range of people.
If you like being the person others rely on to keep things moving, aligned, and on track, this role will feel like home.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
We value all relevant experience (paid or unpaid) and encourage applicants from all backgrounds. You must meet at least ONE of the options provided and any additional criteria listed.
Experience may have been gained through paid or unpaid activities. While “Preferred Experience” is not required, these skills or experiences can help you stand out as a candidate.
- Option 1: Five (5) or more years progressively responsible, recent experience (within the last 6 years) providing professional-level administrative support to a unit, manager, director, or executive leadership.
- Option 2: An associate degree or higher AND three (3) or more years of recent experience (within the last 6 years) providing professional-level administrative support to a unit, manager, director, or executive leadership.
- Option 3:A bachelor’s degree in public administration, business administration, health administration, political science, communications, human resources or a related field AND Two (2) or more years of recent experience (within the last 6 years) providing professional-level administrative support to a unit, manager, director, or executive leadership.
- One (1) year of experience in the Administrative Assistant 4 classification may substitute for 2 years of experience in Option 3.
Additional Required Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Experience:
- Experience managing calendars, appointment coordination, and scheduling.
- Experience independently composing letters from drafts, memos, notes, or other instructions.
- Proficiency in preparing, editing, and proofreading professional communication materials; OR successful completion of a college course in editing or proofreading.
- Experience handling sensitive information with discretion and maintaining confidentiality.
- Experience conducting thorough research, including online research, and putting findings together for reports and emails.
- Experience with procurement processes, including ordering office supplies, managing purchase requests, and tracking deliveries.
- Ability to perform data entry tasks including records keeping, travel expense tracking, inventory, and customer information.
- Intermediate or higher skills in using Microsoft office products such as Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint and Teams or similar software for communication, document creation and organization. NOTE: Intermediate experience can be defined as the following:
- Outlook: Ability to manage emails, calendars, and contacts efficiently. Includes organizing inbox with folders, setting up automatic replies and rules, scheduling meetings, sharing calendars, and managing tasks and reminders.
- Word: Proficiency in creating and formatting documents. Includes working with styles, headers/footers, tables, track changes, and collaborating on shared documents. Comfortable with templates, mail merge, and document protection features.
- Excel: Ability to create and manage spreadsheets. Includes using formulas, creating charts, applying conditional formatting, managing large datasets with filters and pivot tables, and conducting basic data analysis.
- PowerPoint: Skilled in designing professional presentations. Includes creating slides with text, images, and graphics, using transitions and animations, and organizing presentations effectively. Familiarity with templates, master slides, and presenting tools.
Teams (or other messaging software and meeting tools): Ability to send and receive chat communications, promote staff/team collaboration, facilitate meetings, and perform voice and/or video calling in a hybrid work environment.
Ability to troubleshoot, monitor, and report issues and utilize video, graphs, and other inclusive presentation tools.
Preferred/Desired Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Experience:
- Additional years of experience in a professional office environment providing higher-level administrative support to an Office Director/Manager or above.
- Experience using SharePoint (or other Cloud-based system) to share, store, access, and organize information and collaborate on assignments.
- Experience supporting executive leadership within Washington State government or another large public agency
- Experience providing feedback and coaching or mentoring colleagues on a regular basis.
- Experience supervising or directly leading 1 or more employees.
- Experience serving as a lead or coordinator for administrative teams.
- Experience working with and communicating across different programs in a large, complex organization.
- Experience assisting with or organizing and coordinating large organizational projects and coordinating regional or state-wide meetings or conferences.
- Experience with Service Central, enterprise facilities coordination, or centralized administrative systems.
- Experience supporting leadership during emergency response or continuity of operations.
- Familiarity with public health, healthcare, or human services environments.
- Knowledge of State government organization and administrative procedures and personnel policies.
ABOUT US:
The Division of Disease Control and Health Statistics
The Division of Disease Control and Health Statistics (DCHS) has over 500 staff and works to improve health outcomes in Washington through data, policy, and partnerships.
Key areas include vital records and health data (Center for Health Statistics), disease investigation and outbreak response (Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology), infectious disease prevention (Office of Infectious Disease), diagnostic services (Public Health Laboratories), and public health policy and legislative coordination.
We are the Washington State Department of Health (DOH)
We're nearly 2,000 professionals across Washington working together to protect and improve community health.
Guided by our values of Equity, Innovation, and Engagement, we address health disparities, respond to emerging challenges, and strengthen systems that support resilience.
At DOH, we help reduce barriers, collaborate with diverse communities, and champion equitable health outcomes. We’re passionate people who are driven to make a difference in public health.
To learn more about the DOH please visit our website and connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and our blog.
Benefits and Lifestyle
We prioritize your work-life balance with one of the most competitive benefits packages in the nation, designed to support your lifestyle. At DOH, you’ll find flexibility, growth, and stability. Learn more about why we’re a great place to work by visiting Work@Health.
Conditions of Employment:
The following terms and conditions of employment must be met with or without reasonable accommodation:
Work Setting, including hazards:
- The position requires regular in-person attendance to perform duties on-site at the Tumwater Duty Station. When not working on-site, this position may work from home, a DOH office, or an alternate location.
- The position requires repetitive use of a computer, creating and modifying electronic documents and using email and the internet.
- The position requires performing repetitive work using a computer for the majority of the workday and is sedentary in nature.
- Exposure to hazards is limited to those commonly found in office environments.
- The position requires working in an open cubicle office setting.
- Work is in a fast-paced environment with multiple assignments, priority deadlines, and frequent interruptions.
Schedule (i.e., hours and days):
- The position has a work schedule of 40 hours per week. DOH business hours are Monday to Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- The position would not normally require working in excess of 40 hours per week, but if it became necessary for business needs, your supervisor would notify you in advance.
- This position would not normally work an alternate schedule, but requests may be considered and are subject to supervisory approval.
Travel Requirements:
- Some travel may be required locally or regionally to conduct business or attend trainings. When traveling for work, the position may require traveling alone or with another employee for multiple days and nights in or out of state.
- When driving for state business, the employee must be able to legally operate a state or privately-owned vehicle; OR provide alternate transportation while on state business.
Tools and Equipment:
- This position uses standard office furniture and equipment, such as a desk, office chair, cell phone, computer, monitor(s), keyboard, and mouse; and when in the office, the position may also require the use of a printer, phone, fax machine, and/or copy machine.
Customer Interactions:
This position frequently requires engaging with customers in a variety of settings including agency staff, agency managers, agency supervisors, and external stakeholders such as Local Health Jurisdictions and citizens.
The position requires daily interaction on the telephone and in writing with customers, some of whom may be upset, frustrated, or irate.
Other:
- The DOH campus is a smoke-free, drug-free, alcohol-free, scent-neutral environment.
- This position may be required to conduct and/or participate in public health emergency preparedness and response activities.
- This position does not have union representations and is not covered by a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
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APPLICATION INFORMATION:
We’re committed to a fair and equitable hiring process. Only materials submitted through the official application will be considered. Emailed resumes or documents won’t be accepted or shared with the hiring manager.
Click “Apply” to complete your application. Attach your resume, cover letter, and DD-214 (if applicable). List at least three professional references directly in your Applicant Profile including a supervisor, a peer, and someone you’ve supervised or led (if applicable).
DO NOT INCLUDE private details like your SSN or birth year, personal photos, transcripts, certifications, diplomas, projects, portfolios, or letters of recommendation with your application.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
We regard diversity as the foundation of our strength, recognizing that differing insights and abilities enable us to reflect the unique needs of the communities we serve.
DOH is an equal-opportunity employer.
We prohibit discrimination based on race/ethnicity/color, creed, sex, pregnancy, age, religion, national origin, marital status, the presence or perception of a disability, veteran’s status, military status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender identity.
Veterans Preference
Applicants wishing to claim Veterans Preference must attach a copy of their DD-214 (Member 4 copy), NGB 22, or signed verification of service letter from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs to their application.
Please remove or cover any personally identifiable data such as social security numbers and birth year.
Questions and Accommodations
If you have questions, need assistance with the application process, require an accommodation, or would like to request this posting in an alternative format, please contact Shawnelle Goalder at employment@doh.wa.gov and reference the assigned “DOHXXXX” recruitment number.
Technical Support
Reach out to NEOGOV directly at 1-855-524-5627 for technical support and login issues.
Additional Information
This recruitment may be used to fill positions of the same job classification across the agency. Once all the position(s) from the recruitment are filled, the candidate pool may be used to fill additional open positions for the next sixty (60) days.
Only applicants who follow the directions and complete the Application Process in-full will have their responses reviewed for consideration.
Experience and education selected, listed, or detailed in the Supplemental Questions must be verifiable on the submitted applicant profile.
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