Contact Candace
E-mail: candace4chair@gmail.com
Twitter: @Candace4Chair

Candace L. Strother is President of Daybreak Wellness Solutions, a leader in improving health and mental health service delivery as well as providing innovative strategies for personal health and wellness.

Candace combines her passion for wellness and healthy living with expertise as a licensed mental health clinician. She has counseled and coached hundreds of individuals in both private and community mental health settings and has seen how diet affects mood, behavior and personal performance. Candace received her health and nutrition certification from Teachers College, Columbia University and is an honors graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in Manhattan, NY. Candace is a professional speaker and workshop presenter on a variety of health and wellness topics.

In addition to her interest in wellness education, Candace also has a wide ranging background in leadership, politics, policy and the media. Candace’s extensive government experience in Washington DC includes the White House, the Executive Office of the President and the Cabinet Offices of Labor and Interior. Her responsibilities ranged from management and budgets to communications and congressional affairs. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during the Reagan Administration, she directed agency strategic planning including regulatory priorities, international activities and training and testified before U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees. She also served as Deputy Director of Transition for Labor Secretary William Brock. As the Interior Department Chief of Staff to the Solicitor under President GHW Bush, she directed strategic planning for 385 person law office, chaired the management advisory group and directed external relations with the Congress, media, executive branch and interest groups. She also directed transition and confirmation efforts for the Solicitor. While at the White House Office of Public Liaison, she led issue briefings for individuals and organizations to promote administration policies and prepared issue briefing memoranda for President Reagan and his senior staff.

Candace’s political experience ranges from local organization work to national campaign strategy and issues. In 2009 she led Women for McDonnell efforts in Loudoun County by organizing and emceeing an event with Sheila Johnson. She also emceed a Leesburg rally for Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli. She served as Loudoun Co-Chair of Women for McCain and is an active member of the Loudoun County Republican Committee. Previously she worked with the Republican National Committee, was senior consultant to campaign principals on national and political issues and developed debate briefing strategies for the President and Vice President.

Earlier, Candace worked in the media in Michigan and Washington. Her radio and television experience includes investigative journalism, reporting and anchoring an evening local television news show. She has done media coaching for the Heritage Foundation and coordinated public relations with broadcast media for national and international news programs. She has also provided voice overs for radio commercials aired in the Washington area as well as narrations for corporate industrial films.

Candace has a long history of involvement in civic and community organizations as well as not-for-profits. She has worked with the American Red Cross Board of Governors. She has advised Project HOPE, an international humanitarian and health education organization, on strategies to expand partnerships with top corporate leaders across the country. In April 2009 she led the first embark of 8 CEO’s to the Dominican Republic to visit the Navy hospital ship the USNS Comfort. The group observed Project HOPE volunteer doctors and nurses working with their Navy counterparts delivering aid as part of the Navy’s Continuing Promise 09 humanitarian deployment.

Candace is an honors graduate of Hillsdale College with a B.A. in Economics & Business Administration and English and received her M.S.W. from Virginia Commonwealth University. She attended Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Program: Managing Change and Trinity College, Oxford.