Christine Jordan Sexton
The job has been vacant for three months, but the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) Secretary Simone Marstiller has hired a new communications director.
Brock Juarez, formerly the Director of Corporate and Strategic Initiatives at Florida Healthy Kids Corporation, begins his new post at AHCA this Friday, according to an agency spokesperson.
Juarez will be paid $90,000 annually. He replaces Tiffany Vause, who left the agency in December.
AHCA did not provide Florida Politics with a copy of Juarez’s job application. Nor did the Florida Healthy Kids Corporation, where Juarez worked for 18 months before joining the agency.
Before working at Florida Healthy Kids, Juarez worked for Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. Juarez isn’t the first AHCA Communications Director who has ties to Patronis. Katie Strickland, Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. Ron DeSantis, worked as Patronis’ spokesperson before moving to AHCA. She then departed AHCA for a job in the Governor’s Office.
Juarez’s wife, Bergen Juarez, also works at AHCA. According to her LinkedIn page, Bergen Juarez has been working in the agency’s communications department on social media management and content development. Bergen Juarez is considered a full-time “OPS” employee and earns $18 an hour. An agency spokesperson told Florida Politics that Bergen Juarez will shift from her job in the communications department that her husband will manage and will instead work in the Medicaid office.
