TOPEKA — Chris Tilden, director of the state’s Bureau of Local and Rural Health, has announced he will leave in June for a new job in Idaho.

Tilden is scheduled to become the executive director of the Mountain States Group in Boise. The non-profit agency has a number of programs, including those dealing with maternal and child health, mental health, refugee services and rural health.

The Bureau of Local and Rural Health is an office within the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Tilden has worked in the office for nearly a decade.

"Working at BLRH has been the most rewarding experience of my professional life,” Tilden wrote in an e-mail he sent out Thursday afternoon. “I am proud of the achievements of our bureau, made possible by partnership with countless stakeholders and collaborators. I treasure the many friendships I have made at KDHE and with partner organizations and providers I have met and worked with across the state. I am inspired by their work each and every day and consider every one of them a true hero."