On Nov. 5, Luis Ayala became the Los Angeles County Medical Association's new director of government relations, filling the position left vacant when David Pruitt accepted a job as executive director of the California Medical Association Political Action Committee. In his new LACMA post, Ayala will be at the forefront of the association's advocacy efforts.

While settling into the job, Ayala will be conferring closely with LACMA's executive leadership. "We're going to be working as a team to figure out what we want to do over the next six months to a year to get [LACMA's] positions in front of the decision makers," Ayala says.

Access to healthcare, issues involving insurance plans, healthcare reform and MICRA will continue to figure significantly, he says. "Those are obviously some of the priorities, but we also want to tackle local issues here with the LA County Board of Supervisors," he says, mentioning the closure of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital specifically.

With a range of professional experience in federal, state and local government, Ayala has built up connections that he hopes will benefit physicians. For the past three years, Ayala worked as senior deputy for LA County District 1 Supervisor Gloria Molina. He simultaneously held a position as vice mayor of the city of Alhambra for the past year. On the state level, Ayala worked as former Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh's senior legislative consultant and as former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa's legislative assistant for more than two years. In Washington, D.C., Ayala served for a year as an aide to U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra
(D-Los Angeles).

Born in Salinas, Ayala lives in Alhambra with his wife and two children. He holds a master's degree in planning, administration and social policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.