Deputy Commissioner
Arkansas Insurance Department
Little Rock, AR
Cynthia (Cindy) Crone currently serves as Deputy Commissioner, Arkansas Insurance Department (AID) where she leads Arkansas's State Partnership Health Insurance Marketplace. A licensed and certified nurse practitioner, Cindy is an experienced program director with more than thirty-five years experience advocating collaborative, effective, sustainable solutions to public health issues affecting vulnerable populations. In 2013 she was selected to serve on the National Academy of State Health Policy (NASHP) Health Care Access and Financing Steering Committee and the Federal Reserve Bank's Eighth District (St. Louis) Health Care Industry Council. Talk Business Arkansas named her as one of seven women influencing health policy in Arkansas.
A member of the 2001 cohort of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellowship Program, Cindy is a member of the Fellowship Alumni Association. Among her past honors are the Entrepreneurial Leadership Award given by the UAMS College of Nursing at their 50th annivarsary celebration in 2003 and the Jim Wright Award for Vulnerable Populations--the top award given by the National Association of Public Hospitals-- awarded in 2004 for creative leadership at Arkansas CARES and its RWJF-funded Local Initiative Funding Partners Project Building Bridges through which she introduced continuing care to addiction treatment services in Arkansas. She has served as president of the Arkansas Nurses Association, Board member of the Arkansas Nurses Foundation, and in multiple other healthcare leadership roles inside and outside of nursing. Other accomplishments include securing more than $83 million in competitive grant funding and providing leadership for professional, civic, and church organizations.
Prior to her appointment at AID, she served in various roles at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) (1987 – 2010): Director of Family Treatment Consultation at UAMS Partners for Inclusive Communities (2007 – 2010); founding executive director of UAMS Arkansas CARES, a nationally recognized family treatment program for pregnant and parenting addicted women and their children and families (1992 – 2006); perinatal outreach nurse with the UAMS Arkansas High Risk Pregnancy Program (1987 – 1991); and faculty instructor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry (1997 - 2006) and College of Public Health (2002 - 2010). Before moving to UAMS, she served as pediatric nurse practitioner and maternal-child nurse consultant and administrator with the Arkansas Department of Health (1978 - 1986). A native of Little Rock, Cindy is married and has one adult son.