Bay Area Reporter - October 18, 2007
Seth Hemmelgarn

Dana Van Gorder, 51, will start the job November 15. Van Gorder is currently director of state and local policy at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, where he's worked the past seven and a half years. There, he's often worked closely with Project Inform staff and state legislators to ensure people with HIV get the help they need. Previously, he worked for the Department of Public Health.

Van Gorder, who's openly gay, said he's honored to get the new job.

"The history of the agency is so strong," he said. "They have made some of the biggest contributions to ending the epidemic."

Van Gorder, whose salary will be $125,000 a year, accomplished a lot at SFAF. Among other things, his work was crucial in increasing access to sterile syringes for intravenous drug users in order to prevent HIV transmission. He also helped increase state funding for HIV programs.

In a prepared statement, Mark Cloutier, SFAF's executive director, said, "Dana's leadership at the local and state level has led to funding and policy decisions that have saved thousands of lives and protected the rights of people living with HIV."

Project Inform has been undergoing some changes lately. Last year, the agency went from having an executive director to a three-person management team. Van Gorder will be stepping into the position being vacated by founding director Martin Delaney, who will serve as adviser to the staff. The agency is looking for a new development director. Glen Tanking is the administrative director.

The agency's budget is $1.5 million. There are 13 staff positions. It also operates a treatment hotline, which has received tens of thousands of calls from around the country since it started in 1985.

For 23 years, Delaney has provided pioneering and essential leadership of efforts to assure the availability and affordability of effective medications to treat HIV, as well as sound treatment information to hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive people nationally and internationally. Delaney will retire from his post as founding director on December 31. He will become a consultant to Project Inform at that time.

"Dana's hiring concludes a long-planned and orderly transition for myself and Project Inform," Delaney said in a statement.

Van Gorder has long admired the agency for its accomplishments. He said that Project Inform has done "courageous" work to ensure new generations of affordable, effective medications are available to people with HIV and AIDS. The group has always made sure people are informed about the latest treatment options available. Project Inform has also strongly advocated for people who rely on programs like the Ryan White CARE Act and Medicare for assistance.

Van Gorder said the next steps aren't definite yet, but he said that the agency is in a good position to address some of the most pressing issues of the epidemic. He noted people living with HIV and AIDS now include more people of color and women, so more outreach is needed to those populations.

Also, he said many people who have HIV don't know it and rates of new infections have remained steady, rather than declining. Nationally, there are approximately 40,000 new infections a year. In San Francisco, there are about 1,000 new infections a year. He said as Project Inform has done since it started early in the crisis, the agency will work at persuading people to get tested. Van Gorder said it's important to work "person by person" to encourage people to get tested and consider treatment in order to make a significant impact on the rate of new infections.

Project Inform will also likely strive to find a balance between working in states such as California that have numerous resources available for people with HIV and AIDS and states where there's limited access to information and treatment.

Van Gorder said the agency's in good shape, but many people don't have the direct emotional connections to HIV that people did in the past, so another challenge will be finding new ways of getting people to donate. The agency doesn't have government contracts.

Project Inform officials will introduce Van Gorder at the Evening of Hope gala Wednesday, October 24. The benefit takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Officer's Club at Fort Mason, 1 Fort Mason at Berry Street in San Francisco. The evening will feature entertainment by Spencer Day, cocktails, and a buffet. Tickets are $150 and can be purchased online.

For more information, including the treatment hotline, visit www.projectinform.org.

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