Jody Michael Huckaby recently was hired as executive director
of Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (PFLAG), the national
D.C.-based organization. (Photo courtesy of PFLAG)
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YUSEF NAJAFI
Friday, March 25, 2005
The new executive director of a national organization created to provide support
for gay families said he plans to focus more attention on helping gay youths and
reaching out to faith-based groups.
Jody Michael Huckaby, a 40-year-old resident of Northwest Washington, D.C.,
recently was hired as director of the national office of Parent Families &
Friends of Lesbians & Gays. The organization was created to promote the
health and well being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons and
their families and friends through support, education and advocacy.
“I hope to expand PFLAG’s outreach to teenage GLBT and questioning
youth,” he said, “particularly teenagers whose parents and family
members need support and education, thus expanding on our ‘Our House to
the State House’ program.”
He said he also would like to expand PFLAG’s outreach to more faith-based
individuals and organizations, “so that when urgent legislative issues
arise, our PFLAG chapters will be more prepared to partner with them, along
with their many other community allies, in a unified response.”
Huckaby, who was executive director at the Washington Humane Society, an animal
protection agency that serves homeless, lost, and abused animals in D.C., since
February 2002, began his job at PFLAG on March 8. He replaced David Tseng, who
had been PFLAG’s executive director for two years.
Huckaby was chosen from 60 applicants. PFLAG’s national president, Sam
Thoron, would not disclose whether interim executive director Ron Schlittler,
who now works as the group’s deputy executive director, was one of the
applicants for the top job.
Thoron did say, however, that the members of the selection committee reviewed
each applicant, and were clear from the moment they saw Huckaby’s entry
that he was going to be one of the finalists.
“It was the depth of his experience in managing nonprofit organizations
that we found very attractive,” Thoron said.
Huckaby, a native of Eunice, La., earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology
from the University of Dallas, in Irving, Texas, in 1989. He also has a substance
abuse counseling certificate from the University of Houston.
Huckaby, the seventh of eight children — four of whom are gay —
moved to the nation’s capital three years ago, from Albuquerque, N.M.
In New Mexico, he worked as the executive director for the New Mexico AIDS Services
Inc., before leaving there to accept a leadership role at the Washington Humane
Society.
In Washington, Huckaby continued his work in HIV/AIDS advocacy, by working
for AIDS Action, a national organization, in the public policy and lobbying
arenas on Capitol Hill.
“I am extremely honored and excited, by the opportunity to join the PFLAG
family, and about the impact we will continue to make over the next couple of
years on GLBT issues,” Huckaby said.
Huckaby said he wants to further develop PFLAG’s educational and advocacy
efforts, which he said often go unnoticed. The organization has more than 500
chapters in 50 states.
“PFLAG chapters are so much more than support groups for mothers and
fathers,” he said. “The other two-thirds of what our organization
does is education and advocacy. People don’t realize that PFLAG is actively
involved in many of the school systems across the country, advocating for safer
schools, stronger policies, [and greater] education for counselors about the
importance of addressing GLBT youth and questioning youth.”
He said he also plans to focus on transgender issues, including improving TransNet,
a fledgling network affiliated with PFLAG that is designed to connect transgender
people across the country.
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