The ‘Comings & Goings’ column chronicles important life changes of Blade readers.

The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].

Kris Perry (Photo courtesy Perry)

Congratulations to Kris Perry who has been named president of the Save the Children Action Network (SCAN). SCAN is the advocacy arm of Save the Children. SCAN’s current president, Mark Shriver, will assume the role of CEO. Shriver said, “We are thrilled to have someone of Kris’ depth and experience in early childhood development and political strategy help us take SCAN to the next level, ensuring we have an even bigger impact for kids in this country and around the world.”

Perry said, “I’m thrilled to join the talented team at SCAN to help achieve crucial victories for children and families across America and around the world. … I look forward to helping SCAN’s noble work to make candidates’ and lawmakers’ support for young children a deciding issue when voters cast their ballots in 2018, 2020 and beyond.”

Perry has dedicated her career to advocating for young children and their families most recently as executive director of the First Five Years Fund, and previously as executive director of First 5 California, and executive director of First 5 San Mateo County. Perry served as a member of the SCAN board prior to accepting this position as president.

Many know Perry from when she and her wife Sandy were the plaintiffs in the Hollingsworth v. Perry legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8 that resulted in restoring marriage equality to the state of California. She received her bachelor’s from the University of California, Santa Cruz California and her master’s of Social Work, San Francisco State University.

Congratulations also to Dustin Wright, who was recently promoted into the Senior Executive Service (SES) after 21 years of federal service. Wright’s first assignment as a member of the SES will be as the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations with the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inspector General. During his 21-year federal career, he has served in the U.S. Border Patrol and two other Offices of Inspector General.

He began his career as a Border Patrol agent in 1996 and worked his way up the ladder.  Dustin said, “I am proud to have served in the federal government and to make it my career.” In his most recent position as Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Investigations in the Department of Energy, he received numerous awards for service and among his other accomplishments successfully wrote, revised and navigated a new department directive detailing reporting requirements of employees and contractors to the Office of Inspector General and supervised and innovated investigative and hotline operations.

Congratulations also to Chip Lewis, who begins his new position as director of communications at NMAC, formerly the National Minority AIDS Council. According to its website, “The new mission from NMAC calls on us to lead with race. NMAC’s urgency is the numbers. Black women are 20 times more likely to get HIV than white women. 50% of black gay men will have HIV by the time they are 35 (8% of white gay men are infected). Even with quality HIV services, the results for many black women and gay men of color are awful. What are we doing or not doing that makes HIV so racially polarized? Leading with race for NMAC means: Normalize discussion about race within the HIV movement; Bending the curve of new HIV infections; and Retaining people of color living with HIV in care.”

Prior to joining NMAC, Lewis spent a good deal of his career at Whitman-Walker Health in various roles including deputy director of communications. Prior to that he served as press secretary for Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.).

Chip Lewis (Photo courtesy of Lewis)