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

The Comings and 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].

Congratulations are due to Tico Almeida. The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation has announced that Almeida, an LGBT civil rights attorney and founder of the national LGBT legal organization Freedom to Work, will be recognized at the U.S. Supreme Court with the 2016 Stevens Award. The Stevens Award was established in 1999 in honor of Joseph E. Stevens, Jr., a former president of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. The Stevens Award is given to a Truman Scholar who is an attorney and has made significant contributions in public service and to the Truman Foundation.

Almeida was originally awarded the Truman Scholarship in 1998 while a student at Duke University, and the scholarship was used for his legal education at Yale Law School. He will be presented with the Stevens Award at a ceremony at the U.S. Supreme Court on June 1, 2016.

The Truman Foundation selected Almeida for the Stevens Award based on his public interest work as counsel to a Congressional Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, advocate for immigrants and Latinos as an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and historic litigation and lobbying efforts for LGBT Americans with the organization he founded five years ago, Freedom to Work. Almeida was a national leader in the campaign to persuade President Obama to sign a historic executive order protecting LGBT workers from discrimination at companies that receive federal contracts.

His background includes previously serving as chair of the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Committee on Labor and Employment Law. While a student at Yale Law School he clerked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Another member of our community who has earned our congratulations is Brian Goldthorpe, who started the Capitol Hill Business Connection. This independent professional networking group of businessmen and women focuses on new business development referrals within the group’s members and membership is open to all. Goldthorpe is dedicated to the open exchange of knowledge and expertise between members. The group has weekly meetings that often incorporate group discussions on overcoming common challenges faced by entrepreneurs, as well as breakout sessions on how to improve internal communication between members and those in their various professional networks.

Goldthorpe is the owner of Privileged Communication (secureyourrep.com) a consulting firm based in Columbia Heights, which specializes in crisis communication, reputation management and messaging. His expertise enables his clients to effectively manage threats to their reputations and navigate crises that put their futures at risk, while also generating goodwill and creating new growth opportunities. He is also a recognized LGBT rights advocate.

(On a personal note, I will be delivering a lunchtime lecture on business development to the group on March 8 from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., which will be hosted at Keller Williams’ offices at 519 C St., N.E. The lecture is free and open to the public. RSVP at [email protected].)

Brian Goldthorpe

Congratulations also to Travis Patton who was recently elected to the board of directors of Whitman-Walker Health. Patton is a partner at PwC LLP where he has focused his practice for more than 17 years on tax-exempt organizations, including healthcare organizations, universities, museums and foundations. He moved to Dupont Circle in 1998 after graduating from the College of William and Mary and then earned his master’s in taxation from American University.

Patton married his husband Jeff Seese in 2011, and together they have been active community members supporting Whitman-Walker, the Point Foundation, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the 17th Street Festival, among other charitable activities. They, along with close friends, are founding members of the annual “Wig Night Out” fundraiser. Upon joining the WWH board in February, Patton said, “I hope to volunteer my experience in accounting and healthcare finance as well as my community engagement to support the organization.”

Travis Patton