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BY EUAN BEAR

urlington — While bidding

farewell to now former director

Kendall Farrell, the Vermont
CARES Board of Directors has appointed
Peter Jacobsen to replace her. Jacobsen
was already working at CARES as the
Director of Prevention Programs.
Vermont’s oldest AIDS service and pre-
vention agency appointed Jacobsen after
conducting a national search.

According to Jill Hoppenjans,
board chairwoman, that search involved
“advertising in [Washington] D.C. and all
over the web,” and brought in “a.pretty
good, pretty diverse group” of candidates
who were “not what we expected.” The
board expected candidates with experi-
ence running an agency elsewhere who
wanted to move to Vermont.

' “What we got was people who
had no idea of what it is like to live with
HIV, no clue about funding streams, and
no sense at all about delivering services

, in a rural area. They just didn’t have

adaptable experience,” Hoppenjans said.

Then the board looked within
and realized what a treasure they already
had in their director of ptevention pro-
grams. J acobsen is a4Dartmouth graduate
who played a major role in the founding
of another Vermont nonprofit serving the
lgbt communities: SafeSpace. He has
worked in the past with the American
Diabetes Association, the Burlington
Community Land Trust and the Women’s
Rape Crisis Center. ‘ ‘

Under Farrell’s administration,
there have been efforts to dissociate AIDS
and HIV from their former identification
with the gay community, to say, in effect,
“HIV/AIDS is not a gay disease.”

Asked whether the promotion of
a gay man to the helm signals a re— '
engagement with the gay community,
Hoppenjans responded philosophically.
“Vermont CARES has had its ups and
downs with the gay community, just like
in any relationship. It is a fact that most
of our clients are men who have sex with
men [MSM], but that’s not the headline,
and we always want to make sure people
know that others are at risk. There’s got
to be a balance.”

“I don’t think that was the inten-
tion of the board,” Peter J acobsen said in
response to the same question. “But I
don’t think that can not happen, given my
connections to the queer community.” He
added that about 60 percent of the
agency’s clients are MSM.

Jacobsen explained that hisifirst

 

Peter Jacobson Named
CARES Director

Agency Promotes from Within

priority is to make sure the agency is
fully staffed. “Vermont CARES has two
major vacancies right now, Prevention

Director and Services Director. We have ’

internal candidates,” he added, but their
promotion would open other jobs in the
agency. The funding for those positions is
in place, he said.

The agency is “ontrack philo-
sophically,” he said, “we’re true to our
mission. We will change how we do busi-
ness to be more efficient. We’re doing
okay with our programs — those are really
strong. There will be no shifts in pro-
gramming until we find out about the
Ryan White [Act] funding, and even then
it won’t affect people receiving services
for 18 months.”

Hoppenjans, who has been on
the CARES board since 2001 and was
elected chairwoman in December 2004,
said that with the new director, some
things would shift, and others wouldn’t.

“As far as working collaboratively with
staff and other agencies in Vermont, and
being on the cutting edge, taking leader-
ship in the nation in turning down our
funding, no, that won’t change.

“How and where we get our
funding will likely change. We have
always focused on events rather than
major donors, and it’s just more efficient
to focus on major donors. And Peter and
our new development director, Matt
Mulligan, have experience with that,”
Hoppenjans concluded.

“Vermont CARES could do a
better job educating the community gen-
erally,” said Jacobsen. “And CARES is
well positioned to do that. We will use-
our name recognition and experience to
combat the stigma and misunderstandings
about HIV. We will also fight legislatively
whenever the federal government threat-
ens the anonymity of our clients. We will
continue to work to get more funding for

other AIDS organizations.”

Noting the recent departure of
Vermont Department of Health’s
HIV/AIDS Section Chief Kurt Kleier (a
proponent of names reporting), J acobsen
suggested that any state requirement for
reporting the names of HIV clients and
patients would not be imposed “anytime
soon,” in part because of CARES’s deci-
sion to opt out of state—funneled CDC

funding. The possibility of names report— '

ing was just one of the “onerous” strings
attached to the funding the agency
refused to apply for.

J acobsen asserted that Vermont
CARES “is doing just fine” financially
without the CDC funding, “which just
affirms that our decision was the right
one.” V