Mar 25, 2005  |  By: YUSEF NAJAFI  | COMMENTS     

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.

Background in AIDS work
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.