Name: Charles H. Ford, Ph.D.
Home: Norfolk, VA
Qualifications:
- Served on the board of trustees for the Tidewater AIDS Crisis (then Community) Taskforce from 1994 to 2001, and then from 2002 to 2011. I was TACT’s President in 1997, 1998, and 2003.
- Served as President of the Norfolk Chamber Consort since May of 2015T
- Trustee of the Norfolk Public Libraries since February of 2013.
- Chaired or co-chaired at least two Hampton Roads Pride Committees/Subcommittees: the Scholarship Committee and the History Experience Subcommittee.
- Member of the Reel It OUT LGBT Film Festival Committee for the LGBT Life Center
- Events Chair of Old Dominion University’s Gay Cultural Studies Endowment campaign.
- Chairperson of the American Association of University Professors’ Sexual Diversity and Gender Identity Committee from 2007-2011.
- Co-author of LGBT Hampton Roads, a picture book on local LGBT history with the authorial proceeds going to Hampton Roads Pride.
Why I hope to serve on the Hampton Roads Pride Board:
I would like to use my broad range of experiences and contacts within our communities to improve relations between Hampton Roads Pride and its sister organizations. Our real enemies are not to be found in our partners for social justice and human rights.
I would like to build upon our strong ties with incumbent politicians and police departments to help to persuade them to become advocates for the most vulnerable and marginal in our rainbow coalition — particularly, our youth and our transgender citizens.
I would like the organization to spend more monies on scholarships to match the increasing applicant pool, and I would like to help in any special fundraising activities to increase those funds earmarked for scholarships.
Finally, I would like to help to launch a capital campaign of fundraising in order to hire a full-time executive director for Pride in the medium-term future.
