Spokane Paper Profiles Retiring Executive Director of Eastern Washington’s Largest Community AIDS Group

The Spokane Spokesman-Review Saturday profiled Anne Stuyvesant, who had served as executive director of the Spokane AIDS Network in Spokane, Wash., since 1997 and worked her final day at the organization on Friday. "Not burned out, but in her words 'a little singed,'" Stuyvesant resigned to "discover what she wants to do next." Stuyvesant shifted the organization's focus to prevention and stabilized the organization financially, according to former colleagues at the organization, which is eastern Washington's largest community-based AIDS group. As a trained social worker and mental health counselor, Stuyvesant began work with the organization as a client advocate in November 1993. When Stuyvesant replaced Ginger Goble as executive director in 1997, Stuyvesant said she would do the job "for only six months." But, five months later, Stuyvesant "wanted the job." Most fascinating to Stuyvesant were the "changes" in her work as a result of new AIDS drugs. "Now, instead of helping people die, we're helping people prepare to go back to work," she said. While the organization searches for Stuyvesant's successor, Bob Neubauer, former board president, will serve as interim executive director of the organization (Johnson, Spokane Spokesman-Review, 1/26).