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My Menopause Manifesto

by Daniel Vaillancourt

My Menopause Manifesto

Or how I fit an avalanche of expert advice into a proper desert lifestyle.

Words by Tracey Engelking

 

Let’s be honest. Aging and all that goes with it happen entirely against our will. We didn’t ask for this. There was no consultation. No group text. I mean, I’m embracing as best I can, but traversing the landscape of perimenopause into menopause can feel like going on a side quest to collect as many do’s and don’ts as possible. Our caregivers do their best to explain it all, but their advice is far too plentiful and daunting for most of us. So, I offer you all the ways I’m tailoring it to fit my best life.

 

Get Your Diet Sorted

We’ve all tried to cut out refined sugar, white flour, candy, desserts, chips, pizza, fried foods, fast food, joyous food… It’s too much. I’m going with finding balance. Mostly low-carb, high-fiber, high-protein. I eat dark chocolate when at home, instead of my beloved chips and ice cream. But I always have dessert if I go out to eat. And there is very large chance a Juicy Lucy cheeseburger and extra crispy fries from Blackbook finds their way into my tummy here and there. Balance, babes.

 

Get Mad Fit and Calm Your Soul

Body in motion/mind in meditation really does feel better in the long run. Thankfully, I’ve always been a sporty gal, so I do fairly well here. If you haven’t upped your fitness game, start easy and find something that works. You like music and dance? Try Zumba or country line dancing. Like to be outside? Vigorous walking or pickleball. Water-lover? Swim laps, try water aerobics, or go big into water polo or Underwater Torpedo League! Get workout sweaty to stop getting hot flash sweaty.

 

Supplements For Days

Gurl, I did not know we could need so many remedies just to get back to the way we felt at 40, but here we are! Estradiol cream, turmeric, multivitamins, vitamin D, black cohosh, beef liver spleen, magnesium, shilajit, fish oil, rose hip oil, hyaluronic acid suppositories, hairgrowth pills, warm lemon water, etc. The list is endless. But taken alongside our prescriptions, they do work. So, cheers to us with our rattler pill cases in our refrigerators! Group high-five!

 

Limit Your Naughty Habits

Yeah, OK, so we give ourselves a C+ here. We cannot act like we don’t know experts will tell us to limit or totally avoid alcohol. But we also do love a good happy hour and two-brunch Sunday. I mean, life is happening. We can’t not have at least a few days here and there spent tipsily tripping our way around an Uber, right? As for illicit drugs, well, speaking of tripping, LOL! A little edible THC help slide you into a more mellow you. Know the source and test your product. Kits are free and readily available — either via DAP Health’s Harm Reduction department, or at the nonprofit’s harm reduction vending machine inside Hunters Nightclub on Arenas Road in Palm Springs. Put your mind at ease before you alter your state.

 

Increase Your Naughty Habits

As the owner of a high libido with a voracious sexual appetite, I was shocked to hear that vaginal atrophy can hit even the most active of us. Another “WTF?” moment brought to us by our meno journey! I am now at peace with sweet lady lube, and vaginal creams and suppositories. Also, I make sure I’m keeping track of my orgasms — quality, ease of achievement, number per week. If this isn’t something you find easy, or are a little embarrassed to ask advice on, talk to your doctor or the staff of a sex shop like Rough Trade. Even if you need to write it down and pass a note. There are tons of solutions, so no need to suffer here!

 

Love Yourself Inside and Out

This is the one, right? We can totally get rung out during this chapter. We look in the mirror and somedays we don’t see ourselves as we remember. Our body hurts or is flat-out revolting against our wants. We’re tired and hormonal…but we are here. We are in this. Unsolicited, but in it regardless. We have to find a way to love this new us. On the days when we can’t find that self-love, we have to get on the text chain with our besties, or get on a message board, and lament to the likeminded. We need to ask for and find support, because this is the ride where some days, we love it and have our hands up whooping in joy. Other days, we just want to get off and stop the spinning. Reach out, baby. We don’t totally have this, but we kinda do, right?

 

There you go. The ways I’m really getting through it. If you have your own secret sauce, I’m all ready to hear and try it! When you see me out, come share away! Let’s be in this together.

 

If you would like to become a DAP Health OB-GYN patient, please click here.

One Day at a Time

by Daniel Vaillancourt

One Day at a Time

DAP Health Chief of Brand Marketing Steven Henke lives the lyrics of Miss Diana Ross: “There’s a new me coming out. And I just had to live. And I wanna give. I’m completely positive.”

Words by Kay Kudukis

 

“I literally grew up on the prairie,” says DAP Health Chief of Brand Marketing Steven Henke. “The prairie I remember? Very dry, hot winds, and a very open space with sky as far as my child’s eyes could see, unbroken by hills or trees. Not a lot of detail.”

 

Bismarck, North Dakota — where Henke spent 18 years — is the capital of a state so non-populous that one area code suffices all 70,704 square miles. “There were no museums, no theaters where touring shows would come in, so there were no real cultural input or influence,” he laments.  

Television filled that gap. From the comfort of his lime green bean bag chair, Turner Classic Movies brought Henke the all-around perfection of Roz Russell as “Auntie Mame,” while “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” introduced him to social justice. CNN’s fashion segment “Style With Elsa Klensch” took him away from his forced reality of North Dakotan nonexistent fashion sensibility, allowing him to dream of a future rife with glamorous possibility — and free of bullies.

 

Dad made a good living selling radio ads. Mom was a homemaker until economic challenges required extra income. Henke was in fourth grade, his younger brother in second, when she started taking them to work at the local roller rink on weekend nights. For the last hour, the skates came off, the polyester went on, and the rink transformed into a disco party. “The music was dramatic — they’ve left their cake out in the rain — everyone was dancing to some of the saddest music in the world.” It was perfect. 

 

“She works hard for the money” ~ Donna Summer 

At 13, Henke got his first job as a hotel busboy — because fashion wasn’t cheap, and Henke wanted to have style. In fact, he says, everyone in town knew he was gay before he knew what a sexual orientation even was. If they were aware, his parents never mentioned anything, but other adults whispered, and the classrooms were full of kids parroting their parents’ sentiments in the schoolyard.  

In 1985, there was one high school boy Henke never met but by whom he was inexplicably inspired. There was just something about his style, his clothes, his hair. “I said, ‘If I just knew him, my life would be better,’” Henke recalls, laughing. “I knew magical thinking was weird, but I was forever looking for a sign, and that gave me hope.”

At 16, Henke got a job at the Bismarck Target, where he stayed through his freshman year at North Dakota State, abandoning that post for the upgrade of employment as a DJ at the aforementioned roller rink. He transferred to University of Minnesota-Moorhead his sophomore year, supporting himself as a phone solicitor, working retail at Kmart, and one summer, working for the highway department, “where I would go out with the crew and hold that thing in the weeds so they could see if the road was flat or whatever. I didn’t even know what I was doing. By the end of that summer, I really thought my name was ‘Dumbass.’”

 

“Tumble out of bed, stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition” ~ Dolly Parton 

Henke chose mass communications and political science as a major. “I thought at that point I would end up working in politics or journalism. Then I did an internship with a U.S. senator. For a number of reasons, it didn’t align with who I wanted to be and the change I wanted to make in the world.”

When he graduated, Target corporate hired him, and over the next 10 years, he rose to senior product manager, sourcing and developing collections overseas. His future husband also worked at Target, but they’d never met until a random meeting at a local coffee shop whilst each was on his way to the same matinée of “The Little Mermaid.” Life is oddly beautiful like that. They’ve been together 27 years.

Activism wasn’t new to Henke — his parents were engaged Democrats — but 1993 was his first personal foray. He and some friends took a bus to Washington, D.C., for the LGBT Equal Rights March.

 

“It was the first time I felt empowered as a gay man. The first time I was able to really use my voice not just for myself. I was able to actually see how we are all interconnected, we all are intersectional in that sort of oppression, and how we have to come together, work together, and lift all of ourselves together, up and out.  

“If we are divided or if we aren’t thinking about each other, if we believe in that system of lack, where we have to grab it all because there’s not enough for that other group, that doesn’t work, because that’s how the system keeps people in that space. It’s a sense of competitiveness that shouldn’t exist.” 

The company Sphere Trending took him around the world for three years of macro and micro trend analysis, plus retail intelligence, before Hanover Accessories snapped him up as vice president of design and development.   

 

“I myself was made entirely of flaws stitched together by good intentions.” ~ Augusten Burroughs

Henke’s proud sobriety came at 39, more than 15 years ago. When he walked into his first AA meeting, right there leading it was that elusive kid from high school. The one who’d held Henke’s teenage fascination. The one he believed would make his life better. Henke smiles at the serendipity of it all. “He became my sponsor for my first five years. There are no mistakes in life. Everything happens for our benefit. Everything.” Life is oddly beautiful like that. 

But “everything” includes a very bad day at Hanover. “We got sold, and a new president came in who did not like gay people. I was walked out. It was a punch in my gut. To me, it was a validation of my lifelong belief that I didn’t belong. That I didn’t have value. It really, really threw me.” 

 

“I was a free man in Paris, I felt unfettered and alive.” ~ Joni Mitchell 

Henke took off for a safe space: his and his husband’s vacation home in Palm Springs. He saw a job posting for Gannett in sales, and got it. “I was terrible,” Henke admits, adding they did recognize his creativity and ability to craft strategy. They soon switched his role to marketing manager. For those five years, he also volunteered on the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce’s board, where he’d eventually become president.

“He’s that creative, full-of-energy, big personality person for me,” says Nona Watson, chamber CEO since 2010. “He understands the chamber really well, and he understands the city really well. He’s really good at helping me find things that haven’t been done before.” 

Back on the Gannett side, DAP Health’s own chain of resale stores, Revivals, was a client. His innovative ideas did not go unnoticed. The nonprofit sought him out as a consultant, then in short order offered him a permanent position as director of marketing, overseeing all communications and marketing strategy for its Resource Development department and Revivals. The year was 2017.

 

His hard work and long list of successes since then were recently recognized with a promotion to chief of brand marketing. His role? Stewarding the brand across the entire organization, which he says is a perfect mission match for the impact he hopes to continue to make.

“I care deeply about this organization and its work in health care,” he says. “I take our team’s responsibility — to do it right — very seriously.” 

Above all, Henke believes life is filled with second chances for people — like him — in recovery. “I want my experience to give that next person walking through the doors of an AA meeting for the first time a reason to believe anyone can stay sober,” he says. “Where there’s breath, there’s hope.”

Because, as Augusten Burroughs wrote in his sobriety journey memoir “Dry,” “When you have your health, you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all.”

A Man of Medicine

by Daniel Vaillancourt

A Man of Medicine

DAP Health Associate Chief Medical Officer Dr. Silas Gyimah says, “My goal is to cultivate a culture of growth, and to share love.”

Words by Kay Kudukis

 

Ghanaian proverb: You must act as if it is impossible to fail.

 

Born in Akim Oda, Ghana, Dr. Silas Gyimah’s family was blended. Within that family, he is the second son, and third child of six. One full sister lived with his mother and older brother, and he gained a younger stepbrother and two stepsisters when his father — a timber contractor and church leader — remarried. When Gyimah (GEE-mah) was of middle school age, Dad sent him to boarding school in Accra, the nation’s capital.

 

He took all the requirements — science, math — but his favorite was art. “I was a good artist,” he says. “I had a very good art teacher who kind of inspired me, and my initial plan was to become an architect.” At the end of the program, Gyimah was awarded art student of the year. 

 

Although he loved art and architecture, it couldn’t hold a candle to his love for the teachings of his faith. Even in middle school, he was the lead for the campus ministry. “We called ourselves the Anointed Warriors,” he says with a hearty laugh.

 

On to America

 

When Gyimah was 14, his father gifted him something he presented to all of his children: an opportunity to go to America. Gyimah eagerly accepted, but as Monty Python expressed, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

 

“As an immigrant, with all that racial division, I'll be honest, it was a very significant shocker to me,” Gyimah cedes. He didn’t know he’d moved to Chicago Heights, Illinois, a racially tense area at that time. He attended one alarming sophomore year, thanked his “auntie and uncle” (AKA host family), and hightailed it to San Marcos, just outside San Diego, with yet another “auntie and uncle.” His subsequent junior and senior years were thankfully substantially less challenging.

 

By the end of high school, he’d fallen off of an architectural career, and was laser focused on how — and within what field — he could make the most impact. He decided on the most logical jump from architecture … biochemistry?

 

Biochemistry, put extraordinarily simply, is “the makeup of living things,” and that makeup is oft described as building blocks. If you squint, there’s an actual correlation to architecture. And while Gyimah was positive architecture was out and biochemistry was in, “I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with that,” he says.

 

His One True Calling

 

Hippocrates said, “Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love for humanity.”

 

When his dad suggested he look inside health care, Gyimah became a certified nursing assistant (CNA) and went to work. It provided him with three things — money for rent, a space to give back, and an opportunity to do recon inside the care industry. “I looked at who has the most impact, right?” he says. “From the CNAs to the LVNs [licensed vocational nurses] and RNs [registered nurses], and I thought, ‘Well, if I’m gonna do it...’”

 

He worked nights 60 hours a week, went to Palomar Community College full-time during the day, led a ministry, and still managed to squeeze in a few public speaking courses. “Growing up, I was known to have an impact on people,” Gyimah says, “so my aspiration was to see how I can improve myself in that space.”

 

Midway through his junior year at California State University, San Marcos, Dad’s business experienced a downturn and money got tight. If Gyimah wanted to continue, it would be entirely on him. He applied for a scholarship, but those 60-hour work weeks affected his grades. They weren’t terrible but affected some scholarships. The advisor encouraged him to take out a student loan.

 

“That was actually the best advice ever,” Gyimah says reflectively. “I took the loan, stopped working, got caught up on all my fees, and started making A’s. Mind you, these are all the advanced classes at that time. Needless to say, I did really well my last year.” How well? So well that he received the Outstanding Student Award for Biochemistry.

 

At Long Last, Love

 

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

                                                                                                                                                                                   - 1 Corinthians 13:13

 

Gyimah was at a campus ministry event in Los Angeles when his heart skipped a beat. Her name was Sally, and she was studying to be a nurse. They not only had medicine and their faith in common, but she is also from Ghana. “We graduated at the same time. And we had a plan, right?” he says. “She wanted to pursue nursing, so she went to San Francisco. I wanted to pursue medicine. That’s when I went to Ross.”

 

Ross School of Medicine in Dominica, at that time, not only gave Gyimah his degree but his mojo too. One year later, he married Sally.

 

Clinicals were at Los Angeles Community Hospital, and in 2017 — the first year of his residency at Eisenhower Medical Center — their daughter was born. Baby girl number two came two years later. Number three arrives in July.

 

From Borrego Health to DAP Health

 

Gyimah began working at Borrego Health as a physician during the last year of his family medicine residency at Eisenhower, and went full-time after graduation. He served as the clinician lead at his site for the first two years, and in 2022 became the Adult Medicine department chair. In January 2023, the call came for him to serve as the associate chief medical officer, a role DAP Health asked him to assume when it absorbed Borrego Health.

 

His motivation and passion are to develop systems and a culture that foster support and growth for fellow clinicians. “The patient population we serve is very close and dear to my heart,” Gyimah says passionately. “Every day I come to work, I have the opportunity to impact clinicians in a positive way [so that they can then] impact our patients. That feeds me and makes me happy.

 

“Just being present with my team and with our patients brings a great deal of satisfaction to me — nurturing and fostering growth and development for each and every individual through all our different initiatives. My wife thinks sometimes I’m crazy, but I love work.”

 

In conclusion, Gyimah offers words he takes to heart: “Live your life not as a reaction to others’ attitude. Be focused, grounded, and intentional in all your ways. That’s the only way you will live to fulfill your full potential.”                                                                                                  

Meet DAP Health Chief Transformation Off …

by Daniel Vaillancourt

Climb Every Mountain

Through eight promotions in nine years, DAP Health’s Chief Transformation Officer C.J. Tobe emerges with the biggest, best job of his still-young career.

Words by Kay Kudukis

 

The inherited first name didn’t enthuse his pregnant mother, but when his paternal grandfather died three months before her baby’s birth on January 1, 1986, she acquiesced and wrote “Cletus Joseph Tobe III” on the birth certificate. One caveat: “We’re calling him C.J.”

They lived in Fort Recovery, Ohio. Population 1,273. With their clan making up a good portion of that number. Tobe has over 70 first cousins on just one side of his family, plus a younger brother and sister, so childhood was really fun. But when he was 13, Mom got cancer, and he was the only one cheerleading through the mastectomy, chemo, radiation, and bone marrow transplant, rocking “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba — “I get knocked down, but I get up again” — until she finally did. Today, Mom is cancer free and, unsurprisingly, divorced.

When he wasn’t in class, Tobe tutored, and served on the student council. On the field and on the court, he was a total jock, and like many of that ilk, broke many a girl’s heart. Academically he was all about history, but he did well in all classes. To anyone on the outside, he was crushing it. On the inside? He didn’t fit in. Maybe when he had his own life and family, he thought, things would click.

 

It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing ~ Shania Twain

“I was going to Wright State University in Dayton to be a special ed teacher and coach sports,” Tobe recalls. “I was also tutoring a group of kids with autism, and working retail making seven bucks an hour.” He felt the aforementioned click when he met his first boyfriend. He casually told Mom, who was very much not OK. So, he moved out — and in with the boyfriend — continuing college while coaching basketball. The once unbreakable bond between mother and son teetered between strained and vanished.

In 2009, Tobe woke up deaf. He was 23.

The ER put him on steroids, suggesting he follow up with his primary care physician. Many insurance hoops later, a specialist put him on antiviral meds, shot his ears full of steroids, and restored 20% of his hearing in his right ear. Nothing helped his left. Most mysteriously, no one had any idea why. His only other symptom was a headache.

When he eventually got shingles, and started losing weight, a friend working at the local AIDS service organization tested him at his dining room table. Tobe had AIDS.

 Mystery solved. Studies have now shown 14 - 49% of HIV-positive patients have hearing impairment.

 

Abandoned by Almost Everybody

Within 90 days of starting lifesaving treatment, Tobe’s diagnosis was downgraded (or upgraded, depending on your outlook) to HIV-positive, where it has remained ever since. But the first 30 days were not only terrifying but emotionally devastating. “Everybody found out my status,” says Tobe, adding he’d granted no permission. “I pretty much lost my entire social network, except for my two best friends, who remain my besties today.”

Mom was there tubthumping, as he had for her 11 years prior, but it took a referral to Dr. Stephen Emerick, a psychologist and certified advanced grief counselor, to help him hear the part about getting up again. “He saved my life,” Tobe says, voice full of gratitude. “He had me sign an ‘I will not complete suicide contract’ with my mom and him. He led me to grieve and heal and take control of my life through Native American teachings.”

In 2013, at 27, Tobe and his dog took a plane to Palm Springs. They had $20, didn’t know a soul, and didn’t care. Tobe just wanted to live where he was accepted. Ruth Hardy Park was the bedroom he sometimes occupied with other unhoused people, until an Ohio friend also moved to Palm Springs and upgraded Tobe to his spare bedroom.

Later, a boyfriend Tobe was living with got a job in Grand Junction, Colorado, and so Tobe and the pup went too. He was already looking for work when he went to Western Colorado Health Network, the town’s AIDS service organization, to become a client. His case worker heard his story and encouraged him to apply for a case worker position. After rigorous interviewing, he got the job.

 

Never be Bitter. Be better ~ Stephen Emerick, MD, PhD

Helping those like him — those living with HIV and AIDS — turned out to be his jam. It lit a fire in his soul, gave him passion, imbued him with purpose. He knew without a doubt that this was what he wanted to do. But man, he missed Palm Springs.

So, when Senior Director of Social Services Zayda Welden, at what was then still known as Desert AIDS Project, responded to Tobe’s unsolicited resume with a Zoom request to interview for a medical case manager position, Tobe instead said, “I’ll be right there.” He got the job. It was 2015. He was a year shy of 30.

Within six years, he was promoted to a) clinic case manager, b) community health intervention and education manager, c) community health prevention programs manager, d) interim director of community health, e) director of community health, and f) director of community health and sexual wellness — all while furthering his education online.

Tobe earned his bachelor’s from Arizona State University, graduated with honors in health care management at California Primary Care Association (CPCA), and received his master’s in organizational leadership from Gonzaga University. In late 2023, he was promoted a seventh time, to chief of community health.

 

Jumping Into Executive Leadership

During subsequent staff and senior leadership meetings, Chief Operating Officer Corina Velasquez observed Tobe’s energy and hunger. “What I’ve always seen in C.J. is his drive, and his strong sense of mission for everyone — just doing the right thing,” she says. But what really got her attention was the way he recently took on a “monster project” of process-mapping (AKA bringing groups together). Seeing gaps in things or identifying where there’s overlap. He nailed the assignment.

Curious, she asked him what filled his cup. Is DAP Health where he saw himself in five years? From that conversation, she recognized his strong passion for developing people and teams. “It prompted me to start conversations with [CEO David Brinkman] and other executive team members,” Velasquez notes.

Tobe was tasked to build his own “honey do” list, and presented 15 pressing processes he’d like to strengthen. The executive leadership team (ELT) chose three to start: partnering with compliance and operations to improve access and quality care for patients (including transportation), maximizing in-house pharmacies to increase patient access, and unbooked appointments (making sure patients are on a wellness track by utilizing clinics to operating capacity). In early June of 2024, Tobe ascended an eighth time, to the newly created role of chief transformation officer. He now has a seat on DAP Health's aforementioned ELT. For the record, he’s still only 38.

“It’s really the next step in our integration,” Tobe explains, referring to the nonprofit’s absorption of the Borrego Health system almost a year ago. “Coming together as one, creating synergy by inspiring people, and making sure we have the right people at the table. It’s about making sure communication is happening, playing to people’s strengths, building that culture, and embodying and simplifying our values, which all leads to greater patient access.”

Tobe claims the scope of this new position allows him to “address the things that keep me up at night.” He’s jazzed about eventually coauthoring solutions for them all. He smiles contentedly. “I just love my work.”

Meet DAP Health Chief Strategy Officer B …

by suelowe

The Second Time Around 

In her return tenancy at DAP Health, Chief Strategy Officer Brande Orr has one immediate goal — purposefully mapping out the nonprofit’s future. 

Words by Kay Kudukis 

 

As a kid, Brande Orr practically lived in her grandmother’s backyard. In a massive treehouse nestled within one of the biggest maple’s highest, strongest branches, she’d spend hours with her younger brother Cody. “It was covered by leaves, and it was big enough to have eight kids up there,” she recalls. “From that vantage point, you could see over the houses and imagine a bigger world.”  

Not surprisingly, decades later, Orr is an avid believer in the healing properties of forest bathing, her favorite spots being along the Kumano Kodo in Japan. 

Suitland, Maryland, where Orr grew up, is a congested urban town a mile southeast of Washington, D.C. Dad taught history before becoming a high school principal. Mom taught kids living with disabilities. The family simmered in generational trauma — poverty, alcoholism, abuse — though camping trips, beach days, visits to the Smithsonian Institution, and activities like a pen pal in Zimbabwe balanced the mysteries of why. Orr also played sports through college, this despite critical knee and back injuries. 

“I wasn’t very good at any of them,” she admits. “But I’m a really great cheerleader. I often won the unsung hero award, and you rarely cut the kid who’s an optimist!” 

 

Growing Up on the Move and on the Rise 

At a most awkward stage of life — 8th grade — the family relocated to Annapolis, where Orr attended high school. “Pretty posh compared to where we were,” she recalls. It’s here that Orr had to rapidly wrestle with understanding racial discrimination. In her previous neighborhood and school, while among the racial minority, she was just becoming old enough to sense the privilege her skin color bestowed regardless of socioeconomic status.  

Asking these questions led to more exploration into injustice and activism. She debated for animal welfare, the right to peaceful protest, recognition of diverse faiths and worldviews, and death with dignity movements as early as high school, and continues to do so in her personal life today.  

These experiences equipped Orr to be adaptable, forgiving, curious, deliberate, calm in chaos, and admittedly an overthinker. Which is distinct from being a risktaker, she notes: “I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was nearly 21.”  

She also promised herself to find work environments where a sense of camaraderie — a commitment to mission — provided common ground and a second family. With undergraduate degrees in history and French, Orr worked at two museums — but she realized this nonprofit sector had limitations. 

 

Diversity, Equity, Belonging, Inclusion 

The desire to foster what we now call diversity, equity, belonging, and inclusion (DEBI) led her to create culturally inclusive American history resources at Primary Source, a Massachusetts nonprofit that works to advance global education in schools. “We wrote textbooks on Chinese American history, and Native American history, that would complement K-12 teaching requirements,” she says. “I worked on the African American history project.” It was there she met her late mentor, lifelong educator Clara Hicks, and adopted Clara’s mantra: “Keep on, keepin’ on.” 

By then Orr knew she wanted to see the West Coast, and applied for scholarships to earn a master’s degree at only California programs, deciding on Pepperdine University, where her grandfather attended on the GI Bill after WWII. She left her best friends in exchange for the adventure, but upon arriving, found the only other person pursuing their MBA to serve the nonprofit community: a guy named David Brinkman, whose career path led him to the CEO seat at DAP Health, which he has occupied for 17 years. Commonality crafted a close comradeship between Brinkman and Orr. But more on that in a bit.  

When she graduated, Orr took a position at a center serving teen moms and dads back in Boston. “We had an amazing program with housing and school, but we also taught job skills, parenting skills, and health care.” A year later, the phone rang. It was Brinkman, who was now executive director at My Friend’s Place, a nonprofit dedicated to serving unhoused youth in Los Angeles. Would Orr consider coming to work with him as director of development? It was an immediate “Yes.” 

It was a small organization, so they rolled up their sleeves with the most amazing colleagues and put on all the hats: fundraising, leadership, communications, finance, community relations, facilities (plunging toilets and painting over graffiti fell under “other duties as assigned”). “Because MFP was so small, and we were meeting emergent needs of terribly misunderstood, stigmatized, and marginalized human beings,” admits Orr, “it was a sobering opportunity to understand the breadth of nonprofit management and the chops required to weather the blood, sweat, and tears.” The most exciting times were chances to meet new needs. Orr’s most memorable moment was the first day the center opened on the weekends. 

 

Successful Leaders Enlist Highly Qualified People 

Orr is admittedly a little uncomfortable about the optics of her history with Brinkman, but leans in and shares the story. Now nearly 30 years into a nonprofit career, she accepts the truth — that successful leaders surround themselves with highly qualified people who bring value to their organization, an obvious testament to her considerable talents. And at this point in the story, Orr’s eyes get big and she says, “It gets worse.”  

Brinkman had several childhood friends who would visit him in L.A. The trade-off was they would volunteer for the nonprofit’s events. One such friend was an artist named Dan. Four years later, Orr married him, and followed love to Iowa. She credits her spouse with introducing her to three more loves: salt, Star Trek, and sumo. 

The next work years found Orr honing expanded skills with a wide spectrum of stakeholders at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Valley Hospice, and Allen Health System. Again, strategic activities like helping to offer free colorectal cancer services and launch a nursing pipeline program for high school students from low-income families kept Orr looking forward. That’s when the phone rang again. You guessed it: Brinkman. With yet another invitation to apply for an opening. 

 

Starting at Desert AIDS Project 

Orr was hired as director of grants at Desert AIDS Project (as DAP Health was then known). With tandem interim stints as director of quality assurance, and director of programs, Orr led DAP Health’s pursuit of FQHC status to open the doors wider. This milestone extended the legacy of the organization’s founders to more community members.  

She happily thrived there for over nine years, finishing out her tenure by serving as director of strategic initiatives. And then, the phone rang yet again. This time? Not Brinkman. Dad. Mom had Alzheimer’s, and it was time for a radical plan of care. So, Orr and Dan, and Mom and Dad, all moved to the Midwest, closer to more affordable dementia services. After Mom and the pandemic passed, Orr worked for Interfaith America before Brinkman came calling one last time.  

 

Returning to DAP Health 

Following DAP Health’s overnight expansion, having acquired the Borrego Health system, would Orr consider applying to become the integrated organization’s chief strategy officer, leading the charge into what is sure to be a promising future? Why, indeed, she would! 

Almost a year later, Orr couldn’t be more excited about DAP Health’s mission. She feels drawn to the organizational culture by the conviction that access to affordable, compassionate health care can inspire and inform solutions to inequity, suffering, and conflict of all kinds. The labor of love means even more as an aunt to four nephews who will inherit the world she leaves behind.  

“I love this work,” she says. “I love looking at what the needs are, what every possible solution is, and then narrowing that down through all the different types of lenses and criteria to figure out how we’re going to have the biggest impact.” 

Hold all calls, please. Orr is finally home for good. 

Meet DAP Health Chief Administrative Off …

by suelowe

Good With Money … and Mission

For Chief Administrative Officer Judy Stith, kindness matters as much as numbers.

Words by Kay Kudukis

 

Caldwell, Texas, population 4,000, is where Judy Stith (née Mize) was born, but didn’t stay. First stop was Wichita Falls, Texas, then Tulsa, Oklahoma, until the family found home in Fort Worth, Texas.

Dad was a jeweler who’d taken a steadier, higher-paying job as manager at a cafeteria. Mom was a nurse. Stith likens her to John Nash, the subject of the film “A Beautiful Mind.” “She lived here,” Stith says, pointing to her head. She did not live in their reality.

Her parents divorced when Stith was six, maybe seven. Dad got custody. The oldest boy-twin got a job to help with finances. There were five kids altogether: that twin’s sister, another sister, and their baby brother. Donnie & Marie, and Sonny & Cher, were Stith’s first two concerts, but her tastes would change.

When algebra is mentioned, Stith practically recoils, but she weathered it anyway because it’s a nursing requirement, and she was going to be a nurse like her mom and sister. She was 16 when she began a work-study program and got certified, then staffed, as a phlebotomist at the local blood center. When she graduated high school, she began taking nursing classes at University of Texas Arlington (UTA), then finally took some practical, hands-on, nitty-gritty nursing courses. That’s when she decided nursing wasn’t for her. No touching of things that made her go “Ew!”

 

Finding Love, if Not Career

Stith was still contemplating what career could match her humanitarian instincts when, at 19, she said “yes” to the airman she’d met while babysitting her friend’s toddler. Everything was going great except for that elusive career. She took random jobs, and while cashiering at a convenience store, got robbed. They took some money and took some snacks. Stith took another job.

Stith applied for a receptionist position at an accounting firm, which required everyone take an aptitude test. “I didn’t get that job,” she says, “but they hired me to do bookkeeping, bank reconciliations, and journal entries, and I liked it.”

It may sound odd that someone who despised algebra might enjoy a math-centric job, but Stith says, “I do money. I always put it into money, and it makes sense that way. It’s not quite the same as math.”

Accounting, she found, fit that criteria, and she began classes at UTA. She recalls a professor, for the first half of a very advanced course, who enjoyed humiliating his students. “The class was hard, and he would call you out. I worked full-time, but I did my homework. I was never unprepared.” Still, his class was brutal, but you learned.

 

The Joys of Parenthood

Baby boy Brian came along six years into Stith’s marriage, and five years later, baby boy Ben joined the world. He was just a year old when her husband got laid off from his airplane mechanic job. He got another one at U.S. Airways in Dayton, Ohio, and they moved to Cincinnati, where his family lived.

Stith took a full-time job as the Dayton YMCA’s finance director, and transferred to Wright State University School of Business. “And guess who had joined the faculty?” She shakes her head and laughs. “I had him for the second half of that advanced class.” But because of her past experience with Professor Humiliation, plus her real-life experience, she became her classmates’ go-to for help.

Quick recap: She’s married with two kids, working full-time at a nonprofit, going to school for her degree in accounting, and she still manages to find time to help her college colleagues.

Stith was so laser focused on getting her CPA, she had Brian, 12, hold her homemade flash cards to help her study for the grueling 16-hour test. “He could probably still tell you the formula for how to calculate the gain on the sale of a residence,” she says with a laugh.

In 1996 she had baby girl, Rebecca. A year later, the family of five moved to Arizona, where she had been tapped as CFO at Valley of the Sun YMCA, staying four years.

 

Finding Love: Part Two … Plus DAP Health

Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC) contracted her to write their policy and procedure manual. When she was done, they wanted her to stay on as vice president. “I liked the people, I liked the culture,” so she stayed for 12 years. When she left, she did some consulting, then spent three years as controller at Goodwill before being offered the CFO position at Horizon Health and Wellness, an FQHC in Arizona.

She was divorced now, and in those 10 years had met David. He was in the food industry. She fell in love, and they married and honeymooned in Napa Valley. He taught her how to enjoy fine wine, and the former rocker was also starting to enjoy his country music. Everything was going great.

Horizon was considering her for their CEO position, and her big sister (her rock) and baby brother had moved closer. What more could Stith want? Then a recruiter called her up and told her about the CFO position at DAP. He was so high on the organization she figured it deserved a peek.

“You’re taking the tour, hearing everything CEO David Brinkman has to say, and what he has to offer, and you think, ‘I want to work here!’ I mean, you just get so hyped up on it,” Stith recalls.

She’s been the CFO since 2019, and post-acquisition, was tapped as chief administrative officer. They’re looking for a replacement CFO, but it’s not easy finding candidates with the same dedication to the mission as the rest of the team. “The passion of this agency for the people they serve in the community they live in is just … there’s not a mean bone in anyone’s body.”

That’s why Stith stays. “I’ve always said, if there’s anything you can be, be kind, and the people at DAP Health just exude kindness. They treat their patients with dignity and with respect. And that’s so, so important.”

Professor Humiliation need not apply.

Pride-Themed Podcast Features Our Very O …

by Daniel Vaillancourt

DAP Health's Director of Gender Health & Wellness Mita Beach Shines in IEHP iHeart Media Pride-Themed Podcast

 

The latest episode of the IEHP podcast “Covering Your Health” launched on iHeart Media this morning. In celebration of Pride month, host Evelyn Erives sat down with DAP Health’s Director of Gender Health & Wellness Mita Beach. Together, they delved into the unique challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community when it comes to health and wellness. From mental health support to inclusive health care practices, Mita shared valuable insights and strategies for promoting well-being, including how to best be an ally. “Educate yourself,” urged Mita. “Ally is a verb.”

 

Click here to listen to the Pride-themed episode.

 

To learn more about DAP Health’s Gender Health & Wellness programs, click here.

 

For more on Mita, please read below.

 

Mita Beach, LBBP, is the director of Gender Health & Wellness at DAP Health. In this role, Mita is leading the strategic development and implementation of health and wraparound services for trans and gender-diverse patients.

With an impressive background that includes serving as the manager of Gender Health & Wellness at DAP Health, Mita has a proven track record of enhancing program development and delivering comprehensive health services. Their experience extends to working as a trans health navigator at Borrego Health, where they conducted patient assessments and facilitated support groups.

Mita brings over 20 years of corporate leadership experience and 15 years of consulting expertise in LGBTQ+ rights, sexual health, and sexuality education. They have designed and facilitated numerous workshops across various sectors, demonstrating a commitment to fostering inclusive and supportive environments. 

Mita is an active member of several professional organizations, including the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Loss (AMPHL), the National Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Addiction Professionals and Their Allies (NALGAP), and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF).

Why Self-Esteem and Pride Are Good for Y …

by Daniel Vaillancourt

Why Self-Esteem and Pride Are Good for Your Health

Self-love isn't just for Pride month, or just for LGBTQ+ people. Everyone can benefit!

Words by Trey Burnette

 

The Pride Month of June (celebrated most everywhere but in the Coachella Valley, which honors it when the heat is less intense, in November) is important for many reasons. It’s not just a time for celebrating openly en masse at parades throughout the world. It’s also an opportunity to look inward, reaffirm we are worthy, and get a boost of self-esteem.

 

LGBTQ+ people start our lives with a secret we’re not entirely conscious of, knowing something about us is different. We don’t name it because we’re usually too young to comprehend it, and somehow know to keep it to ourselves when we do figure it out.

 

We often conclude our secret is shameful and dangerous, and surmise we ourselves are shameful, learning to survive by bargaining, justifying, and making ourselves smaller. We carry our secret and shame until it almost breaks us.

 

It's About More Than Coming Out

Most of us eventually come out proudly, yet still strain to love and take care of ourselves in healthy ways because the falsehoods about who we are stay ingrained in our core. We’re told to have healthy self-esteem after being taught to have shame, but don’t know why or how we are supposed to achieve that.

 

Every LGBTQ+ person — actually, every person, period — deserves to have pride. It’s important because pride leads to good physical and mental health. “Self-esteem is at the core of psychological health,” says Jill Grover, PhD, the clinical supervisor of DAP Health’s Behavioral Health Internship program. “People with high self-esteem and self-compassion believe they are worthwhile, capable of helping themselves, and optimistic about the future.” These beliefs lead people to know they’re worthy of self-care and fulfilling their needs, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity.  

 

To raise self-esteem, we have to work through and release shame. “Learning to refute and reject old, inaccurate, negative messages from childhood [and society],” Dr. Gover says, “is essential in forming a healthy self-concept.”

 

First, we must examine those sources of shame, guilt, and negativity we were taught, and then establish our own standard of values based on what we deem healthy, equitable, and just. Part of that process is letting go of good or bad judgment and adapting the “this is what I need and what is healthy for me” model of living. We also need to learn to forgive ourselves and move forward when we act on choices that are not the healthiest.

 

The Five Essential Elements

Moving forward, we can gain a better and healthier sense of security, identity, belonging, purpose, and personal competency. These five essential elements of pride and self-esteem lead us to a greater understanding of who we are, and help us express ourselves in healthier ways and have richer interpersonal relationships. “When we are inclusive and welcoming, inviting others to join us, we are creating a sense of belonging,” Dr. Gover says. “When we share with others our goals, dreams, and values, we build a sense of purpose.”

 

By being honest and consistent — and expecting that from others — we build trust and security. And by working toward our goals and trying new things, we learn personal competency. Our ability to make healthier choices strengthens, and we learn we can be visible, proud, and expressive. We can join that hiking group or take that art class.

 

Oscar Wilde said, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance,” and having pride is a way for all people to love and care for themselves and every other member of the diverse communities they live within and among. During Pride Month, and all year long, practice the art of self-love, whether you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community or not. The world will be better for it.

Meet DAP Health Chief People and Places …

by Daniel Vaillancourt

To Fly, You Need to Take the Reins

As an avid equestrian, DAP Health Chief People and Places Officer Sheri Saenz always knew how to fly, but the day she joined DAP she learned what it felt like to soar.

Words by Kay Kudukis

 

“There was nothing here,” says Sheri Saenz, indicating to the area across from DAP Health’s main Sunrise campus at the corner of Vista Chino and North Sunrise Way in Palm Springs, which is now filled with stores and condos. “I used to keep my horses over there when I was a kid.”

 

The Palm Springs native’s dad was a tradesman — jack of all. Mom stayed home with the kids until the last one was old enough to fend for herself. That was Saenz (née Barklow), number four. She was a shy girl who preferred horses to people. She liked math, but not school — that’s where the bullies were. High school? Literally dream-crushing. Saenz loved riding horses and spent all her time at the stables. Growing up in the Palm Springs area, her interests were hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, and off-roading. The great outdoors was her happy place, and she envisioned a career as a forest ranger. She told her careers class advisor, who promptly ill-advised her: “Girls cannot be forest rangers, that’s a man’s job. Pick something else.”

 

Entering the Job Market

 

At 16, she applied at General Telephone, where Mom worked, and got the job. She continued working there while attending College of the Desert in business administration. An opportunity to step out of a telephone operator position and into an installation role in telecommunications equipment and fiber optics intrigued her. She learned how to lay cables, mount electrical outlets, and solder. The job required some traveling, which meant more time outdoors. She was pretty happy approaching her tenth year with the company, when the telecommunications industry went through deregulation and she was laid off, a crappy practice companies use when employees are closing in on enough years to earn a retirement pension. (See Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman divorce. Allegedly.)

 

Her next move was unclear until she was talking to her friend about her dad’s job as a civil engineer. The land surveyor piece piqued Saenz’s interests. It was math, and it was outdoors. She got into the apprenticeship program at the Operating Engineers Union, and when she was done, “I did a lot of construction surveying out here [in the Coachella Valley].”

Pioneering in a male-dominated field did not make for a pleasant work environment. But Saenz was used to bullying, and the work suited her, so she stuck it out until a recession curtailed construction. That’s when her classes at COD came into play. She took a position in the accounting department of the Desert Princess Country Club. She was inside, but the grounds were lush and green.

 

It was a small office of 30, and her duties grew to include human resources. It was an exciting time. The 1990s were all about labor reform, and Saenz was pioneering once again, in the trenches working in collaboration with a labor law attorney, making sure they were in compliance. It’s also where she met Lonnie, who worked as the maintenance manager for the property. They were friends for several years until she finally let him catch her. Lonnie came with a 7-year-old daughter who, over the past 30 years, has given them two grandchildren, ages 1 and 16. Both geniuses, of course.

 

Saenz stayed at Desert Princess for seven years, until she realized they weren’t going to address the disparity between employees and contractors. The majority of the workers had been there years but were still paid as contractors. No benefits, something Microsoft got sued over in 1993 — and lost. Unhappy with management’s unwillingness to change their own practices, Saenz wanted to find work where she could make a difference. “I wanted to give people a voice,” she recalls. “I wanted to make sure everybody where I worked felt valued and heard.”

 

Finding Her Calling at DAP Health

 

She applied at Bird Products, the namesake company of the man who invented ventilators, and at Community Counseling & Consultation Center, Inc. (CCCC). She took the latter position as an HR assistant. She was their 50th employee. That was in 1998, before they publicly identified as Desert AIDS Project. “We were on Vella Road then,” she says. “We weren’t there too long before we moved here.” She’s talking about the current 44,000 square-foot Sunrise campus acquired thanks to the generosity of local philanthropists. But it was still a time when people with HIV not only carried that burden, but also the burden of others’ ignorance. Those who were HIV-positive were shunned, unable to get work. DAP gave them health care, compassion, jobs and dignity.

 

As a notary public, Saenz went to hospitals and homes with a case manager or an attorney to provide notary services for health care directives and/or wills. She recalls how appallingly hospitals treated people with AIDS back then, and how poorly the average family treated their loved one’s partner. Her voice softens: “These guys were the nicest people, who would give you the shirt off their back, even though they didn’t have anything.”

 

When Saenz joined Desert AIDS Project, she knew it was a place for her.  Being a part of an organization that provides services and support to our community vs. a for-profit company made all of the difference. Working in human resources and helping recruit staff as the organization grew was such an awarding experience. “I love working with everyone here,” she maintains. “It makes such a difference working where everyone is passionate and connected to our mission. I really enjoy placing the right person in the right job. It is a win-win for everyone.”

 

Saenz has kept pace with human resources laws and regulations over the years, leveling up with certifications, and in 2014, she obtained her bachelor’s in business administration from the California State University, San Bernardino, in Palm Desert. She worked her way up over the years from human resources assistant, and human resources administrator, to director of human resources. Last year, she moved into the C-suite, but her unnamed position’s responsibilities included finding the role a moniker. It took her a minute. Since she has a crucial role that encompasses human resources, facilities, construction, safety, and security of the organization, she wanted to make sure it was accurate. “Chief people and places officer” said it best.

 

On a personal note, another passion is advocating for rescue dogs. She volunteered at Animal Samaritans as part of their Highway Heroes program, driving shelter dogs to rescue organizations to get them a better chance to be adopted. Again, she likes to give voices to those who don’t have one. Her motto is “adopt a rescue dog, don’t buy one from a breeder.” Dogs are part of the family.

 

A few years back, Saenz’s mother moved into her and Lonnie’s casita after her husband died of COVID. When she’s not spending time with her, or the grands, or working to help marginalized humans, or helping rescue pups, she and her love like to travel. Self-care is very important.

 

It’s been 25 years since Saenz joined DAP, and in that time, she has created a workplace where her personal and professional values coincide with the people and places personifying the 10 words she lives every single day: Be the change you want to see in the world. Courtesy of Mahatma Gandhi, another people and places guru who just happens to be an idol of hers.

How Do I Sign Up For My Chart?

by Daniel Vaillancourt

How Do I Sign Up For MyChart?

To sign up for a DAP Health MyChart account, just follow the simple steps below.

Versión en español a continuación

 

Visit the MyChart Website

Go to DAP Health’s MyChart sign-up page and follow the directions. You will be asked to enter at least your name, date of birth, legal sex, and email address.

 

Create Your Username and Password

Follow the instructions to create a MyChart username and password. Ensure your password is secure and meets the required criteria.

 

Verify Your Identity

You may be asked to verify your identity by answering security questions or receiving a verification code via email or SMS.

 

Set Up Security Questions

Choose and answer security questions to help protect your account.

 

Review and Accept Terms and Conditions

Read the MyChart terms and conditions, and accept them to complete the sign-up process.

 

Access Your MyChart Account

Once your account is created, you can log in using your username and password.

 

If you encounter any issues during the sign-up process, contact your DAP Health clinic by phone or in person at your next appointment.

 

To learn more about MyChart, please click on this link. To learn more about how to sign up, please click on this link.

 

¿Cómo Me Registro en MyChart?

 

Para registrarse y obtener una cuenta DAP Health MyChart, simplemente siga los sencillos pasos a continuación.

 

Visite el Sitio Web MyChart

Vaya a la página de registro MyChart de DAP Health y siga las instrucciones. Se le pedirá que ingrese al menos su nombre, fecha de nacimiento, sexo legal y dirección de correo electrónico.

 

Crea tu Nombre de Usuario y Contraseña

Siga las instrucciones para crear un nombre de usuario y contraseña de MyChart. Asegúrese de que su contraseña sea segura y cumpla con los criterios requeridos.

 

Verifica tu Identidad

Es posible que se le solicite que verifique su identidad respondiendo preguntas de seguridad o recibiendo un código de verificación por correo electrónico o SMS.

 

Configurar Preguntas de Seguridad

Elija y responda preguntas de seguridad para ayudar a proteger su cuenta.

 

Revisar y Aceptar Términos y Condiciones

Lea los términos y condiciones de MyChart y acéptelos para completar el proceso de registro.

 

Acceda a su Cuenta MyChart

Una vez creada su cuenta, puede iniciar sesión con su nombre de usuario y contraseña.

 

Si tiene algún problema durante el proceso de registro, comuníquese con su clínica de DAP Health por teléfono o en persona en su próxima cita.

 

Para obtener más información sobre MyChart, haga clic en este enlace. Para obtener más información sobre cómo registrarse en MyChart, haga clic en este enlace.