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.”