Dear Friends of Pacific Center,

I wanted to let you know that I’ve made the very difficult decision to resign as the Pacific Center Executive Director effective March 21, 2008.  After nearly 3 years of working at the helm of this high impact agency, I’ve decided to pursue new opportunities within the movement for LGBT equality.  The Board of Directors is working with Compass Point Nonprofit Services to hire an experienced Interim Executive Director and will be conducting a thorough search for a permanent replacement.  I’m leaving Pacific Center in very good shape with an excellent staff and volunteer team, high performing programs, and solid finances.   The Board and Staff are engaged together in a long term strategic planning process under the guidance of a well trained planning consultant to ensure the Center’s success and longevity.  I’m quite confident that the transition process the Board has adopted will maintain the stability of the organization and attract a talented, new Executive Director. 

I’m deeply proud of our accomplishments at Pacific Center since I started nearly three years ago.  We refurbished our long-neglected facility, expanded our HIV mental health services, strengthened our programs, more than doubled our funding from individual donors, added several new foundations to our grant portfolio, created a professional new logo, developed a new website and communications tools, strengthened relationships with community partners, and raised the Center’s profile locally, statewide, and nationally!  Pacific Center is thriving and healthy. 

After three years of service to Pacific Center, I’m more convinced than ever of the role Pacific Center and other LGBT community centers have in our progress towards equality.  Despite our many social and legal advances over the decades, living as an openly LGBT person continues to carry a real risk.  We must not become complacent or think that living as an openly LGBT person in the Bay Area is easy.  Too many LGBT people right here in Berkeley and Oakland still take their own lives, lose jobs, get beaten up, and die from preventable diseases while the anti-LGBT industry is working hard every day to destroy us and push us back into closets of fear and invisibility.  However, our LGBT community will prevail.  Pacific Center has stood for 35 years as a powerful, physical representation of our collective commitment to care for one another by offering a safe space and programs that build health and promote wellness in pursuit of full equality.  I hope that, like me, you will stay committed to Pacific Center and promote its good work long into the future. 

In community,

Juan Barajas