Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 19:24:40 -0500 From: RAKNGLTF@aol.com NEWS RELEASE Contact: Robin Kane, 202-332-6483, ext. 3311; rakngltf@aol.com NGLTF ANNOUNCES FOUR NEW BOARD MEMBERS Dee Mosbacher, Graciela Sanchez, Don Davis and Nancy Koch Join Board Washington, DC -- February 1, 1995 -- Four new members have been appointed to the Board of Directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF). Dee Mosbacher, Graciela Sanchez, Don Davis and Nancy Koch were announced as new members during the NGLTF board meeting January 27 through 29 in Atlanta, Georgia. The 26-member Board of Directors is the policy-making and fundraising body of the 21-year-old NGLTF. The following is a brief biography of each of the new board members: DEE MOSBACHER Mosbacher is a physician who is outgoing Medical Director of the Mental Health Department of San Mateo County in California and founder and President of Woman Vision Video, a non-profit educational video company. She is a long-time activist in the San Francisco Bay Area and has served on the boards of various organizations, including Lyon Martin Women's Health Services (past board president), American Medical Students Association, Pitzer College and American Association of Physicians for Human Rights (now called the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association). Mosbacher is leaving her position as medical director to devote herself full-time to producing and directing videos about homophobia. Last year, Mosbacher co-produced the 24-minute video "Straight from the Heart" to confront the lies and distortions of the "Agenda" videos churned out by the Far Right. She has also produced "Out For a Change: Addressing Homophobia in Women's Sports" and "Closets Are Health Hazards: Gay and Lesbian Physicians Come Out." Mosbacher is the daughter of Robert Mosbacher, former Secretary of Commerce during the Bush administration and chief fundraiser for President George Bush's 1992 re-election campaign. The senior Mosbacher was the focus of a right-wing attack in February 1992 after he met with NGLTF staff regarding gay and lesbian civil rights issues and how those issues related to the presidential campaign. Radical Right activists denounced the meeting and persuaded Bush to distance himself from it. Although an activist all her adult life, Dee Mosbacher strengthened her commitment to fight the Radical Right after this incident and the ensuing gay-bashing rhetoric of the 1992 Republican National Convention. GRACIELA SANCHEZ Graciela Sanchez has served as the director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio, Texas since 1988 and was its co-founder in 1986. Sanchez is currently directing the Center's first capital campaign drive to buy, renovate and equip the Center's permanent space. Sanchez is also the co-founder of the San Antonio Lesbian & Gay Media Project; a founding board member of the San Antonio Lesbian & Gay Assembly; and a member of ELLAS, a latina lesbian organization. Sanchez has extensive experience in queer art and culture events. She has served as programmer for the First Lesbian Film Festival in San Antonio in conjunction with the Texas Lesbian Conference, a consultant with Testing the Limits video organization, curator of Out at the Movies events in San Antonio and a juror of the Third Wave International Women's Film and Video Festival. Sanchez also served as a member of the peer panels of the San Antonio Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Texas Commission on the Arts. DON DAVIS Don Davis has been a grassroots activist in North Carolina and Virginia for the past 15 years. During that time, he has served on more than 20 boards, ranging from a handicapped children's home to areawide family planning advisory councils. Having never lived in a community of more than 50,000 residents, Davis' experience lies almost exclusively in grassroots organizing and creating change in small communities. Currently, Davis lives in Williamsburg, Virginia and serves on the board of directors of Our Own Community Press (the Virginia statewide lesbian/gay/bisexual newspaper), the Peninsula AIDS Foundation, and the alumni board of the Historic Triangle Leadership Institute. For the past six years, he has served as the Chief of Comprehensive Planning for James City County, Virginia and remains the only openly gay member of the county's staff. NANCY KOCH Nancy J. Koch is a partner in the San Francisco law firm of Farella, Braun & Martel. She is a member of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual Advisory Committee to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and a volunteer attorney with the AIDS Legal Referral Panel. Koch also serves on the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Non-Partisan Alliance, the largest gay and lesbian political action committee in Northern California. --end--