Tuesday, April 10, 2018

National LGBTQ Task Force announces Andy Garcia as the new Director of Creating Change

The Creating Change Conference is being placed in the experienced hands of Andy Garcia, ensuring it is on track for a powerful 31st convening in Detroit, 2019.

On April 10, the National LGBTQ Task Force announced Andy Garcia as the next director of Creating Change. Garcia succeeds Sue Hyde, the conference’s founder. The search for a new director was initiated when Hyde announced in November that she had accepted the position of executive director of the Wild Geese Foundation.

The primary goal of the Creating Change Conference is to build the LGBTQ movement’s political power from the ground up to secure the full freedom, justice, and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in the United States. In addition to running the annual Creating Change Conference, the director oversees the Creating Change Department, including its leadership development programming.

“It is my pleasure to welcome and celebrate Andy Garcia as he takes the wheel of the Creating Change Conference,” Hyde remarked, adding, “His years and wealth of experiences and relationships in the LGBTQ movement will well serve Creating Change, the National LGBTQ Task Force, and the movement.”

Garcia stated his excitement to lead a conference he knows well, saying, “I am thrilled and honored to join the National LGBTQ Task Force as the new Director of Creating Change, a conference that has been part of my life for nearly 25 years.”

Garcia explained the importance of the conference he is set to lead, “Creating Change celebrates what is best about the LGBTQ movement: our abundant strength, our powerful diversity, and our unending commitment to a broad, progressive vision of working for justice and liberation.” Garcia added that Creating Change is more than just another conference, “Through its values, the spaces it creates, and the people it brings together, Creating Change has shaped the lives of so many of us, not just as activists, but as people.”

Garcia comes to the Task Force from the Equality Federation, where he has served as the Senior Manager of Leadership Programs. In that role, he coordinated the Equality Federation Leadership Conference, an annual training and organizing event for leaders and activists from statewide LGBTQ political organizations from around the United States. Prior to the Equality Federation, Garcia worked for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Garcia has also served in many roles within the LGBTQ movement. Garcia served on the staff of The Pipeline Project, working to increase the number of people of color in leadership positions within the LGBTQ movement. He served as program director at the Boston Alliance of GLBT Youth (BAGLY), which included organizing the annual BAGLY Youth Prom, an event that annually draws over 2,000 youth from throughout New England. Garcia also served on the staff of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYAC).

Carey remarked that she had enjoyed working with Garcia before when they were both on staff at NYAC, “I am thrilled that Andy will be joining the Task Force staff to usher in the next era of the Creating Change Conference and our leadership development work. I had the pleasure of working with Andy many years ago supporting LGBTQ youth leaders, and I’ve followed his career since then—both in the LGBTQ movement and in the reproductive rights arena.”