Dr. Helene Gayle is the president and CEO of CARE, a humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. Out of all the passionate professionals interviewed on the 2007 Pursue the Passion tour, Dr. Gayle could easily be the most distinguished. Formerly the director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s HIV, TB and Reproductive Health program, Dr. Gayle bring to CARE over two decades of experience, working in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, TB, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Using what she has learned from posts at the Center for Disease Control, where she oversaw an annual budget of over $1 billion, and the Gates Foundation, where she oversaw over $1.5 billion in grants, Dr. Gayle now sets her sights on CARE’s target: extreme global poverty.

Although Dr, Gayle did her undergraduate studies in psychology, she ultimately entered medical school because it gave her a “broader way to influence peoples lives.” After medical school, Dr. Gayle continued to earn her Masters in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University, because she saw the M.P.H. as a marriage between the medical world she aspired to enter, and the people’s lives upon which she hoped to impact. Dr. Gayle is incredibly humble about her
accomplishment, saying that she doesn’t “see [herself] as a pioneer until after the fact.” She strives, above all, to live a life that is very “fulfilling,” but also “makes a contribution.”

Under the incredibly adept leadership of Dr. Gayle, CARE continues its mission to make the world a better place, for even those often forgotten by much of society. For more information, and to see how you can help, please visit: www.care.org.

With the loud engine roar and blades rapidly revolving, a helicopter lands at a school assembly full of awestruck first graders. A man in a captain suit cuts the engine and hops out of the cockpit to wave to the crowd. The school erupts in excitement.

Amongst the crowd there is a young first grader who would take this moment and hold on to the memory forever. That first grader was Bruce Haffner.

Bruce Haffner joined KTVK 3TV in 1984 and is currently a pilot/reporter who covers stories from a helicopter for the Good Morning Arizona and Good Evening Arizona TV shows. He took me up in the air for my first ever helicopter ride as we circled the greater Phoenix area looking for stories to cover.

Bruce’s journey to become the pilot in the cockpit came after he discovered his true passion. As an Arizona State broadcast journalism student he was assigned a project to cover an interesting, wacky story of his choice. He and his friends decided to do a story on the sport of Frisbee.

Attending a Frisbee tournament on the ASU campus, Bruce and his friends found a fifty-five year old man with long, stringy gray hair who had a love for the sport. His name was Willie.

One of the students haphazardly handed Bruce a camera and asked him to start filming. As Bruce looked through the lens at Willie tossing a frisbee, he looked into his future. He had discovered his passion at first sight. He knew right then that he had to become a photographer.

Upon graduation Bruce started to film rock videos with friends and pitch to TV shows for air time. Over the next two years he accumulated photography skills, but certainly not wealth.

“I probably made about $400 in those two years,” Bruce told me as we flew in the direction of the reported traffic accident at 101- South and Thomas Road. “That’s when I got sick of having no money and took a real job at Fox 10.”

At the Fox 10 news station in Phoenix Bruce got his first experience as a paid photographer. He learned the ins and outs of the news industry before joining the KTVK 3TV film crew. It was there that he started to rekindle the helicopter memory he had as a first grader.

Bruce was originally laughed at when he requested that he wanted to learn how to fly the News Chopper and report. First, he had no experience flying. Second, he had no experience reporting. Management put the idea on the backburner, but two people came in to mentor Bruce in a special way.

The helicopter pilot and reporter for News3, who had transformed himself into somewhat of a local celebrity, came to Bruce and told him that he heard he wanted to fly. He offered Bruce the opportunity to join him in the air as the photographer who would hang out the open door and grab the shots for live stories. Bruce jumped at the chance, and began to learn how to fly and photograph from one of the best in the industry.

Bruce’s other mentor was his wife Lisa Haffner, who currently runs her own show with “Your Life A to Z.” She taught him how to report, saying that the only thing you could actually report on was “what you see, and what you know.” Bruce would take this advice with him as he was suddenly asked to assume the role of pilot/reporter.

Since being asked to take over the cockpit, Bruce has combined his passions for photography, flying, reporting, and people in a unique way. He has a lifestyle he is happy with, and his work is something that he is passionate about.

What could be better than flying around town as the sun sets and sun rises, flying around to each reported accident or following a high speed chase?

What I took away:

There were a couple things that I took away from my early morning helicopter with Bruce. Out of the story you just read, I learned about the importance of mentors. I saw that all of Bruce’s prior experiences helped him be not only a helicopter pilot/news reporter, but that his photography background helps him position his helicopter so his current photographer and helicopter protégé Jim can get the money shots.

What I did not mention in Bruce’s story was his passion for people. He makes sure that all of his stories connect with people in some way. When he reports to a traffic accident, he makes sure to not only get the shot of the accident, but also a shot of the traffic jam so people can avoid it. When we were in the air Bruce made sure to incorporate the photos of his recent vacation to Mexico so viewers who had never been there could be a part of the experience. I think this is important for me to remember as we proceed with booking interviews and reporting on their stories, and for you. If your work is not connecting with people, then maybe its time to take a step back and get back to the basics.

When we walked into the Chicago Housing Authority headquarters we wondered if we were in the right place. The unassuming security guard, who questioned the validity of my Arizona driver’s license, didn’t seem to fit what I had imagined of the organization that is single handedly changing the face of public housing in Chicago. But after meeting Rayne Martin a few minutes later, I began to realize that public service is only made possible by people with a passion for making a difference.

Rayne grew up in a tiny Louisiana town with a ridiculously small population of 200 people. It was here that Rayne discovered her passion for public service. After parting with a close-knit class of 12 graduates, she decided to attend Centenary, a small liberal arts college in Shreveport, Louisiana. At Centenary, Rayne began to organize and lead public service projects through Habitats for Humanity, Student Government and the Lighthouse, an after-school program for teenagers.

After graduating in 1996, Rayne moved to Philadelphia, where she became a VISTA volunteer. As such, she was given the duties of setting up community mediation centers in inner-city communities and peer mediation programs in high schools. In Philadelphia, Rayne confirmed her ability and drive to pursue a career in public service. “I was realizing that you don’t necessarily have to know what want to do with your life at 18, 20, 30, or 40,” Rayne told me of her time with VISTA, “but you should know what makes you happy, and you should spend your time working towards achieving that happiness.”

Rayne’s pursuit of her happiness soon led her to San Francisco, California where she did political fundraising and further community mediation work. When she decided to relocate to Chicago, With her public service ambitions now refined by her experience in the field, Rayne decided to relocate to Chicago. “When I was working in San Francisco as chief of staff for a county commissioner, I was exposed to different types of public service. Through my experience, I knew that I wanted to be in housing, and I had heard about the ‘Plan for Transformation’ going on in Chicago.” Rayne explained of how she came upon her current position, helping implement perhaps the biggest social welfare change in the nation since welfare reform.

The Plan for Transformation is the Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA) ten-year initiative to demolish and renovate the 25,000 units of public housing notoriously plagued by mismanagement, racism, and most of all, poverty. Chicago is famous for its disastrous public housing developments, such as Cabrini Green, featured in the movies Candyman and Hoop Dreams as settings of poverty and violence.
What’s unique about the Plan for Transformation is that the CHA is building communities rather than stacking impoverished residents on top of each other in high rises. The CHA has taken the innovative, pioneering stance of acknowledging that public housing residents deserve to be integrated into the city. They are taking sweeping measures to raise the bar of living conditions for low-income families. It is the hopes of CHA to integrate citizens of different income levels in “mixed housing”, (where a third of the residents in the new building qualify for public housing, another third do not qualify but are below the market rate, and the remaining third is at the market rate). CHA is creating an environment that provides lower income residents with the tools to be successful and make a positive change in their new communities. Rayne’s interest in CHA’s plan lead her to designing the most elaborate, extensive relocation program in the nation.

“When I arrived in Chicago, I sent emails to anyone I could think of that would be able to put me in connection with the project. As a result, I got three or four names and numbers to call. But instead of approaching the phone calls as job solicitations, what I came up with was more like ‘Hi, I’m new to Chicago, and I would really like to talk to you and do an informational interview about the Plan for Transformation’. Most of the people were open to it.” Rayne continued, “I never left an interview without obtaining the name of another person I could talk to. Eventually I was led to the HR director for CHA, whom I called twice a week for three weeks straight. She probably thought that I was either crazy, or I really had something of value and eventually she gave me the chance to interview with a resident group, and they called and said they really liked me.”

“I met with my future boss,” Rayne told me of securing her position at CHA, “and we started to talk about the concept of relocation, and my position on it was that relocation should occur all the time with families because you should always be in a position to better your income and obtain better housing. In that conversation I realized they were looking for a director. So I was offered the job as a director, and when I started, it was a department of one, then it was a department of five, and now it has grown to forty.”

As Director of Relocation for the CHA, Rayne is in charge of managing a department of forty employees responsible for the relocation of 25,000 families while implementing social services. Prior to Rayne’s presence at CHA, the relocation process consisted of sticking a notice to a resident’s door to inform them that they had sixty days to relocate. Rayne implemented a year long relocation process in which CHA takes care of moving expenses and transportation assistance, making the move as easy as possible for residents.

When asked about what the most rewarding part of her job was, Rayne replied, “I would say every day that we move families into new housing, it’s exciting. We have families that have lived in a high-rise building for the last forty years. There’s no better joy than when a family like that has established employment, found child care and made a decision to make a positive change in their life, and moved to a brand new unit.”

Rayne’s passion to make a difference has impacted the lives of thousands of Chicago families through her work with CHA. She has helped initiate a powerful, influential change in public housing. CHA’s Plan for Transformation has received worldwide attention, with mayors from all over the country as well as government officials from South Africa traveling to Chicago to take note of the process. Now, seven years into the project, fifty high-rises have been closed and CHA is on schedule to finish the project in the allotted ten-year time frame.

Considering her accomplishments and experience with public service, I asked Rayne what advice she would offer to someone with the ambition of entering the field. She said to, “volunteer somewhere, because everyone wants a volunteer. It can be disillusioning at first, because we all have this notion of wanting to help and make the world better. But when you get in it, politics can take over, money has to be raised and some of those tactics can be disillusioning. So I think volunteering and understanding that there are some hardcore business things that happen just like in the business world is important to acknowledge.”