ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602050080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
KATHRYN HAYNIE PARKER has seen some big changes in Planned Parenthood in the past two decades.
Kathryn Haynie Parker was practically apolitical when she became a family planning counselor in January 1977. But when she leaves the top job at Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge Inc. in April - to pursue a new life with her new husband - it will be as a radical, by her description.
She remembers almost the exact moment she turned the corner.
It was Jan. 11, 1984.
That night, she recalls, Roanoke City Council caved in to groups who said Planned Parenthood advocated premarital sex, promoted abortion and undermined families in its educational literature.
That night, after having given similar support to Planned Parenthood for a decade, council denied the group's request for an $8,500 appropriation from the city's fund for nonprofit, community service groups.
"When Roanoke city buckled under to the radical right, I was astounded," Parker said. "I never felt more disappointed or alarmed."
Parker said she walked out of the meeting in "deep despair at the unfairness" of the decision.
The amount was only a tiny part of Planned Parenthood's then $274,000 annual budget, but it brought the group future donations worth thousands and thousands, Parker believes.
"The community became so outraged that in short order we raised more than $350,000 to buy our current building," Parker said. "People clamored to come on our board."
Since that night, Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge has grown into an organization of four clinics, 48 employees and a $2.1 million budget.
The budget when Parker came to the agency was $70,000, which is about equal to her current salary and benefits package as president and chief executive officer.
A search committee will interview four finalists for Parker's job this month and hopes to have someone in the job by mid-March. The prospects were chosen from almost 100 applications that came in from a national search.
Replacing Parker is a difficult task, said Al Knighton, a board member for seven years and chairman for the past two.
The tendency is to try to find someone "just like Kathy," he said. But that would be a mistake, because there isn't anyone like her, he said.
Not only is she wonderful to work with, he said, but she has never tried to make Planned Parenthood her private project.
"She understands her role, unlike some CEOs," Knighton said. "It's always a community effort with Kathy."
She's also a masterful communicator, he said.
"She can talk to anybody calmly and in a friendly fashion even when she's saying 'You're dead wrong,''' Knighton said.
Parker believes her involvement with Planned Parenthood was her destiny.
"I had a set of experiences and interests that propelled me toward where I am today. I'm here because I should be here," she said.
First, there was the interest in nursing and the sociology degree from the University of Maryland and marriage to Mike Haynie, a Roanoker she met at school. They settled into his hometown, and their first child, Harris, now 26, was born, as Parker puts it, "two years into the five-year plan."
Before Harris' birth, she worked briefly with Roanoke's Social Services Department. After he was born, she stayed home. Three years after Harris, she had Shannon, now 23.
In the meantime, she got certified as a childbirth educator and taught childbirth classes for the next 15 years.
But when Shannon was 4, Parker took a counseling job at the Roanoke Medical Center for Women, which did first-trimester abortions.
That position forced her to assess where she stood "regarding women's reproductive rights," Parker said.
In 1977, a job opened up at then-Planned Parenthood of Roanoke Inc., and Parker took it because it gave her an opportunity to work more with pregnancy prevention.
"I am a firm and strong advocate for safe and legal abortion as long as women experience unintended pregnancies. But prevention is the answer," Parker said.
In 1978, Parker was put in charge of the organization's first medical services, which with the help of volunteers added Pap smears, tests for venereal disease and pregnancy screening to its educational programs.
This was the beginning of the agency's transformation into today's full-service medical clinic. In the beginning, Parker was the medical clinic's only full-time employee.
Backed by federal funding and community concern that the teen-age pregnancy rate was climbing and teens needed access to counseling and birth control, Planned Parenthood added a family planning clinic one night a week. Fees then, as now, were on a sliding scale according to the patient's income.
Some of the 22 volunteers Parker worked with almost 20 years ago, especially some of the physicians, still volunteer at the agency, she said.
Planned Parenthood has always been on the hot seat because it gave information on birth control - and abortions - to women, especially teens.
Until last year, the local Planned Parenthood didn't do abortions, but it did refer women to places where they could have the procedure done.
By 1981, the demand for the medical clinic's services had surpassed their availability, but the contracts that brought in federal money wouldn't allow the agency to charge for services. Planned Parenthood decided that the medical clinic had to become self-supporting, and Parker didn't think she'd be able to continue as medical director in that situation.
But before she found a new job, the executive director position came open and was offered to her. She accepted.
Since then, the organization has added three satellite clinics. In 1987, a clinic was opened across from Virginia Tech. It broke even in 11 months and is still the busiest center in the Blue Ridge group, Parker said.
In 1990, Blue Ridge expanded to Charlottesville, and this past October, to Lynchburg. In each area, the impetus for the clinic came from local groups, Parker said.
The Charlottesville opening marked the first time Parker had encountered protesters outside one of the organization's facilities. A weekly picket by anti-abortion protesters is now part of the routine, she said.
Blue Ridge is among 150-plus affiliates of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Each is an independent corporation, but pays dues to the national organization and agrees to support its philosophy and standards. They do not get money from national, however.
The affiliates operate almost 1,000 community medical centers offering varying levels of services. In addition to standard women's health services, Blue Ridge's clinics offer pre-conceptual and mid-life services. They also see a growing number of male patients for contraceptive counseling.
The clinics see about 10,000 patients a year, are certified to serve people insured by Medicaid, and are working to get included in health insurance networks, Parker said.
Challenges for the board and her successor, she said, will include deciding how and when Planned Parenthood should expand and how to deal with the growing competition for private money.
But throughout its growth, the agency's mission hasn't changed, she said.
"We want to give women information, services and the freedom to control their fertility," Parker said.
Many of the medical clinics' clients can afford to go elsewhere, but she believes they choose Planned Parenthood because of its commitment to quality and confidentiality and its respect for its patients. "We really do see people on time," she said.
Two years ago, the board decided to develop a master plan for growth. It bought a building on the corner of Williamson and Liberty roads, a parking lot away from its clinic on Liberty. It also owns a strip shopping center on the adjacent site.
The group wants to build a new facility someday, Parker said.
Parker's credentials have expanded along with the organization. At the urging of Planned Parenthood's board, she completed the executive program at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business in 1993.
At the end of the session, when the students were asked to give their classmates a "corporate gift," Parker distributed "lollipops" of colored condoms, covered in cellophane and atop a Popsicle stick.
She had been inspired, she said, by a report from a Kenyan classmate on the health and economic impact of AIDS on his country.
The next year, she participated in the Virginia Political Leadership Institute at UVa, which teaches people political skills.
Parker is a registered lobbyist and works in a political organization - Planned Parenthood has a political arm, Blue Ridge Action Fund - but the institute provided a great experience, she said. It offered a blueprint to follow in running for office.
Until she met retired businessman F. Troost Parker III about two years ago, Parker said she had never envisioned her life being anything "but retiring at a ripe old age from Planned Parenthood."
"I've always had trouble separating my work and my pleasure because this organization is so deeply a part of who I am," she said.
The Parkers have maintained two households since their November wedding. But they eventually will make their home in Charlottesville. They also want to travel and have several trips planned this year. She thinks her husband is trying to keep her busy to ease her withdrawal from a job that often requires up to 60 hours a week.
Parker makes it clear, though, that she is not leaving the organization, just its presidency.
"I'm making a lifestyle change, and I am intensely committed to my new marriage," Parker said. "But I'm not going to cease being an advocate for Planned Parenthood issues."
LENGTH: Long : 171 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: MIKE HEFFNER/Staff Kathryn Haynie Parker is steppingby CNBdown as director of Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge after 18
years of service. color KEYWORDS: PROFILE