“When I was little, I didn’t play at having tea parties,” PSI’s new Board Chair, Gail Harmon, reminisces. “I put on my mother’s coat and pretended I was leaving for a Planned Parenthood meeting.”
Gail Harmon is from Kansas City, KS. Her mother founded the local Planned Parenthood chapter, and even smuggled contraceptives through the local post office, which was illegal at the time.
Ms. Harmon explains, “I’ve always been a strong advocate for women’s reproductive freedom. As people say, ‘It’s in my DNA.’”
At the Winter Board Meeting in February, Gail Harmon, Esq., was unanimously elected as PSI’s newest and first female Board Chair. Ms. Harmon takes Mr. Brian Atwood’s place as Chair after his six years of service on PSI’s Board of Directors.
Ms. Harmon is a partner in the law firm of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg and is a nationally recognized authority on exempt organization law. She graduated with her undergraduate degree from Radcliffe College, a part of Harvard University. Ms. Harmon received her JD from Columbia University.
Early in her legal career, Ms. Harmon represented clients such as NARAL, Catholics for Choice, and other organizations devoted to women’s rights and reproductive freedom.
“In each case, the emphasis on women’s empowerment and autonomy was central to my thinking,” Gail recalls. “That is why I’m so pleased that PSI is using human-centered design to learn more about the dreams and fears of young women, so we can speak to them in an authentic voice.”
PSI is excited to have Ms. Harmon at the helm of our Board of Directors as we continue to pilot new and fascinating ways of placing power in consumers’ hands.
Ms. Harmon explains: “In ten years I expect that PSI will continue to be a leader in implementing programs which bring health products and services to Sara, our [archetypal] representative of the most vulnerable people in the world. But in ten years PSI will also be a leader in delivering patient-centered health care, and [will be] known as an innovator in the development of new approaches to public health.”
Banner image: Yangon, Myanmar, 2014 © PSI/Jessica Sullivan
