Guy-Oreido Weston, MA
Guy-Oreido Weston became Executive Director of DC CARE in April 2011, after working more than 25 years in various facets of planning, evaluation, and service delivery of HIV/AIDS programs. Most recently, he managed his own consulting practice focusing on organizational and program development for HIV organizations, as well as various provider and consumer training activities focusing on treatment education, health disparities, and community mobilization.
Guy calls his career path “eclectic.” He brings DC CARE a varied portfolio of experience in program and grants management, health planning, health statistics, and training programs in urban, suburban and rural communities with a variety of populations. At DC CARE, he plans to use this insight and relationships to refine existing programs and diversify the range of programs and resources the agency provides. The first new venture will be a series of training programs targeting both providers and consumers of HIV services, beginning in September 2011.
Previously, Guy directed the Administrative Agency for Ryan White Part A funding in Baltimore from 2006 to 2008. At the District of Columbia Department of Health-HIV/AIDS Administration, he was the Director of the Data, Planning, and Evaluation Division from 2001 to 2004 and had oversight for HIV/AIDS epidemiology, health services research, program evaluation, and policy. He also worked for the Vermont Department of Health from 1999 to 2001, ultimately becoming Director of HIV/AIDS programs, and government chair of the statewide Ryan White planning body.
In 2008, Guy joined the faculty of the Black AIDS Institute (BAI), where he did curriculum development and training of fellows in the Institute’s Community Mobilization College, the Black Treatment Advocates Network and facilitated orientation workshops targeting African American journalists at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. He is best known for data presentations, in which he seeks to make numbers “meaningful, relevant, and interesting” for health professionals and the public. His appreciation and insight into the dynamics of HIV epidemiology date back to the beginning of his career as an HIV/AIDS as a surveillance investigator with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health in 1986. During this period, he also wrote extensively on HIV/AIDS issues. His work appeared in the Philadelphia Gay News, and the Philadelphia Tribune, among others.
A strong advocate for community-driven planning, Guy co-founded the Mercer County (NJ) HIV Consortium in 1993, and served as its President until 1995. Soon after taking a position in Philadelphia in 1995, he was appointed to the Philadelphia HIV Commission and served as Chair in 1996 and 1997.
Guy was born in Philadelphia and he grew up as a military dependent in England, California, Illinois, Philadelphia, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, North Dakota, and New Jersey. At age 19, he “grew bored after living in the same area for five years for the first time in his life” and transferred from Eastern College near Philadelphia to Seminario Biblico Latinoamericano in San Jose, Costa Rica to complete his undergraduate education in Theology. He also has a Master’ Degree in Bicultural Studies from LaSalle University where his research focused on Cross Cultural Communication in healthcare. Subsequently, he took additional courses in Public Health at Columbia University.
In addition to work on HIV/AIDS issues, Guy has several on-going writing projects, one of which traces his mother’s heritage back the 1790s in Philadelphia.