Stop AIDS Project names interim executive director

The San Francisco-based Stop AIDS Project has named an interim executive director while a nationwide search for a permanent director for the organization continues, reports the Bay Area Reporter. AIDS expert B.J. Stiles has agreed to serve as interim executive director through early 2005, when the board of the Stop AIDS Project hopes to have hired a replacement for former executive director Darlene Weide, who lead the agency from January 2002 until this summer. Weide served as executive director through a federal review of several of its programs focusing on safer-sex outreach for gay men when conservative members of Congress questioned whether the project was misusing federal funds to pay for programs that promoted sexual activity and exceeded local obscenity standards. A February 2003 review by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared the programs of any wrongdoing. Stiles founded the National Leadership Coalition on AIDS in 1987 and managed its merger with the National AIDS Fund in 1996. He's also served as the interim executive director of the AIDS Emergency Fund/Breast Cancer Emergency Fund and as the interim executive director of Operation Access in the San Francisco Bay Area.