Interview with Tom Coogan
Arvada’s Tom Coogan is a dedicated humanitarian who has spent decades serving vulnerable communities at home and abroad and remains an active volunteer for political candidates and issues he believes in.
Q: Thanks for sharing your story with us, Tom! To dive right in, what motivated you to pursue a master’s degree in business administration, particularly with a focus on marketing?
A: It was somewhat accidental. I had no desire to go into business after university when I enrolled in CU in 1973 after my discharge for the USMC. I had decided to major in Recreation as that was a field with an interesting future. While at CU, I got involved with budgets through CU student government. That showed me I had a talent for financial analysis. In 1975, I decided to apply for the CU MBA program. I chose Marketing as my emphasis because I thought it would be a better fit for me in business instead of banking or accounting.
Q: What are you currently doing with Team Rubicon and what is the impact of your work there?
A: I focus on Logistics with Team Rubicon. As a Log, I focus on supporting our Greyshirts (our term in Team Rubicon for ourselves) regarding field lodging meals, transport and equipment. And looked for workIt is a way to help them focus on their work in the field and have aplace to relax and enjoy a good mela in the evening.
Q: What advice would you give to others looking to make a positive impact in their communities?
A: Ask yourself what you believe in, what skills do you have or are willing to get and why do you want to help a certain group. Do that and it will help you see in yourself where you want to try to go. Tae a deep look inside and ask yourself how strong and how long you are willing to be and to go in this voyage.
Q: What advice would you give to someone who wants to start volunteering in their local political scene?
A: Much the same as above. On top of that, (ask yourself) what do you want for our country and society?
Q: In your view, what are the biggest challenges and rewards of being involved in local politics?
A: Staying out of political games and not being in it for power. If, like myself, you don’t want to run for office, look for people who do want that whom you can trust and believe in. If you find such people, help them directly. That can be financial, door knocking or many other activities. Be involved and remember that we are all Americans and need to listen to each other. Winning arguments does not advance democracy.
Q: Your work spans various fields (i.e., automotive industry, international NGOs, special education) – what inspired you to engage in such diverse sectors?
A: Inspire is not really the right word. Before my corporate career, I had not thought of going into the car industry. While at CU, I was contacted by recruiters because I was both in the MBA program as well as serving on the CU Student Finance Board and as a Graduate Student Representative on the University Budget Committee. In the recruiting process, I met with Ford and American Motors. AMC/Jeep was the more interesting of the two because the possible rewards were higher.
Aid work came to me as an idea on the mid 1990’s after I got sober in 1991. I had been very successful at AMC. A good part of that was my skill at “playing the game”, which involved making things happen that benefited my superiors without necessarily following the rules. I have nobody to blame but myself, but those “skills” did not build my character.
I was given an unearned “last chance’ for my career in 1991 and I worked hard and clean to merit that. After great success in the late 90’s developing new business for my new employer, I began wondering how else in my life I could serve outside the business world. I also loved travel and was willing to live on the basic side, so the aid world appealed to me for all of that.
Special ED came via my daughter Moira. She has a Doctorate in Special Education. Twice when I came home from abroad and was looking for work, she offered ideas that involved helping special needs children.
Q: What is Médecins Sans Frontières and what motivated you to join in?
A: Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), commonly known in the US as Doctors Without Borders (a direct translation), is a humanitarian health organization founded in 1971 in France. The founders were mainly medical people who had served with the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) in Biafra in Nigeria. They chose to start a new group because the ICRC pledged not to talk about what they saw in the field. MSF was founded with the idea of Temoignage, a concept to testify to wrongs seen even if it meant expulsion, which made it different than ICRC.
MSF has grown from basic beginnings into a worldwide organization providing free service to millions of people each year in some 60+ countries. The annual budget exceeds $2 Billion and is primarily raised from donations with some funding from grants. In 1999, MSF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. MSF is an associative organization. I have been a member of MSF since 2005 and plan to remain a member for all my life. Membership is separate from employment on MSF field operations.
I read about MSF in the 1980’s and was a contributor to MSF in the 90’s. I never thought I would join MSF in those days as my career was in corporate marketing. Around 2000, I learned that MSF did hire a limited number of non-medical staff for administration and logistics. That was when I started to think about joining MSF after my corporate career was over.
In 2001, just after my daughter earned her master’s degree, I realized that I was at a place and time in my life where I could consider changing careers. I was debt free and had funded my 401K reasonably. I could easily sell my condo, so relocating outside the US was not a problem.
I looked at MSF at that time, but there were no openings. I learned of a group that needed help in the Pacific, so I joined that organization and began my new career in aid work. Three years later, I was back in the US. I applied to MSF USA and was accepted. With MSF, I served 6 assignments ranging from a special one-month training post to as long as 13 months. Postings were in Thailand, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan (Darfur), Ethiopia and Libya between 2005 to 2013.
Q: Can you share any memorable experiences or challenges you faced while working with Médecins Sans Frontières?
A: So many:
Patients cured of tuberculosis. The grim, boring daily grind for residents of refugee and IDP camps (Internally Displaced People).
Opening a medical clinic for the first time ever in Mathar, a village in a remote section of Ethiopia.
Seeing a healthy premature baby in our medical tent in Mathar. That baby likely would not have survived if we were not there.
Seeing nurses caring for infants with SAM – Severe Acute Malnutrition.
Meeting government officials in Sudan whose work was to limit help to their own citizens as the national government hated the idea of Darfur leaving Sudan.
Being in Libya just after Ghaddafi was overthrown and killed and meeting people who had suffered in his jails.
Serving where MSF treated and cured young children and pregnant women with malaria (and catching Malaria myself).
Attending a memorial service in Nairobi for three MSF staff killed a few days before by an IED in Somalia. One of the slain was a Kenyan doctor on his first assignment with MSF.
MSF-F Darfur was expelled for “spying” in 2009 along with 12 other NGOs. My Country Director and I had our passports held by the Sudanese government and had to stay for a month longer in Khartoum than the rest of our international staff. Then we were given our passports and expelled from Sudan.
In a way, my biggest challenge was never to forget that I was the person who could go home far away anytime I chose. My sadness at what I saw was real and there were nights when I stood outside alone and cursed at God for the suffering that was going on. The SAM babies seemed the most senseless in their innocence. What I learned to remember is I was there to help people who in most cases could not leave. My job was to help them, help our patients.
Q: What is Action Against Hunger (ACF) and what motivated you to join in?
A: ACF is an acronym for Accion Contre La Faim (Action Against Hunger). ACF was founded in France in the early 1970’s. Its mission is like that of MSF with two significant differences. ACF is 97% funded by donor specific grants, while MSF is over 85% funded by direct unrestricted donations. Also, ACF does not have its own doctors and nurses. Instead, it works in conjunction with local health agencies and uses the medical personnel of those agencies in their work.
I joined ACF after serving four assignments with MSF. The ACF HR recruiter was a member and former field staff with MSF. As an Administrator, my work with MSF and ACF was similar, so it was easy for me to make the transition. My first assignment with ACF was in Uganda, where I had worked earlier with MSF. I knew the country and its needs. ACF’s role in Uganda when I served was clear and important to the people living in the areas of northern and northeast Uganda where ACF was working. I later served in Kenya, Pakistan and 2 assignments in South Darfur. My motivation for serving with ACF was much the same as in my joining MSF.
Q: How did your experiences shape your perspective on healthcare and humanitarian aid?
A: My experiences made it crystal clear to me that healthcare is not evenly accessible around the world. I saw that overwhelmingly, the healthcare and humanitarian aid we delivered was of enormous benefit in many ways. Babies who would have died or lived limited lives due to malnutrition were instead helped to thrive in early childhood. Fewer people with Meningitis, Tuberculosis and Malaria died and millions with HIV/Aids received free treatment that allowed them to lead longer and healthier lives.
As I worked in humanitarian action for some years, I saw two very different things that bothered me. The worst was a bias in leadership. There was gulf between Expats (International staff such as me) and National Staff who were from the country where we were working and comprised between 85-95% of our total staff in each country where we worked. On my briefing for my first assignment in Thailand, I was cautioned not to “encourage” National Staff who wanted to become International Staff. If that was not bad enough, the makeup of our international staff was predominantly white Europeans and Americans.
For International Staff, there was some discussion on limiting interaction with national staff. In one area, emotional relations (romance), this was appropriate as there could easily be an abuse of power intentionally or otherwise as the international staff person was always in those days in the senior leadership position. But the system in those days limited growth and career opportunities for national staff, which also affected earnings and benefits. A great number of talented people were not given the chance to grow their skills and scope of service.
The other thing that bothered me was – albeit not common – a bias among international staff that we were “better” than the locals. That was never appropriate. It could range from paternalism and talking down or around national staff to at its worst abuse of power.
I have been out of field work since 2015, but I do hear from former colleagues and from MSF USA that these issues are known and are being addressed. Great strides have been made in talent development and career opportunities for all field personnel. I hope that continues.
Q: What were some of the most significant differences you noticed between healthcare systems in America versus the areas you worked in overseas?
A: MSF focuses on countries with significant issues ranging from conflict and post conflict to natural disasters, crop failures (famine) and other major problems. As a result, the health systems in many of the countries where I served were much more limited than in the US. There were exceptions. Thailand has an excellent health care network. However, the Thai government does not want refugees to have access to their hospitals. Pakistan, Libya, Ethiopia, and Kenya had some excellent hospitals in their capital cities, but rural and small towns were much less served. The one place that really struck me was Indonesia, where I lived and worked for 4 years in the 1980’s. In Indonesia, people without money were turned away from hospitals except for a few government hospitals and clinics. It was common to hear stories of people “dying at the doorway” of a Jakarta hospital for lack of money.
Q: How did you navigate cultural differences and language barriers while providing help in various regions?
A: First and foremost, I listened. Also, from my earlier years working internationally in corporate marketing, I learned that I was the outsider, the newcomer and the guest in the countries and cultures where I was serving. As such, it was my responsibility to be open with my new colleagues, neighbors, and officials in each assignment, to ask for their help in learning how to live as a member of their community. I asked my colleagues for help to keep from making accidental cultural blunders and thanked people who helped me to learn where and how I had erred. I apologized numerous times over the years after I acted “too American” (too direct). Not to be silly, but the phrase “Toto, I think we’re not in Kansas anymore” stayed in my head.
I am not good with languages beyond a few hundred commonly used words in several languages. I was a “translator”. I did not trust my own brain in thinking in the language. Rather I would stop and translate what I had just heard into English in my head and in doing so, lose the thread of the conversation. I worked to learn words and greetings for personal use, but in my work, I used our staff translators to ensure the best possible communication.
I asked questions and learned the culture, mores, and daily practices of places where I was living. Having lunch was a great way to get to know people and good for breaking down the expat/national staff wall. I attended local activities and church services. In Mbarara Uganda, when the parent or other significant relative of a staff member died, the custom to send a delegation with that staff member to the burial. At the service, the lead staff member in the delegation gave a short speech with some reference to the person who had passed away. In Mbarara, I attended 5 of those burial services and was lead staff. I am happy to say that my remarks were appropriate to the occasion and well received in every one of these events.
In a rural village in Kenya, I had to negotiate with village elders on our hiring of a combination of local people and Kenyan staff with water engineering expertise from outside the region. Our Kenyan field admin in that town was from Kibera, a special section of Nairobi. Kibera was an area of some 1 million people with its own dialect of Swahili. My field admin told me he could not translate for me as “Kibera” Swahili was different from the local Swahili which he did not understand. I worked with the Village Elder and by trusting him, our talks went smoothly.
As an administrator handling financial and HR actions, much of my daily work was technical and basically the same from one country to the next. Many countries in Africa had legal regulations in English. I studied those regulations and consulted with officials and local attorneys to ensure that our work and labor practices met with local law and customs.
Q: What were some of the biggest obstacles you encountered while in conflict zones or areas affected by natural disasters?
A: My work was never after a natural disaster (e.g. Haiti), though there were remnants of famine in some countries. Regarding conflict, only Uganda was considered a “conflict zone” while I was serving there. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) controlled much of northern Uganda. Their territory was off limits for me to enter or cross over. In some 16 years from before 2010, they had killed or enslaved several hundred thousand people. Their area of control shrunk significantly between 2005 and 2010. By my 2nd tour in Uganda, I was able to travel to almost all of northern Uganda.
Much of my work was in post-conflict areas. Darfur (Sudan) and to a lesser extent Tripoli (Libya) were places where obstacles existed due to earlier conflicts.
In Sudan, you needed a permit to enter and to leave Darfur. If you left Darfur without a re-entry permit for Darfur, you could not return there. When my mother went on palliative care in January 2009, it took a special effort by my Country Director to get me an exit and return permit for Darfur so that I could go home and say goodbye. The permit was only for one week. If I was late coming back, I would not be allowed back to Darfur. My Mom was both glad to see me and happy that I was going back because she loved how my work helped me to be the better part of myself. Receiving her blessing the day I started back to Darfur, just a few days before she passed, was a sad but special day for me.
In Libya, travel was restricted for us to just parts of Tripoli, the capital. Even in Tripoli, there were parts of the city controlled by militias, some of which were Jihadists. These groups had the least liking for foreigners and even more so for non-Muslims. I generally got along with the Jihadist guards at a former race track turned into an exercise park near where we lived. But once on a Friday (the day of prayer and weekend day in Libya), one of our non-Libyan staff members was taken into custody by a local militia. My Country Director and I went to see if we could get our man released. The Militia Commander was a Jihadist and he looked at me and seemed very happy to have me in his office, if not in his custody. He thought about keeping me, but was persuaded that he would not be able to keep an American.
Q: Can you describe a particularly impactful moment or patient interaction that stands out to you from your time doing humanitarian work?
A: In Darfur (Sudan) in 2008, I was at the closing of a project in the town of Adila in South Darfur. We had been operating a program to check for and treat malnutrition primarily in children. Adila was a remote agricultural community located far south of what had been conflict zones. It was a three-hour drive over sand trails from the closest airport. As Country Administrator for MSF Darfur, I was there to oversee the closure.
On the last day of the closing, persons unknown set fire to the living quarters of our base. These were traditional Tukuls, small houses made of stick, twine, and straw. They ignited easily. 19 tukuls burned to the ground. One tukul was used as a storge room for Plumpy-Nut, an RTUF (ready to use therapeutic food to treat malnutrition) The fire burned the Plumpy Nut on hand.
Many local community members tried to help us stop the fire and save our quarters, but the fire was strong and it was too dangerous to try to stop it. We evacuated the base and watched the base burn from a safe spot nearby.
As Country Administrator, I thought for a moment to take command of the situation. However, I decided not to as Dr. Manal our Adila Field Coordinator, was in my view the better choice. She was both the on-site Manager of the Base and she was Sudanese. She was known by the Adila community leaders and she knew the customs of the town.
We conferred as soon as possible after the fire was down, then contacted our MSF Country Director via Sat Phone. We looked immediately for safe quarters to stay the night. We were contacted by OCHA, an agency of the UN charged with providing security for aid groups. Within hours, OCHA had set up an evacuation for us by UN helicopter for the following afternoon.
Camped in a vacant building and not knowing who had torched our base, there was fear in the room. I am honored to say that I saw leadership at its finest that night by Dr. Manal. First, she got us together and had us talk out our individual concerns and fears. She addressed each one and I could feel calm entering our conversation. Then she and I went out to find food for the evening. Over dinner, She laid out our tasks the next day to get ready for the UN evacuation helicopter. Then just before lights out, she made clear that our work the next day had to stay focused. The time for discussion was over. A united effort was important to help make our evacuation as quickly and as safe as possible once the helicopter arrived. She set us up for success.
Q: How do you think your experience with ACF and Médecins Sans Frontières has influenced your approach to healthcare or humanitarian work since leaving the organization?
A: I am still very positive towards most humanitarian health work. For example, the work on early childhood malnutrition truly does give children a better chance to develop. The work on diseases such as TB, malaria and HIV/Aids has helped cure or make life livable for millions who would have died. I would encourage doctors and nurses to spend time in the field to understand how much the world needs their skills. But I am glad that the American and Eurocentric focus of leadership in this field is diminishing and more focus is on developing talented people in the countries served.