Based on the report he sent out last week, he's succeeded. Revenues are up, costs are down and the group is reaching a larger share of women and minorities.

Bruner, 39, stopped by our office a couple of weeks earlier to give us a sneak preview. Below is a partial transcript of that interview, edited for brevity and clarity.

Willamette Week: You make a good case that CAP is a well-managed organization with stable funding and a strategic plan for the future. Yet that's not what people think of when they think of CAP. Why's that?

Thomas Bruner: This is an organization that was founded and run on passion, piss and vinegar, grassroots fervor, righteous indignation, fire in the belly, and without much business sense. Everybody knows it; I've said it everywhere I've gone. It's no big secret. And one of the reasons I was hired was to help be a part of the team that changed that. That's why I'm here. So think about it. The organization is 16 years old. I've been here 2 1/2 years. That means that for 13 1/2 years, the organization's history...it's had a big heart, but not so big a brain. That stuff dies really hard. Those impressions linger far after the data indicates otherwise. What's the saying? "You only have one chance to make a first impression." It's true. And we didn't make a first impression; we made a first and a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth and a sixth.

What do you mean?

We would have relatively good years-relatively stable, relatively healthy. Those years would be followed by what seemed to be the cyclical crash-and-burn years where programs would be cut and people would be laid off and things that would have just started rolling would be down-sized. I can't imagine the disruption that caused for lots of people: volunteers, staff, people in need of services, people receiving prevention education messages. It must have been very disruptive. I'm really sorry about that, that's a bad deal. But those impressions, in the minds of some people, are firmly rooted. And will probably take 13 1/2 years of consistent turn-around to begin to counter the 13 1/2 years of episodic disappointment. And that's how it works.

How do you explain that long cycle of "crash and burn"?

I think that CAP, as part of its grassroots, crisis-driven, idealistic culture, didn't really think much about things like public information, marketing, newsletters, annual reports, communication. I think that sort of business acumen is a part of what didn't exist at the agency for a long, long time. I guess the idea was anybody who needs anything from us will hear about us somehow. Or whoever is in need out there will somehow find us. But our good works alone don't speak for themselves. When I arrived two and a half years ago and I think uttered the word "marketing" in the very first all-staff meeting, you could just cut the tension in the room with a knife. "Marketing? My God! That's what banks do! That's what Hoffman Construction does, what are you talking about, marketing?" That isn't a slam on the organization heart, its passion, its values or its ideology. It's a sign of this historical lack of sophistication.

What's been your biggest surprise in the time you've been here?

My biggest surprise was how tightly connected-culturally, philosophically, civically-the issues of gay rights and HIV were in this area.

How did that differ from where you were before?

I came from Texas, which, depending on the reporting period, is either fourth or fifth out of all 50 states in incidents of reported AIDS cases. It has a huge population, so obviously it's going to have a huge number of AIDS cases. It's a border state. Its population in general is much more demographically diverse. So the whole issue of AIDS organizations thinking like, acting like, marketing like, talking like gay community centers or gay civil-rights organizations was a very old discussion in my mind.

And it's still a discussion here?

It's a huge discussion. It's gut-wrenching. These are places that were founded by white gay men, by and large, and a few other supporters. So culturally and politically we're wrestling with what we are, who we are here for and how we market it. Those are gut-wrenching conversations, and I think I underestimated the freshness of that conversation here in this state because it happened years ago in the state I came from. Things I took for granted were big news at this place.

Along those lines, I noticed you brought three pieces of promotional literature. With the exception of one photo, you could strip away all the text and think they're brochures for the United Way or the Humane Society. Nothing about this says "gay men" at all. Is that new for CAP and, if so, is it drawing any criticism?

Any coordinated aggressive marketing and public-information campaign, regardless of its content or images, is new for CAP. I think CAP has been largely a public-information disaster through the years. Figuring out who we are, where we are, what we are, how we are, has been very difficult for people. So that's part of our more aggressive, coordinated public-information campaign. Number two, the mission of this organization is about a disease, and wherever that disease goes is where this organization will go and should go. The mission of the organization isn't inherently political or tied to any specific sub-group of the population; it's tied to a disease. So as the face of that disease changes, that's where we go.

Yet, as we see AIDS cases increase among gay men in San Fran and other major gay areas in the country, is CAP losing some of its mission statement?

Absolutely not. The idea that an institution can care and be passionate about only one group of people is ridiculous. The idea that we can't care about, be passionate about, market aggressively toward and work to be relevant to multiple populations simultaneously-that we've got only this much caring and that if we give this much of it to black women we take a comparable amount of it away from gay men-is ridiculous. And think about it. I am a white gay man, our deputy director is a white gay man living with HIV. My boss, our board president, is a white gay man. We are not trying to rip CAP out of the arms of needy gay men; what we're trying to do is send a message that we want to be everyone's CAP. That's the message.

You seem frustrated about having to explain this.

I am amazed that this is an issue! It's 2001. We're entering our third decade in this disease. I'm in my 16th year of HIV work. I got into this arena because people who looked like me were getting sick and dying. Had it been 8-year-old, one-legged girls from Canada that were overwhelmingly impacted, would I have felt that same sense of urgency? Probably not. As a white gay man, people like me started saying years ago, AIDS is a gay issue but it's not exclusively an issue for gay people. It impacts whole groups of people. That's a message we began to beat the drum about aggressively years and years ago, so it's just surprising to me that in 2001 I'm sitting in a major media outlet in a major metropolitan area in the United States still talking about it.

What's been your biggest frustration at CAP

This is a region that really likes process...a lot. I'm an advocate for thoughtful planning. Absolutely. Research, homework, testing your ideas, gathering your ducks in a row. But...well, it's summed up in this quote: I went to lunch with one of the leading nonprofit, health and human service people in town, early on.

Who?

I'm not going to tell you who. It was a private lunch. And this person said to me, "This area sometimes honors process more than product." And I thought, "That's ridiculous." But it's true. And I honor product more than I do process. I think that when somebody cuts a $50 check at the end of the year to this institution, puts it in an envelope that says, "I'll help you fight AIDS," I think I have a pretty good idea what they have in mind. And I do not think that they have a vision of a bunch of well-intended philosophers sitting around navel gazing ad nauseam. I think they intend us to get off our butt and go fight AIDS. Does that mean we shouldn't plan, that we shouldn't research, that we shouldn't test our potential product before we deliver it? No. It just means I think they envision action.

Can you give an example where process won out over product?

Let's see. Well, upon my arrival, some people on our staff talked more about their feelings and how everything felt to them and whether they felt this way or that way about some decision, than they did about our course of action around that decision. It seemed to me irresponsibly indulgent. I think it's an occupational hazard in a lot of health and human service arenas. And when somebody's grandmother cuts a $50 check at the end of the year for me to fight AIDS, I don't think she give a rat's ass whether I feel real excited about it and real safe about it or kind of excited about it and kind of safe about it. I just think she expects me to get off my ass and go fight AIDS. And the way I feel about this or that is wholly secondary. This isn't group therapy. This is work.

What's your greatest accomplishment been at CAP?

Is it sexy and exciting to be the guy who comes into town and shapes up the business infrastructure of CAP? No. Does it make for the same kind of copy? No. Does it really get people excited about the tenure of Thomas Bruner? Probably not. But, is it a critical turning point in the organization's history upon which its program and service delivery rests? Absolutely. You know about the past travails the organization. Most everybody else knows about that. What they don't know is not just the recovery; this is beyond the recovery. The recovery connotes being back at a level where you were before your latest slash-and-burn. This is not an institution that's recovered to the level it enjoyed before its most public slash-and-burn in 1994 and 1995. This is an organization that's on a whole new level of sophistication and health and credibility and viability.

You came from Texas, a much more ethnically diverse state. What effect does that difference have on your work in Oregon?

HIV work here feels more balkanized within certain subgroups that are either infected or affected by the disease.

What does that mean?

Each group is concentrating on its unique needs and issues that are not shared by any other group, instead of integrating into a broader health and human services challenge that happens to have many faces to it.

Why is that?

Maybe that's because leadership here through the years-including at this institution-largely failed to build bridges. Does it mean that there are no bridges? No. Does it mean that there are not existing examples of lots of collaboration and shared resources? No. It just means that it still feels more balkanized here. That's one of the things so vexing about HIV. The question of "Who owns HIV?" Whose epidemic is that, anyway?

How do you answer that?

Well, I think what HIV looks like in sub-Saharan Africa is extraordinarily different than what AIDS looks like in Houston, Texas. Which is very different from what it looks like in Portland, Oregon. Which is very different than it looks in Rapid City, South Dakota. It depends on where you are.

What's the biggest challenge facing CAP right now?

Organizations like this one all around the country, even when financially healthy, tend to be very, very lean operations, financially, and very dependent on government funding, primarily federal. Groups like ours have worked hard to increase our private fund raising and build an individual donor base. But still, we operate on the kindness of strangers. You would, ideally, like to look at an organization like this one and see its funding base heavily diversified, which we're not. And that's a weakness, because it leaves us vulnerable to whims of the federal government.

It seems that some of your fund-raising efforts, like the AIDSWalk, don't have the high profile they once had in this city. Do you agree?

I think what you're referring to is a nationwide trend that is much bigger than CAP. You've written about it ("A Plague out of Vogue," WW, Dec. 9, 1998). It is the deglamorization of AIDS. And it is why organizations like this one are working harder than ever before to communicate that things are better-but that better doesn't mean over. People live longer, a lot longer, thank God-but that doesn't mean it's over. And all kinds of issues have their day in the sun, followed by their relative days in the shadows. They wax and wane depending on whether Elizabeth Taylor has raised some record-setting amount of money or whether a Magic Johnson comes out with HIV or whether there's a Rock Hudson who dies or whether there's some HIV outbreak somewhere-particularly within the group of people that look kind of like we do, that we can relate to.

That's not answering the question.

It is absolutely answering your question, in a hundred ways. And the answer is: People don't die as often. The death rate has plummeted around the nation. And the people with HIV today who get helped by places like CAP don't look as much like you and me as they used to. They don't sound like you or me. And our ability as a community to relate to them, feel empathy for them, feel very urgent about their needs, is limited. Look, 27 percent of everybody we saw last year was a person of color. And even among the white gay men we see, we don't see people who look like Terry Bean, Gary Maffei, Jeff Miller and Craig Hartzman. The white gay men we see are often people who have complicated substance-abuse histories and mental-health issues and are facing other challenges that make dealing with their HIV infection really hard. So who walks for them? Who raises money for them? They don't cut my hair. They don't do flower arrangements in my home. They don't cater my parties. And I'm not being facetious. I'm being extremely candid: that we are moved most by situations that seem to be closest to us. That's not just here, that's all around the country.

How big of a deal-for you and Cascade AIDS Project-was the controversy over reporting the names of people with HIV in the state health department?

It was a big deal. That's a bigger issue than Oregon Health Division, Cascade AIDS Project, Portland metro area. That's big national news and has been for years. It just happened to hit Oregon, like some other things, a little later than it did many other places.

CAP supported the proposal. Does that mean you don't believe there's any danger in the reporting of names?

In and of itself, it is not a dangerous thing to do. The devil's in the details-it's how it gets done. It's the security of the data that's important. It's the method by which the Oregon Health Division does it that determines whether it's an OK thing or not an OK thing. It depends on how well they train their staff out in the field. It depends on how much they lobby the legislative session for really tight confidentiality laws. It's how good of a job they do educating and marketing to make sure people know what is going to happen and what isn't going to happen. The science of it is absolutely sound. The practical implementation of it state by state is something that places like ours need to watch carefully. I want to check out the data in the 35 or so states that already do this, and see if the draconian projections about all hell breaking loose actually have come true in any of those states.

Do you think your support of the state's plans has aggravated the criticism of CAP?

I think any bold leadership move is bound to win some allies and also gather some detractors. I think that's what leadership is about.

Is the confidentiality concern still weighted more heavily toward the HIV population that is gay?