I love my job; just because it's work doesn't mean it can't also be fun. Our annual roundup of gay people with cool--and often groundbreaking--careers. (careers).

Long-haul trucker

Norm Flowers Nashville

Growing up on his family's farm near Franklin Grove, Ill., Norm Flowers idolized truck drivers. "They were the heroes of the highways," he says, a brotherhood of men who could be counted on to stop and help motorists whose cars had broken down and who delivered the things people needed, across the country, every day. "Santa Claus is a driver," he says, laughing. "I mean, talk about multistop deliveries!"

Now, after nearly 30 years of driving a long-haul truck, the 52-year-old Flowers is giving a voice to his gay brothers and sisters in the industry as founder of the Nashville-based Gay Truckers Association. The three-year-old group provides information, resources, job listings, and networking opportunities to gay and lesbian truckers and to gay people thinking about hitting the road.

Flowers also hopes the association will present an image of gay truckers that defies the stereotypes. "Even the gay community thinks we have nothing else to do except drive all over the country looking for quick hookups in sleazy little rest areas and truck stops," he says. But nothing, he adds, could be further from the truth.

Flowers would know. He started making intrastate runs to construction sites after a short stint in the Army. "I was driving little straight trucks, and I finally graduated to dump trucks," he says. "My first long-haul driving job was for a company out of Montana when I was 23."

Since then he has coordinated a prison ministry for the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches and worked on ranches in Wyoming, at a circus in Florida, and at a gay bathhouse in Los Angeles, but he's always returned to trucking. "Trucking's been one of my loves and one of the best-paying jobs, but it was very hard for me to settle down and just stay in one place," he says. "What other job lets you travel all over the country, see all kinds of places, learn about where things are made?"

Flowers came out of the closet at 18, but he says he was wary about being out on the job. At first, he says, it seemed he was the only one out there. "Some of the first [gay truckers I met] were in gay bars, and the occasional driver bold enough to put a rainbow or leather-pride sticker on his truck," he says. "My most nervous experience was when I wrote to a company's recruiter and asked how they felt about hiring gay people. He assured me that ability, not lifestyle, was their only criteria."

That's not to say that the industry has embraced the concept of gay drivers--or that it's always safe for those drivers to be open about their sexual orientation. Few trucking companies have antidiscrimination policies that include sexual orientation. And many of them discriminate against their gay and lesbian employees with policies that, in some cases, prohibit drivers from having any passengers other than their legal spouses or children. And even those drivers fortunate enough to work for progressive companies are sometimes the victims of entrapment or physical abuse.

Flowers says police officers and security guards sometimes listen to CB conversations and, when gay truckers arrange to meet, arrest the men for solicitation. He's also heard about truckers who have been invited over to another guy's truck only to be beaten up when they get there. "To me, that's a form of hate crime," he says. "'Let's pretend we're gay and get the guy over here and beat him up between the trucks because we hate faggots.' And that can and does happen."

For that reason and others, gay and lesbian drivers place a lot of importance on discretion. Flowers says he has a leather-pride sticker on his truck "because most gay people know what it is, but most straight people don't." He adds that when a gay trucker wants to find other gay truckers on the road, he'll click the microphone on his CB radio a few times. If he hears an answering click, he'll suggest they go to a specific CB channel or talk by cell phone.

Flowers first saw the need for an organization for gay truckers when he started visiting Internet chat rooms in the late 1990s. When people saw that he was a trucker, they E-mailed him or sent him instant messages asking him about the job. Most asked about homophobia in the industry. Others wrote, "'Wow, I'm not the only gay trucker out here!' or 'I'd sure love to drive with another gay trucker. That way I don't have to listen to some old man bitch about his last four wives,'" Flowers says. Still others asked practical questions about the business.

When it became too time-consuming to answer all the questions, Flowers posted some resources--links to gay-friendly trucking companies as well as legal, health, and tax information--on his America Online home page.

Then in June 2000 he set up the Gay Truckers Association, bringing together gay truckers and trucker wanna-bes through the group's Web site, which soon was getting more than 2,000 hits per week. In July the group will hold its first-ever convention, the Truckin' Jamboree, in Nashville.

Ultimately, Flowers hopes, the association will show both gay and straight people that "being gay as a trucker is not all that different from [being] any other trucker," he says. "We still put in long hours, miss home a lot, and deliver the same freight all across America as any other trucker does."--Emily Fromm

Fromm also has written for Child magazine and Adweek.

For a link to the Gay Truckers Association, log on to www.advocate.com

TV news anchor

Randy Price WHDH-TV 7News Boston

Randy Price cringes every time he reports a story about the Reverend Fred Phelps, the virulently antigay Topeka, Kan., Baptist minister who frequently holds protests outside the funerals of gay men and lesbians. But the openly gay coanchor of Boston's WHDH-TV news team knows that if a story makes him angry, chances are that his viewers will be angry too and possibly even motivated to speak out.

"Examining it really is in many ways a public service as long as you generate discussion along the way," he notes. "Some of the people I would consider to be against me as a person need to be heard, because their being heard helps change things for the better by getting people thinking and talking."

Price, 53, has never hidden his homosexuality during his 27-year TV news career, beginning with his first anchor job in Bakersfield, Calif.--where he met Mark Steffen, his partner of 26 years--through on-camera positions in Toledo, Ohio, and later in Boston. But he rarely sought out opportunities to discuss it publicly, preferring instead to support the gay community by volunteering with and donating to such groups as the Human Rights Campaign, Fenway Community Health, and gay youth organizations.

That approach changed sharply in the mid 1990s after a profile of him in Boston's gay press was picked up by mainstream media and snowballed into what Price calls a regionwide coming-out.

"Over the years I've realized it really was a great thing to have happened, not only because it made me a better person but also because it set an example in our industry," he says. "Local broadcasters still run scared of taking risks and of challenging what is perceived to be the public's values. So you still don't see a lot of so-called openly gay broadcasters in local markets."

WHDH, however, deliberately bucked that conservative trend: In 1996 it recruited Price from another local station to cohost its morning news show, promoting him two years later to coanchor of the 5 P.M., 6 P.M., and 11 P.M. 7News programs, knowing from the start that he had become one of Boston's most visible gay public figures. WHDH's fortitude paid off--it's now one of Boston's most-watched local news stations, and Price has faced virtually no public backlash.

"My belief is that there are going to be people who aren't going to like the fact that I'm gay, but they're not going to hold it against me," he says. "If we are to measure our success by ratings, and we do, then I really haven't seen any significant opposition."

Price remains as enthusiastic about reporting the news today he was the first time he stepped behind a microphone as an undergraduate student at the campus radio station at Louisiana State University. He even continues to embrace what he says is the most frustrating part of his job--covering stories that expose the ugliest sides of humanity, like the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed dozens of New Englanders.

"You learn to accept those stories for what they are," he says, "and you remind yourself of all the good you can do as a TV news program every day."--Bob Adams

City commissioner

Kecia Cunningham Decatur, Ga.

Electrician

Lenny Lasater Decatur, Ga.

Pioneers is a good word to describe Kecia Cunningham and Lenny Lasater, a couple who've shattered workplace barriers regarding both gender and sexuality through their very different white- and blue-collar career paths.

Cunningham, 37 and a banker by trade, in 1999 became the first openly gay African-American to be elected to office in the Southeast when she won a seat on the Decatur city commission. There, Cunningham proudly notes, she helped expand the city's equal employment policy to cover sexual orientation and transgender status, and she spearheaded the successful effort to provide domestic-partner benefits for gay city employees.

And Lasater, 46, in the 1970s was one of the first women in the country to be admitted to labor unions as a coal miner, in Alabama, and then later as an electrician apprentice, in Tennessee. Both jobs brought an enormous backlash from her mostly male coworkers, including accusations that she was taking a job away from a more deserving man or that she was sleeping with her superiors, she says.

"At the union meetings some of the men would get up and yell and scream that we didn't belong there," Lasater says. "My first boss as an apprentice actually met me at the gate and told me, 'I don't want you, but I've been told I have to have you, and so I'm going to make life hell for you.'"

Likewise, Cunningham at first faced opposition in her city commission bid, with some of the African-Americans in her district not initially convinced that they should support an out lesbian. But she had been recruited by then-mayor Elizabeth Wilson, who quickly came to her defense.

"We had a meeting with some of the mothers in the community," Cunningham says. "Mayor Wilson said, 'This is Kecia, and I promised to take care of her because she's our daughter. She represents us.' When those folks were challenged and had to look at me as a person, what was happening in my personal life, ultimately, didn't really matter."

Cunningham won her seat in a landslide, and she plans to nm for reelection later this year. Campaigning by her side will be Lasater, who has been self-employed as a residential electrician in the Atlanta area since 1990 and maintains a steady stream of referrals from both gay and straight clients.

"I call her my sign fairy," Cunningham says, joking of Lasater's habit during the last election season of sneaking out in the evening and posting campaign signs around town. "She wore all the buttons, and people identified her as being with me all the time. Since the election, she's really been considered my spouse. Since we're so comfortable as who we are as a couple, it makes other people comfortable too."

So comfortable, in fact, that members of the city's business association voted Lasater "king" of the organization's February 2003 formal. "I wasn't the queen, by the way, but I'm not bitter," Cunningham says, laughing.

Both women say their job satisfaction is as apparent to their peers as their commitment to each other is. Cunningham calls her efforts to improve the living conditions of her 18,000 fellow Decatur residents the most rewarding part of her public service. Similarly, Lasater strives to aid her friends and neighbors through her burgeoning business.

"I really like being able to complete a project, see it work, and please my customers," she says. "And I also love the flexibility of working for myself. I appreciate that I get to say yes or no to a job, can go fishing if I want to, or decide to really bust my ass. It's my choice."--B.A.

Ranch manager and nanny

Danny Gillespie Northern Texas

Danny Gillespie hates snakes. "The only good snake is a dead snake," he says with more than just mock seriousness only minutes after he's had to capture and kill a poisonous serpent on the horse ranch he manages in northern Texas.

In the past 14 months on the job, Gillespie, a former Dallas urbanite, has had more than a few run-ins with deadly snakes, including having a copperhead curl up near his bare feet in his small apartment in the ranch's horse barn.

"I had the biggest old nelly attack you've ever seen," he says with a laugh. "And I was like, 'Why am I here? Remind me again?'"

Gillespie, 46, has served as a ranch manager and full-time nanny since early 2002, following the death of his partner of eight years and after being laid off from his job in the advertising industry, where he had worked for nearly two decades.

"I really didn't know what to do," he says. "I literally didn't know where rent was going to come from. I had gone from a double-salary home to single-salary, then to unemployment, all in just three months. I was pretty much at rock bottom."

Through his network of friends Gillespie learned of the ranch manager-nanny position, and he received glowing recommendations for the job. And even though he was initially concerned that such a drastic career change would only add to his cares, Gillespie agreed to accept charge of the ranch's four 1,200-pound Arabian show horses.

"I had a whole world to learn when I moved out here," he says. "I spend a lot of my day out with the horses, feeding them, grooming them, exercising them. I've had a couple of moments when I've wondered what the hell I'm doing out here, but for the most part I absolutely love working with them."

He also revels in caring for Justin, his boss's kindergarten-aged son. "Danny the Nanny," as he calls himself, even volunteers as a "homeroom nanny" at Justin's school, serving as chaperone for field trips and assisting with basketball and T-ball practices and games.

And while it might seem daunting to be out on the job in a rural Texas community of about 1,000 people, Gillespie is very open about his sexual orientation and he takes great pleasure in bringing a decidedly gay flair to his work. He's particularly proud of the full-scale carnival he organized for Justin's 6th-birthday party in March, complete with about a dozen carnival games, prizes, cotton candy machines, popcorn, music, clowns, balloons, and even a bounce house.

"I have all the real mommies running scared," he says.--B.A.

Dentist for people with AIDS 

Len Barozzini AIDS Project Lost Angeles 

Len Barozzini cannot stress enough the importance of good dental care for people with HIV.

"Most HIV-positive people let dental care slip because they're often so focused on other aspects of their medical care," says the staff dentist at AIDS Project Los Angeles. "But it's just as important--if not more important--for HIV-positive people to take care of their oral health."

Barozzini, 37, knows what he's talking about--he's HIV-positive himself. And it was the fact that he is infected with the virus that led him in December 1999 to seek out the APLA job. As part of the agency's 14-person dental clinic, Barozzini helps treat as many as 3,000 APLA clients per year, many of whom receive free or government-subsidized dental care.

While the workload is sometimes daunting, Barozzini says the gratitude of his patients, who may have been too afraid to seek care at a private practice or were even turned away by other dentists, more than makes up for any downsides of the job. The inclusive nature of the clinic also directly benefits Barozzini, who says deep-rooted homophobia and AIDS stigma, even in progressive cities like Los Angeles, would make it difficult for him to be out and open about his HIV status at most other dental offices. And he steadfastly refuses to hide who is he from his employers or his patients.

"I want people to know that being gay or being HIV-positive should not stand in the way of you getting on with your life and doing what you want to do," he says. "I'm a gay man, I'm HIV-positive, and I love the fact that I'm out there every day letting people know that it's OK to be positive and to be a health care professional."--B.A.

Xerox field engineers

Flow Hicks Rochester, N.Y.

Brigitte Lefebvre Rochester, N.Y.

Xerox field engineers Flow Hicks (above, left) and Brigitte Lefebvre are accustomed to skeptical looks from male customers. They've each faced repeated episodes of doubt since the 1980s, when the women joined Xerox as field service representatives and were called on to repair the company's copiers, fax machines, and typewriters.

"I've had a lot of customers ask me, 'Are you sure you know how to fix that?'" Lefebvre says. "At one point I even had a customer who wouldn't leave me alone, telling me for 20 minutes that he didn't think I could fix his machine."

But fixing machines is what Hicks and Lefebvre, a couple since 1997, say they love most about their jobs. And with a combined 38 years at Xerox under their belts, they have have become experts at the products they handle--in Hicks's case, the state-of-the-art iGen3 digital press, and for Lefebvre, Xerox's computer-driven DocuColor printers.

"It's a challenge, and every day is different," says Lefebvre, 42. "Every time the phone rings, we don't know what's going to happen, what kind of problem is going to come our way. I love those kind of challenges."

Hicks's career has focused almost exclusively on mechanical fields, beginning when she was an aviation hydraulics and structural technician in the U.S. Navy and continuing through a stint at a Suffolk, Va., shipyard, where she was the first female rigger apprentice in the yard's history. She joined Xerox's Dallas office in 1982 and has been with the company ever since.

"I've always been a grease monkey," says Hicks, 47. "My brothers would take me out and make me crawl under the car to teach me how to drain oil out of Corvettes when I was just 5 or 6." She continues to dabble in automotive mechanics as a hobby, rebuilding motorcycles and scooters in her spare time.

Although Lefebvre always considered herself an electronics junkie--as a child she would take apart clocks and appliances in her parents' home and then reassemble the various parts--she began her professional career as a store detective for a department store chain in Montreal. "I tried to find work in the electronics field around 1979-1980, but people were basically laughing in my face because I was a woman," she says. In 1986 she joined Xerox's Montreal office as the company's third-ever female service representative in Canada.

Both women find the male-centric atmosphere in the technology industry to have abated considerably since the 1980s, although they do occasionally still see a raised eyebrow or two when working in the field. And neither reports having faced overt discrimination over her sexual orientation, particularly at Xerox, which was an early adopter of domestic-partner benefits and gay-inclusive antiharassment policies.

But even given her positive experiences being out on the job, Hicks understand why others may be reluctant to come out. "Gay men who are not butch still can have a heck of a time," she says. "I know a couple of guys who no one knows are gay because of the harassment they received early in life, and that's their choice. But I really do think today, if they came out, people would accept them."--B.A.

Software engineer

Rachael Parker Intel Hillsboro, Ore.

Rachael Parker has a rare perspective on gender inequities in the heavily male-dominated technology industry. That's because the Intel senior staff design engineer has firsthand experience on both sides of the issue--she's worked as a circuit designer for Intel's computer microprocessors as a man and as a woman.

Parker began the slow process of transitioning from male to female in 1998, three years after being hired to work on Intel's products, including its widely used Pentium processors. In 2001 she legally changed her name and completed the workplace transformation from Douglas to Rachael. (Parker underwent sex-reassignment surgery in Phuket, Thailand, in 2002.) And although she's never encountered any sexism among her coworkers after the change, Parker says she quickly faced subtle prejudices when interacting with other male peers in the industry who knew her only as a woman.

"Like at a technical conference a year and a half ago, I asked a question in a panel discussion, and they responded by saying, 'That's a really good question,' in a really patronizing way," she notes. "It kind of blew me away, because as a male I never got that kind of reaction."

To help combat sexism--and also homophobia--in the high-tech business, Parker, 35, is active in a number of industry organizations and participates in several Intel diversity and employee groups, including Intel Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender Employees. In general, she says, both gays and women throughout the field are free from harassment and discrimination due to zero-tolerance workplace policies. "Now it's just a matter of working to fine-tune the little things," she says.

While Parker takes great pleasure in championing inclusiveness throughout the 80,000-employee company, the true source of pride for the electrical engineer is her work on the company's industry-leading microprocessors, the chips that serve as the brains of computers. Her efforts have earned her four patents, with five more pending, and Intel's highest award for technical achievement in 1997.

"I love getting to come up with new ideas, see them built, see them work, and know that there are hundreds of millions of people out there with a little piece of something that I worked on," Parker enthuses. "That's pretty cool."--B.A.

Stray dog rescuer

Randy Grim Founder, Stray Rescue of St. Louis

On any given night Randy Grim usually can be found cruising the streets of some of the seedier neighborhoods of St. Louis, using a flashlight to peer into dark comers. But he's not a private detective or a member of a neighborhood crime watch program. Grim is looking for stray dogs.

Grim, 40, is the founder of Stray Rescue of St. Louis, a no-kill shelter that rescues abandoned, abused, and neglected animals. In St Louis alone an estimated 50,000 feral dogs live on the street.

"We actually can't rescue all the dogs that we know of because we just don't have the space," Grim explains. "So we kind of perform triage, deciding which ones to rescue right away and which ones to keep our eyes on."

Saving homeless animals has always been a passion for Grim, beginning with feeding and bringing home countless strays as a child in Washington, D.C., through his first career as a flight attendant, which enabled him to smuggle back homeless pets from cities all around the world.

Grim launched Stray Rescue in 1998. Today, the shelter operates from two sites, has three full-time employees, and is supported by more than 150 volunteers. The shelter has been featured on the Animal Planet cable network and was the focus of the recent book The Man Who Talks to Dogs: America's Wild Street Dogs and Their Unlikely Savior.

Throughout it all Grim has been very open about his homosexuality and his long-term relationship with partner, Paul Humbert. In fact, he says he's taken far more flack over the years for his devotion to animals than for being gay.

"I've never had an intervention for being gay, but for loving animals and trying to make a difference," he says. "People think you must be eccentric or bizarre to have such a passion for these animals. But I'm just doing what I know is right."--B.A.

Find more profiles of gay men and lesbians who love their jobs at www.advocate.com