Michael Weinstein President of AHF From their website http://www.aidshealth.org/
Michael Weinstein is the president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation’s largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care. Before becoming involved in HIV/AIDS related issues in the 1980s, he was a businessman and graphic designer. Since 1986, Mr. Weinstein has been a leader in the fight against HIV and AIDS. As president and co-founder of AHF, he oversees a $160-million organization whose mission is to provide “cutting-edge medicine and advocacy regardless of one’s ability to pay.” AHF currently serves more than 110,000 clients in the United States, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia.
Under Mr. Weinstein’s leadership, AHF has grown from a group of friends dedicated to the creation of dignified care for people in the last stages of AIDS to the largest AIDS organization in the United States. The Foundation now operates 15 outpatient AHF Healthcare Centers in California and Florida. AHF also operates 17 pharmacies, a clinical research unit, a disease management program throughout the State of Florida (Positive Healthcare/Florida, and the first capitated Medicaid managed care program for people with AIDS (Positive Healthcare/California).
In 2001, AHF launched AHF Global, a non-profit, international initiative to bring lifesaving antiretroviral therapy to developing and resource-poor countries. AHF Global works in partnership with local stakeholders including ministries of health and non-government organizations to establish sustainable and replicable models for high-quality, sustainable HIV/AIDS healthcare service delivery. AHF Global currently has partnerships and operates free AIDS treatment clinics in 21 countries including the US, and in Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia. AHF also operates medical provider-training programs in China, Haiti, Nigeria, Russian Federation and Ukraine.
In order to help finance some of the many services AHF provides, Weinstein also created the popular fundraising Out of the Closet Thrift Store chain, the nation’s largest AIDS-related retail business, which contributes to the innovative HIV/AIDS initiatives of AHF. Out of the Closet now boasts 22 stores in California and Florida, several of which offer free HIV testing as part of the Foundation’s groundbreaking alternative HIV testing and prevention program which conducts more than 14,000 free HIV tests annually.
Before founding AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Weinstein served as coordinator of the Stop the AIDS Quarantine Committee and then as executive director of the Los Angeles AIDS Hospice Committee, which led the fight for hospice care in the mid-eighties.
In 2001, Weinstein was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Whittier College for his career achievements.