America Living With AIDS

Charles Konigsberg, M.D., M.P.H., is a public health physician. He most recently served as
Director of the Division of Health of the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment from
October 1988 to August 1991. Previously he was the District Health Program Supervisor and
Broward County Public Health Unit Director for the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services in Fort Lauderdale. In Florida Dr. Konigsberg represented the county health official perspective on the Governor's AIDS Advisory Task Force. Dr. Konigsberg has also served as a consultant
to the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Public Health Service in the development of HIV
prevention and control strategies. He earned his M.D. from the University of Tennessee Center for
the Health Sciences and his Master of Public Health in Community Health Administration from
the University of North Carolina School of Public Health.
Belinda Ann Mason is a journalist and fiction writer who lives in rural Kentucky. In 1987 she
was diagnosed with HIV and thereafter with AIDS. In 1988 she founded the Kentuckiana People
With AIDS Coalition, the first organization of its kind in either Kentucky or Indiana. From 1989
to 1990 she served as President of the National Association of People With AIDS, and continues as
its Chair Emeritus. Since 1990 she has served on the board of the AIDS Action Council in Washington, D.C. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including a distinguished leadership award from the Kentucky legislature.
J. Roy Rowland, M.D., is now serving his fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives
(Democrat, Georgia's Eighth Congressional District). As the only physician in Congress from 1985
to 1988, Congressman Rowland has provided leadership and insight on a number of health issues,
such as infant mortality, rural health, the veterans' health system, and AIDS. His efforts on behalf
of the AIDS community include sponsoring the legislation that authorized creation of the National
Commission on AIDS and introducing a bill mandating study of AIDS among college studentsan idea that was adopted administratively by the Centers for Disease Control. Congressman Rowland earned his M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia and maintained a family practice in central Georgia for three decades before pursuing a political career.
Ex Officio
Richard B. Cheney was nominated by President Bush to be Secretary of Defense on March 10,
1989, was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 17, 1989, and took the oath of office on
March 21, 1989. In August 1974, when Gerald R. Ford assumed the presidency, Mr. Cheney served
on the Ford transition team, beginning in September 1974 as a Deputy Assistant to the President.
In November 1975, he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff, a
position he held through the remainder of the Ford Administration, until January 1977. He
returned to his home state of Wyoming in May 1977 to resume private life. Mr. Cheney was elected to Congress in November 1978. He was reelected in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1988.
Edward J. Derwinski, President Bush's choice to become the first Secretary of the newly created
cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs, was confirmed by the Senate on March 2, 1989 and
sworn in on March 15, 1989. Secretary Derwinski directs the activities of the federal government's
second largest department, responsible for a nationwide system of health care services and benefits
programs for America's 27.3 million veterans. A member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from 1959 to 1983, representing Illinois' Fourth Congressional District, he was the senior minority
member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Post Office Committee, and Civil Service Committee. He played a major role in the passage of landmark civil service reform, postal service reorganization, and foreign service reform legislation.

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