Profiles in presence : Kim Callanan

Kim Callanan, the new president of The Peaceful Presence Project’s Board of Directors.

IN HER OWN WORDS:

Kim was born and raised in Iowa.  After marriage, Kim returned to college with a goal of becoming a hospital administrator, earning both bachelors and masters degrees to qualify herself for this field. Moving to Texas, she worked in progressively more responsible  positions until, nineteen years into her marriage, Kim had her son. “I really adore families and children and, especially marrying so young, always thought I’d have a houseful of them, but that was not to be . . . so when he was born I stayed home for a few years.” 

When her son was ten, Kim returned as a consultant to a large multi-specialty physician group that had done a needs assessment and asked her "to develop better systems to respond to the chaos that occurs when someone is facing serious, progressive illness and hasn’t thought about the course that is to come.” This was a life changing project, “It became my passion. . . my work included consulting with clinicians and health care organizations about best practices to support people in the area of serious illness.” One great benefit was that this path led Kim to Oregon, a state then on the forefront of this field and one that became a frequent family vacation destination. Kim continues to serve as the Executive Director of “Texas Talks”, using best practices for having conversations and implementing the POLST (Portable Medical Orders), and has served on the National POLST Board for many years.

Fast forward to Kim’s relocation to Oregon:  “At a certain point in your life, what you know is that you need to live where your heart lives . . . and I wanted to create more room in my life helping the people where I live. . . I found Peaceful Presence through a yoga class!” After an informal conversation, Kim went to the PPP website and was impressed by what she has seen in the organization ever since. “I am stunned and amazed at the launch of Peaceful Presence; it’s a real anomaly in the nonprofit world. I think that a lot of the success or failure of a non-profit is all about leadership. . . I want to spend my time around interesting, productive, caring individuals, and I was impressed so rapidly!  . . . Peaceful Presence is creating a tremendous ripple in the pond of the very compassionate community that we live in.  I feel that part of my role will be to help define the success of Peaceful Presence and to have our board ensure that every possible advantage is in place to lift (the staff) up to do this work.” 

As you can imagine, we are very excited to have Kim’s depth of knowledge and depth of passion channeled into her role as The Peaceful Presence Project’s Board President!