Kip Bright’s love of politics began at the age 4. His mother took him into the voting booth with her to pull the lever for John F. Kennedy for President. His father was in the next booth over voting for Richard Nixon. At age 12, he caused a family crisis when a poster from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) showed up in the mail with Kip’s name on it. And at 17, Kip became the Youth Coordinator of the McGovern for President campaign in Calvert County, Maryland, before he could legally vote. A letter of thanks signed personally by Gary Hart is to this day his prized possession.

From 1973 until 1976, Kip studied Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University and quickly learned that employers weren’t banging on doors looking for Creative Writing majors. Or French minors. After six months of backpacking through Europe, Kip heeded the siren song of the nascent Gay Rights Movement and moved to San Francisco. Becoming plugged in with the gay community leaders and the local political scene in San Francisco during the late seventies was a natural progression. Working for an international food brokerage firm in San Francisco at the same time provided experience in import/export markets which would later be useful in Kip’s entrepreneurial endeavors.

Kip’s first close friend to die of AIDS was diagnosed with Kaposi Sarcoma in 1981 and he succumbed very quickly after that. The AIDS epidemic had begun, and for Kip it was the start of his involvement with AIDS service organizations from coast to coast. He worked with The Names Project in San Francisco and helped to bring the quilt to Washington, DC for the first time in October 1987.

While the 1980’s were a time of great personal loss, his entrepreneurial life began to flourish. Kip was able to pursue his passion for international travel by writing articles for various newspaper and publications. While writing in 1988 about the “Tennis Culture” in Buenos Aires, he fell in love with the city and began an export business shipping leather goods to the United States. His first retail store, Gaucho, opened in Savannah, GA in early 1989.

About the same time, Kip met his future husband and they decided to abandon the South and move together to Washington, DC. Kip sold his export business and stores and took a desk job as a Marketing Director for a trade association that published books and a newsletter for Federal Employees.

In 1999, the entrepreneurial bug bit Kip again. He and his partner launched their own line of medical compression stockings. Seventeen years later, after growing BrightLife Direct into a leading importer, manufacturer and e-commerce retailer in the durable medical goods industry, he and his husband sold the business to a group of investors.

Kip is currently enjoying retirement. He has just visited his 7th continent and is determined to pass on a better world to the next generation of young people fighting to bring LGBTI rights and awareness to the far corners of the world.