Exchange PRIDE Founders Talk About How Far Things Have Come—And Still Need to Go

When he was 22 and fresh out of college, Arlen Miller took a job at the San Francisco Chronicle and had a workplace experience that stuck with him.

“You’d think that would be the most liberal workplace in the world,” Miller, former senior advertising production manager for the Exchange, said during a Tuesday lunch-and-learn. “There were three secretaries in the office who monitored my phone calls to determine whether I was getting more calls from men or women. To be in the most liberal city in the U.S. and have that happen to you, it kind of makes you take stock, because nothing is guaranteed.”

Several years later, in 2013, Miller became co-founder and the first program manager of the Exchange’s PRIDE (People Respecting Individuality, Diversity & Equality) special emphasis program. He retired from the Exchange in 2016, but still underscored the importance of having a group even though the LGBTQ+ community has made advances since his experience at the Chronicle.

“We’ve made some strides,” said Miller. “We have gay marriage now, and that’s awesome, but we still don’t have employment nondiscrimination.”

Miller was joined on the lunch-and-learn by PRIDE’s current executive champion, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Dr. Patrick Oldenburgh Jr., retired Exchange President/Chief Merchandising Officer and founding PRIDE Executive Champion Ana Middleton, and Associate Equal Opportunity & Diversity Inclusion Officer Valerie Wagoner, who also played a role in starting the PRIDE group.

“I don’t think we would have been successful at starting PRIDE, if it had not been for Arlen,” Wagoner said. “Arlen was willing to be the face of PRIDE. Going back to when we first started it, we couldn’t even get it to be called PRIDE. It had to be ALLY. We fortunately were able to change that very quickly [the name changed in 2014].”

Middleton added that Miller asked her to become the PRIDE executive champion, a role she took for personal as well as professional reasons.

“I immediately said, ‘absolutely’,” said Middleton, who retired from the Exchange in 2021. “There was no hesitation, there was no, ‘hey, let me think about it.’ The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, because my uncle, who was 62, had just come out as gay. For me, that was heartbreaking, because he was one of 15 in a Catholic family, he was the second from the youngest, and he had just come out and I thought, ‘how tragic for him that he had to live a lie, basically, for 62 years because of fear of repercussions.’ I thought if I could do anything to help change things, I would.”

Middleton said that in PRIDE’s earliest days, it was often difficult to get associates to come to the group’s meetings.

“They knew where we were meeting, and people were saying, well, if you went into that room, you were obviously one of ‘them’,” Middleton said. “People were afraid to actually go into the room.”

Everyone on the talk agreed that things have gotten better but there is still room for improvement. Miller said that for him, a key moment happened in the first year, when he, Wagoner and others attended workshops by Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to creating safe and equitable workplaces for LGBTQ+ people.

“That was a real eye-opening experience, because Out and Equal is all about how you can be successful in the workplace and still be out and proud,” Miller said. “I happened to join the local Out and Equal affiliate when we returned. So I had those folks to look to.”

Wagoner said another sign of how things have changed is the Exchange’s increased participation at the Dallas Pride festival and Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade. In 2018, about 30 associates walked in the parade with the Human Rights Campaign, but in 2019, the Exchange registered its own spot. The festival and parade were canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID concerns, but PRIDE and its allies have had a strong presence there in 2022 and in 2023, when more than 50 associates marched in the parade.

She gave an example from this year of why it’s necessary for the Exchange to be present at the festival.

“There was a Soldier who ran up to our table, literally ran up dragging along her spouse and her child, and she was explaining to her daughter, who was probably about 4 or 5, ‘This is the PX. This is where we go to go shopping, you know’,” Wagoner said. “This is why we absolutely have to be here, to show our customers and show our associates that we care about them.”

Middleton added that although things have improved for the LGBTQ+ community, PRIDE members and allies need to remember that change takes time.

“It’s a marathon, you know,” she said. “You have to take it one step at a time. It’s not a sprint. You’re not going to solve the world’s problems quickly, and with the Exchange being a federal entity, it does add complexity to it. Every step in our every interaction matters.”

The program concluded with Oldenburgh presenting Wagoner with an LGBTQ+ Ally award for being an “Amazing Ally, Champion and Friend to the Exchange PRIDE! Special Emphasis Program.” Wagoner had been an advocate for an LGBTQ+ special emphasis program for years before PRIDE launched.

“Val has been the advocate that we have needed in order to be successful in this group,” Oldenburgh said. “On behalf of the Exchange PRIDE group, I want to say a huge ‘thank you’ for everything that she has done for us.”

PRIDE’s program managers are Roger Hugh, audit project manager; Craig Masek, chief of restaurant support; and Somkid Morris, HR policy manager.

If you missed the lunch-and-learn, you can view it here.