Wakefield. Photo by Michael McFadden Photography

Wakefield, who goes by the singular name, is a humble yet no less impactful force for good who worked for 20 years as the external relations director for Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, specifically its HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN). The center says his work was part of “the world’s largest publicly funded international collaboration conducting clinical trials of HIV vaccines.” Last summer, Wakefield retired from the work, leaving behind a long legacy that he hopes to pass on to the next generation.

That legacy includes being an activist for more than 60 years. In a tribute written in Seattle Gay Scene last year, the blog hailed Wakefield for “volunteering for non-profits in his native Chicago since he was a child and becoming a community leader during the onset of the AIDS Epidemic.” In 1994, the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame inducted Wakefield for his decades of service to his community.

In those many years of service, Wakefield became involved with Fauci's work in trying to combat AIDS. Fauci and other medical officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) faced prolonged pressure from groups like the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, known as ACT UP, over the failures to address the crisis that was killing in horrifying numbers. Sound familiar? For many, it echoed the White House's early failures to respond to the current pandemic we are still facing.