Bill Albert Reflects on a Career in Reproductive Health

As the second ever employee, Bill Albert has served Power to Decide as the Senior Director of Content, Chief Program Officer, Senior Director of Communication, Chief Innovation Officer, and Manager of Communications and Publications. Now, after nearly 30 years of dedication to improving reproductive well-being for all, Bill is retiring. So what has he learned over the years? And what is his advice for those looking to make a difference in the world of sexual and reproductive health?

You started your career as a journalist. What brought you to Power to Decide?

Life changing decisions always seem more understandable in the rear-view mirror. Sometimes change is profound and deliberate, sometimes change is something considerably south of that heady formulation. Having spent 12 years in the TV news business, my only certainty at the time was that I was ready to do something different, something that seemed a bit more grounded in the do-gooder side of life. What that was, I had no real idea.

So, I took a year away from work to do nothing but marvel at our perfect child (an infant at the time). Then—as so often happens—life and serendipity intervene. At the time, a dear friend was working at the organization. Over too many beers and too few pizzas, he shared tales of the upstart group, their innovative approach to organizational structure, their thoughtful and refreshing strategy, and the organization’s diverse and impressive group of supporters.

I recall interviewing with then CEO Sarah Brown. I confessed to her that I knew precisely nothing about reproductive health. She was nonplused. Her response? “I’ll coach you up.” I committed to developing and executing a comprehensive communications strategy. It was a match.

More than a quarter century later, here I am.

What’s made you stay?

The people. Always the people. I have had the absolute pleasure to work with countless smart and good souls over the years. Professionally there are few things quite as satisfying as learning from colleagues who are thoughtful, committed to research and the mission, happy to embrace unconventional wisdom, and insistent on having fun. 

The opportunity to work with everyone from OMB (Office of Management and Budget) to MTV has also been a unique and satisfying part of working at Power to Decide. How many jobs allow you to work closely with top-level researchers one day and the writers and producers of Family Guy the next day? My sense is that my work has often been a mile wide and an inch deep, but that is a great way to keep things interesting.

Is there a highlight of your time here that you’d like to share? 

Other than this interview? 

If forced to choose one highlight among many, I would say the birth of Bedsider. I hate to use the term game-changer since it is so overused and, consequently, carries little meaning but… Bedsider was a game-changer when it was introduced more than a decade ago. There was absolutely nothing like it in terms of approach, tone, and the mixture of reliable and accessible information combined with a healthy dose of whimsy. The look, feel, and delivery were all fresh and approachable at a time when too much health information was delivered with an audience-last approach and with all the joy of a root canal. 

Working with a truly amazing team of creatives at IDEO, the design thinking approach to creating Bedsider—essentially a fancy, 5-dollar term for listening closely to the wants and needs of your audience—was an incredible learning experience. It deepened the organization’s commitment to putting the audience first in all our work.  Tens of millions of visitors later and a robust evaluation showing that a digital approach can change real-world behavior, Bedsider continues to serve as a model for how to reach people with health information.

What advice would you give to someone at the start (or in the middle) of a career in reproductive health?

Find another career! (I mean that half-seriously.) 

Working in the hothouse of reproductive well-being is not for the faint of heart. The ongoing attacks on access to care, shockingly high levels of mis- and disinformation, and uncertain funding, do not equate to the joy of Baseball’s Opening Day. 

Still, success is its own reward. The positive of fighting the fight you know to be right, overcome the lows. It’s not even close. Put another way: come into the field eyes wide open, understand you are not going to become independently wealthy, embrace innovation at every single opportunity, don’t take yourself too seriously, have a laser focus on what you are trying to achieve and for whom, and pay little attention to what Sprio Agnew once called the “nattering nabobs of negativism.”  

One more modest piece of counsel. When one favorably quotes the disgraced Spiro Agnew, it is truly a definitive sign to retire.