by Cynthia D. Stow~1I Dusty Davidson is not an impulsive woman. But she caught friends and co·workers off.guard this winter when she announced her decision to help feed starving refugees in Ethiopia. It was not the logical next step for the business manager of a television station. It was, however, a perfectly calculated move lor Davidson ('69), who lelt Portland's KOIN-TV in mid-March and a week later was on a plane to the Sudan in eas.tern Africa for a nine-month stint with Mercy Corps InternationaL "Combining my professional skills and my personal commitment is the best of all possible worlds," she said, sounding deeply satisfied with her decision. Davidson will be working on an Agency for International Development-funded project to transport foOO across the Sudanese border into the two nonhern Ethiopian provinces of Tigre and Eritrea, which are at civil war with Ethiopia. "The Marxist government is withholding all supplies, all food, all water from these two provinces and 60 percent of the people who are starving are in these two provinces," explained Davidson. Before she left, she spoke calmly about the politically sensitive and physically dangerous situation she would be encountering. "During the daytime, Addis Ababa (the Ethiopian capita/) sends out MiG jets and they strafe anything that moves. So we go in al nighttime with our vehicles-it just happens to be one way of operating." What Davidson wasn't counting on was political unrest in the Sudan. But as she was preparing to fiy to Khartoum, her ba5e for the nine·month project, the city erupted in riots. And two days after she arrived, the Sudanese government was overthrown in a military coup. A communications black-out and travel restrictions have delayed but nOl canceled the food transports, said Davidson's husband, Dale Ward, who stayed behind in Portland 10 mind his consulting business. He has been walching the TELEX at the local Mercy Corps office for news. Those who had felt the warmth in her direct, blue-eyed gaze did not see Dusty making a lBO-degree lurnabout. Ward, also a PSU grad ('61), had not heard from his wife directly in the first few weeks after she left, but said he was not particularly worried about her safety. As a seemingly unflappable expert in "change management," Ward is nO stranger to the subject of upheaval and he sees the Sudanese situation as surprisingly stable. Anyway, what good would it do to worry about a woman who willingly walks inro the middle of a civil war? She's tough. She admits it. "There are people here at the stalion who think I'm a raving bitch," said Davidson in her KOIN office in March. "I'm a very tough business manager." Those who thought of her as "uncaring" were completely shocked by her decision to take on a humanitarian cause. Those who knew bener-who had felt the warmth in her direct, blue·eyed gaze-did not see Dusty making a ISO-degree turnabout. "For me al this lime in my life," offered Davidson, "1felt it was very important that I was able to be very expressive about my personal commitments, and 1though that the best place I could do that was working for a humanitarian organization." The hardhat and blueprints in the corner of Davidson's office symbolized the driven quality On helping Ethiopians (after a career as a CPA) Dustine Da\lidson ('69) of her recent life. As project manager for the construction of KOIN's. new high rise headquarters, Davidson had spent tile lastlhree years "gening this building built. I haven't done very much more than thaI. Even lost contact with a lot of friends. "After we moved into the building and gOi acclimatized, 1started doing a lot of research ," she said about her methodical drift toward her new life. Weekend retreats, lists of her strengths and weaknesses, lots of reading, and hours of talking to friends who had successfully melded their perSOnal and professional lives ... and months later the "light clicked." "~I've had a lot of people 1ell me around here that 1 look a lot happier," she said. "And 1think what il is is that 1 feel much freer now, I feel more whole. And that sounds so corny, but I do." She thought about what she'd jus, said and shook her head. "1 find myself using Words I never thought I would." " I certainly had different priorities," said Davidson about her successful business career. " I dedicated myself to acquiring professional skills that I'm very thankful that I have. Now if I use them in a different way, that's the full beneTit of them." David50n started out at Portland State "aiming to be a large animal vet. Thilt's back in the years when professors could say things to people like, 'As a woman, you can't be a large animal vet. It would be a waste of education.' And I was stupid enough to believe them." So, as a junior in biology, Dusty took "one of those crazy accounting classes where you go from eight in the morning 'til five at night and you have oodles of homework but you can cram a whole year of accounting into one summer." She switched her major to business administration, quit her job at the federal water pollution control laboratory and went to work at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell (CPA firm), which hired her full-time after graduation. From there she moved to KPTV as business manager, and then on to KOIN. And now into the refugee camps of Ethiopia, where she expectS her business and organization skills to complement the interpersonal skills of veteran humanitarians. But Davidson doesn't see just crates of food and reams of government forms ahead. She looks forward to returning to the cultures she came to know on a nine-month trip through Africa by Land Rover in the earty 1970s. "I loved it. I have some pictures--did you want 10 see them? Do you care?" She flipped through snapshots 01 the overloaded Land Rover sunk in dust, of people at wells and in the marketplaces. "See all the people there smiling? Every place that we went, people were incredibly warm and gracious." Then Dusty was lost in a memory. "One of my favoritest, happiest, most wonderful experiences--I wonder if that woman ever thinks about me as much as I think about her. II She launched into a story about a woman in Chad who spent fi\le hours corn-rowing Dusty's hair while a small crowd gathered. "I think it was real unusual for them at that time to have somebody want to look like they looked and want to be in very close proximity and smite and laugh and giggle and just have the greatest time. "1 think that I felt more"-she struggled for the word--"human during that whole experience than any other time in my life." Ever since then Dusty has known she would go back. She just didn't know how. Dusty and friend in Chad Now she thinks about ways to stay beyond her immediate assignment. Not surpriSingly, the television executive sees a great need for communications technology in Third World countrie~"where and when it's appropriate for their culture." For example, in drought-afflicted equatorial Africa, communications systems could help the people in the mountains notify those III the lowlands that the rains are coming. "If you have the technical ability to aid people and to stop suffering and you're not able to do that because of politics, I think that's a statement about how this world is going," said Davidson. who feels the current "grass roots" interesr in Ethiopia was born of this kind of frustration. "I hope that the swelling of people caring about their fellow human beings, whether those fellow human beings are in Africa or in Nicaragua or right here in Portland, Oregon, sitting at the desk next to you, I hope Ihal this is a stimulus to people caring more about each other." These are some of the words CPA Dusty Davidson never thought she'd be using. They come easily now. 7
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