Each year, Greg Henchar asked his company for domestic partner benefits. And each year, they said no. He was with the company for 20 years, but finally the unspoken discrimination was too much. He felt pushed out the door.
Victor Lopez served in the Navy for 20 years, careful to hide the fact that he is gay. He met Henchar in 1989, fell in love, and they have been together ever since. Henchar eventually left his long-time company, and when he did, that was an important moment for the couple. “That’s when we basically decided we needed to do something,” Lopez said.
The couple realized they wanted to pool their talents and work for the LGBT community. Lopez is CFO/operations and Henchar is sales and marketing director of Rainbow411.com, an online directory of gay-friendly businesses. They call it “your online Gay Friendly Yellow Pages,” but it doesn’t stop there. There are also gay-related articles, advice, event calendars, and resources for travelers to find gay-friendly businesses to support while on vacation.
“It’s all about the gay dollar, and we show more strength if we all join as a group and actually spend our gay dollars in GLBT-friendly businesses,” Lopez said. “We’re better in numbers, so why not keep the gay dollar in the GLBT community?”
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2011.