Kevin Gibbons began his career at the University of Wisconsin in 2008, researching Uganda’s fishing communities. His goal was to understand how sustainable fisheries could affect the families in the surrounding community.

Now, Gibbons is the executive director and co-founder of Health Access Connect, a program in Uganda that improves access to health care.

Gibbons attended UW as a graduate student and received his master’s degree in conservation biology and sustainable development in 2012.

As the executive director of Health Access Connect, Gibbons coordinates field staff, arranges meetings with government officials, applies for grants, handles social media and submits reports to donors.

Gibbons said he founded the organization after witnessing an urgent need for health care services in Uganda.

“I founded the organization after seeing the need and demand for health services in the rural villages where I was doing research,” Gibbons said. “It just seemed so pressing to me that people were dying of AIDS and yet free, life-saving medicine was just three miles away. I thought to myself, ‘There’s got to be a way to solve this problem.’”

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The solution that Gibbons and HAC co-founder Carolyne Ariokot came up with was a program that would incentivize taxi drivers to bring governmental health workers to nearby villages three times a month, by offering them a motorcycle in return.

According to HAC’s website, this model has been in motion since August 2015 when it grew into a fully running non-profit. In addition to transporting HIV patients, the program expanded to help with malaria testing, vaccinations for children, family planning and perinatal care.

“We decided to register an organization and start pursuing the idea, and it turned into Health Access Connect and running monthly mobile clinics in these villages with micro-financed motorcycles,” Gibbons said. “It took a lot of trial and error and discussions with communities and health workers to reach that point.”

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According to HAC’s website, the organization loans the motorcycles to the drivers for 18 months, and each driver serves three village clinics per month. During this 18-month loan, one driver can enable the treatment of 2,625 patients. After this period is over, the driver owns the motorcycle and is no longer obligated to drive for HAC.

Chair of the UW geography department Lisa Naughton worked with Gibbons during his graduate study and said he was a positive force to be around.

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Gibbons happily reflected on his experience in Uganda, as it has re-defined what he thought he wanted to do with his life.

“It has changed the way I saw my career and life trajectory,” Gibbons said. “When I was at UW, I thought I would become a professor, my contribution would be my research and teaching. But after a while, I steadily lost interest, and I had this itch to do something more applied that made a direct impact.”

Gibbons said he didn’t plan on working in public health, but the need for health care in Uganda adapted his interests to address the need.

Although his focus has changed, he still uses a lot of the skills he learned during his time at UW, Gibbons said.

“[UW] gave me my first opportunity to visit these communities and make contacts,” Gibbons said. “I also learned a lot about research methodologies and how to prioritize local perspectives.”