Ralph Navarro was born in Chicago on August 4, 1949. He became actively involved in
Milwaukee's gay community in the early 1980s and participated in the formation of virtually
every important organization of that period. In 1981, he co-founded the Cream City Business
Association (CCBA), an affiliation of gay and lesbian business people and service providers,
and served as its first president from 1980 to 1984. He also helped to establish the Cream
City Foundation in 1982, which formed as the charitable arm of CCBA, and served as its
president from 1982 to 1983. In 1987, Navarro founded Gay Information and Services (GIS) and
co-founded the Lambda Rights Network (LRN), a gay/lesbian advocacy organization. From 1989
to 1990, GIS collected data for LRN's Hate Crimes/Violence Reporting Statistics Project.
From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, Navarro provided numerous guest editorials on
Tri-Cable Tonight, a news and entertainment program produced by the Milwaukee Gay/Lesbian
Cable Network. Navarro died at the age of 51 on June 1, 2001.
