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I f Leslie Hawkins weren't already a registered nurse, she might have made a good secret agent or a foreign news cor- respondent. Since Hawkins joined the CNA board in 2002, she's developed something of a reputation as a fearless organizer who's not afraid to parachute into the most con- tentious campaigns. "People say I'm brave, but I think part of it is being from Fresno, where we don't have that many CNA facilities and you're mostly dealing with very conservative Central Valley nurses," said Hawkins, a NICU RN who works in the special care nursery at Kaiser Permanente in Fresno. "I want our area to grow, so I know I have to get out of my comfort zone." If Hawkins even has a comfort zone, that is. She doesn't seem to have the slightest hesitation squeezing her way into new facil- ities or striking up conversations with the most anti-union nurs- es. Because employers often block nurses from discussing unionization at work even though they have a legal right to do so, organizers often have to think creatively and fast on their feet to avoid ouster from the premises. Once, when Hawkins was at risk of getting kicked out of a Bakersfield hospital, she hid in a bath- room and turned off the light so people would think it was empty. Today, Hawkins is one of CNA's most active and enthusiastic RN organizers, specializing in the Central Valley and the most politically conservative areas. She's volunteered on more than 10 Tenet campaigns, and has helped on organizing efforts in Manteca, Modesto, Bakersfield, San Dimas, Arizona, and Hawaii. Hawkins is such an organizing operative that she jokingly addresses CNA executive director Rose Ann DeMoro in all organizing communi- cations as "Charlie," and DeMoro calls her "Angel." But Hawkins was not always such an activist with CNA. By her own admission, she only got interested in politics in the last three years. The middle of five children, Hawkins was raised in what she calls a privileged and fairly sheltered household in Winston-Salem, N.C. Her father was a high-level advertising exec- utive with R.J. Reynolds, the tobacco company, and her mother was a homemaker and realtor. But stuck in the middle of so many siblings, Hawkins said she learned to deal with confrontation early on in life. Looking back, she guesses she has also always been a natural leader. When she was 12, she was named "friendliest camper" at summer camp. When her friends or other kids she was with wanted or needed something from adults, they would always ask her to represent them. After graduating from nursing school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Hawkins moved to Massachusetts, where she worked in oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She eventually moved out to San Diego after an aunt there suggested she would love California, and after a two-year stint at UC San Feature Story A Different Kind of Angel As an RN organizer, Leslie Hawkins is known for tackling the toughest missions BY LUCIA HWANG 20 M A R C H 2 0 0 6 W W W . C A L N U R S E S . O R G C A L I F O R N I A N U R S E