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BY LINDA NORLOCK
Gribbs calls herself a “trailing spouse.” Her husband, now a partner in Weil, Gotshal & Manges, originally accepted a position in Warsaw to advise the World Bank on legal issues related to residential housing and mortgage financing. Because land sales in Poland were strictly cash transactions under the Communist system, there were no statutes to protect the writers of mortgages. “The country was very rough,” she says. She called the move a nice opportunity to step back for a while. “A while” has entered its second decade, and Gribbs has not exactly stepped back. Following her graduation from Detroit College of Law, Gribbs practiced personal injury law and did criminal defense and criminal appellate work. In Poland, she is using her professional background in a variety of ways. “I can do things that utilize my legal knowledge and be of great help,” she says. For example, Gribbs helped found the country’s first organization of business and professional women. What began as a small group has grown to some 200 members. Many of the women work for companies that have been instrumental in building Poland’s infrastructure—road building, construction, telecommunication and building supplies firms. Their involvement in the professional group has enabled these entrepreneurs to network. What may seem like a simple undertaking in the United States was groundbreaking in Poland. “Before the Iron Curtain fell, people couldn’t associate and gather,” Gribbs explains. “There were no entities like this. A monthly meeting with a featured guest speaker was a revolutionary idea.” Gribbs also has helped establish developmental opportunities for another group of professional women. She was part of a group that established a foundation to fund continuing education for midwives. The educational program was so successful, she says, that the Polish government opened its own department to support continuing education. The concept of continuing education was new for Poles. So was the concept of foundations. “In Poland, the law does not support charitable works,” she says. “It is made so complicated. There are extraordinary court proceedings and phenomenal tax requirements. The law requires that foundations hold a large amount of money in trust and requires regular, complicated reports. A very small foundation becomes very costly to maintain.” Gribbs’s involvement with Ex Animo, a foundation that supports the oncology wing of Poland’s largest children’s hospital, has special meaning to her. Many children in this Warsaw hospital suffer from tumors. This is a population that presents special challenges. Because of the country’s centralized system of medicine, Poles travel to certain hospitals for treatment of particular illnesses. Families who accompany their ill children face considerable expense. “These families are impoverished,” she says. “They can’t afford to live in Warsaw. There is a need for a Ronald McDonald kind of house that will provide housing for parents so they don’t have to sit in awful chairs in tiny little rooms.” “The problem seems so huge,” she says. “There’s no money.” But by supplementing hospital funding, Ex Animo enables hospitals to shift resources and assist these families. Even when faced with complications, Gribbs has made opportunities to contribute to change in Poland. “It’s nice to feel like you can make an impact,” she says. “You’re not just a small dot here. You can make a difference.” |
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