Category Archives: Profiles

Giving Back: Chuck Slosser

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Chuck Slosser (courtesy photo)

Chuck Slosser (courtesy photo)

With the same engaging grin and focused attention that have pried philanthropic purse strings loose since he came to town in 1981, Chuck Slosser says he’s excited to tackle retirement after 18 years as executive director of the Santa Barbara Foundation.

What an amazing ride it has been. When Slosser, now 66 took the helm of the Santa Barbara Foundation–Santa Barbara County’s largest private source of funding for nonprofit programs–it had a staff of three, roughly $30 million in assets, and was giving out a few million in scholarships and grants a year.

Compare that to today’s foundation–under Slosser’s leadership, it now has a staff of 23, more than $300 million in assets, and donates about $27 million each year. He’s justifiably proud, but still ready for a slower pace, saying, “I thoroughly enjoyed the foundation and the work that we’ve done here and the great things that have happened in the community as a result. I’ve never objected to the 9 to 5, but it’s really the 5 to 9.”

Slosser and his wife of almost 38 years, Stephanie, who retired from UC Santa Barbara’s biology department three years ago, plan to travel, play golf and do yoga. He’s also interested in playing more basketball (he’s got a regular game at the Boys and Girls Club), taking Spanish lessons, picking up a guitar and a dissertation that have been collecting dust, and perhaps doing some consulting. He smiles. “I really do feel like a kid in a candy store. I want to do that, and I want to do that, and I can’t wait.”

Clearly, Slosser is a man with many interests, which is why the diverse Santa Barbara Foundation was “a dream job come true.” With an infinite variety of grant recipients–Music Academy of the West, Page Youth Center, Special Olympics, Council on Alcoholism & Drug Abuse, Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, Red Cross, St. Vincent’s, Legal Aid, Transition House, Girls Inc. and Wildlife Care Network, to name a few — the foundation was a perfect place for this Renaissance man.

Originally published in Santa Barbara Magazine in January 2009.

Noozhawk Talks: Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Ann Peyrat

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Ann Peyrat has lived with diabetes since she was 16. Rather than give in to the disease, she was inspired to create an apparel line that would help others — particularly girls — feel better about themselves. (Betes Babe photo)

Ann Peyrat has lived with diabetes since she was 16. Rather than give in to the disease, she was inspired to create an apparel line that would help others — particularly girls — feel better about themselves. (Betes Babe photo)

Diagnosed with diabetes as a teenager, Ann Peyrat didn’t like the sound of the word diabetic-especially the “die” part-and quickly declared herself a “betes babe” instead. Now she’s developing a fun and fashionable line of accessories called Betes Babe (www.betesbabe.com) to help others wear their “betes” in style.

Leslie Dinaberg: Tell me about your business.

Ann Peyrat: I was16 when I was diagnosed. I remember that because for most people it’s their sweet sixteen, but for me it was my no more sweet sixteen. I was always looking for products, new things to manage my disease and everything that was out there was either black or a steel kind of cold hard medical look and that’s not me. I’m pink and girly and match my outfits and I just didn’t see anything out there that was beyond this kind of utilitarian look. So in the back of my mind I was always searching for something and then got to the point where I said, “well, why don’t I just make something that I like?”

It blossomed from there, but I never really had the big push to go out and do something as a business for other people until everything that happened with the News-Press went down. All of a sudden I knew I couldn’t work there anymore … so that was kind of the push to say, “Hey, let’s dig in your heels and this is the time.”

LD: So were you making things for yourself?

AP: Yes and just designing. I like to sketch or do little drawings, so I have a journal of all these ideas that I want to do. Some of them I don’t have the technical know how to do. But for me that is one of the challenges. I’ve never run my own business before I don’t know all the steps … but to me, it’s more satisfying to figure it out myself rather than just having to pay somebody to do everything for me. … I started out with just some small graphic design things, some t-shirts and things that are at CafePress.com, so I didn’t have the overhead of having a warehouse … I’ve gotten responses from all over the place. … I’ve got orders from New York, Illinois, Michigan, just all over.

LD: Teenagers and young girls seem like a natural market for your products.

AP: Yes, I actually have a young friend, a school mate of mine, her daughter who is in third grade was just diagnosed and so I took her out just to be sort of a betes buddy, just so that she would know somebody else who had it who was maybe a girl. …I think girls and boys go through different things and especially girls with hormones. It’s a different animal to have girls.

LD: I also think girls, for whatever reason, are so much more fashion conscious. What are all your products?

AP: Right now I have t-shirts and bumper stickers and I’ve got a messenger bag, a canvas tote bag and all of these things have different messages on them, like “I heart insulin” or “I try not to be too sweet, it’s a betes thing.” I’ve got a tank top, I’ve got a golf t-shirt, you can check them out online at www.cafepress.com/betesbabe. And then I j have a few things for people who do want to wear their medical alert. I have a charm bracelet and I have a few different charms that can be put on it just to give maybe a little bit more attention to it. They don’t have any writing on it, but they have a red cross type of medical symbol on them, and what I like about them is they’re silver but they all have kind of a stamp indentation on them, so if you want to change the color or you want to match your outfit, I’m sure a real jeweler would tell you not to do this, but I just use nail polish. … I also have some bracelets that have a satin ribbon and a felted wool flower on it.

LD: Those are really cute and they don’t look like a medical thing at all.

AP: And because I am manufacturing them myself, I can customize them. We make those specific to your disease, so if you have asthma, I can put asthma on there instead of diabetes.

LD: What is the best seller?

AP: Actually it’s been one of my very basic “I heart insulin” shirts.

LD: Ultimately what is your goal with the business?

AP: My goal is definitely to grow it into a really big business and then sell it to somebody and maybe remain the face of it or help out in some capacity. But it just always really appealed to me to have something that was my own and to see it happen and if I have an idea to see that come to fruition. … But I got a part time job because I need health insurance.

…I did go through the WEV (Women’s Economic Ventures) program so that did help a little bit with getting going but I still don’t know a lot.

LD: It’s a new market, so that makes it harder to figure out how to do things.

AP: Exactly. And because I have diabetes myself it makes it more personal to me and I think that I’m maybe more passionate about it than somebody else might be. It’s really one of those things where even if it’s slow at first, I’m not going to drop this idea just because it’s hard. I really want this and I want to do this for the diabetic community at large and that’s inspirational to me to keep going.

LD: I know it’s hard sometimes with a chronic illness. Do you have any advice for somebody that was recently diagnosed with diabetes?

AP: Don’t be afraid to talk about it. You’ll be less alone if you’re able to talk about it. I think a lot of people are really interested. Nobody is going to make fun of you. I think people are sometimes afraid to be different. But especially with my business and having something cute that you can carry, I want people to feel like okay maybe you are special but it’s not special bad it’s special good. And again, for me being really open about things, I think it just starts a conversation. Somebody sees me carrying a cute bag and says, “Hey where did you get that bag?” That’s an opportunity for me to educate them a little bit and tell them a little bit more about what diabetes is, that you don’t have to be scared of it, you don’t have to worry too much.

Also I think going along with talking about it is finding a support group or finding other people that you can talk to if you’re feeling alone, believe me you’re not.

LD: What else do you do when you’re not working?

AP: I wear many different hats and one of them is dog walking and dog sitting. I actually just got my first dog three years ago and I can’t believe I didn’t do it before that. There was no life before I had my dog. … I like to go to movies; I like to go out for food. … I’ve got a group of friends we do Bunko every month and then I’ve got a group of friends we go out to dinner once a month and then I’ve got a book club we do once a month, things like that.

LD: If you could pick three adjectives to describe yourself, what would they be?

AP: I guess optimistic would be a good one. Not always, but usually. I hope that I’m a good friend, that’s really important to me, friends and family, and I’m creative.

Vital Stats: Ann Peyrat

Born: October 7th, at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital

Family: Parents Adrian and Gloria Peyrat and brother Alan.

Civic Involvement: Volunteers at Fund for Santa Barbara and Sansum Diabetes Research Institute, donates money to others.

Professional Accomplishments: Santa Barbara News-Press Public Square Editor,

Special Sections Editor, and editor of Woman Magazine; UCSB, Assistant to Chancellor Henry Yang; Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital Foundation Development Coordinator; Founder of Betes Babe.

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: Naked by David Sedaris

Little-Known Fact: “When I was 29 I lived in a van for a year to save money.”

Local Resources for Diabetics

Diabetes Resource Center of Santa Barbara County

http://www.sbdrc.org/

Carpinteria Childhood Obesity Prevention Initiative

http://www.sbdrc.org/programs_drc.htm

Betes Babe

http://www.betesbabe.com/index.html

Sansum Diabetes Research Institute

http://www.sansum.org/

Originally published in Noozhawk on December 21, 2008. Click here to read the story on that site.

Noozhawk Talks: Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Lynn Montgomery

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Lynn Montgomery (courtesy photo)

Lynn Montgomery (courtesy photo)

Children’s book author sees the beauty in every opportunity.

Award-winning documentary producer and television writer Lynn Montgomery
recently turned her talents to Butt Ugly, a children’s picture book that tells the
story of a loveable little green mutt who needs a home. Not only does this heart-
warming story teach children important lessons about self-esteem, the book was
printed in a 100% green manner.

Leslie Dinaberg: How did you go from writing television to writing your book, “Butt
Ugly?”

Lynn Montgomery: When I was writing television I was working 100 hours a week and didn’t
have children … I stayed in television for about 10 years, the amount of money
that they give you to write for television is obscene. And I was never doing it
really for the money, I was doing it because I loved to write and I loved to write
more than I loved to get all this money, so eventually the love of writing went out
for me in television and I decided that I would just write features and continue
with writing some books that I had started.

LD: So you’re working on both picture books and young adult books. Are they all
comedic?

LM: Well I have a comedic voice. … My goal is to make you laugh and make you
cry and if I accomplish both of those then I am really happy.

LD: How did you decide to incorporate the green aspects into the book?

LM: I have always been passionate about the environment. … In writing a
children’s book, this was an opportunity to make it as green as possible. The
story is for children that is an uplifting important story about self-esteem with the
name-calling, but also is a way to educate the children about the environment
and about recycling. This book is made 100% recycled- the paper is 100%
recycled, the paper is not bleached, so it doesn’t produce any dioxins in the
bleaching processing, … most ink is petroleum-based ink, this ink is vegetable
based ink and then I even was able to go a step further. It was printed in the U.S.
because most four-color children’s books … the vast majority of four-color
children’s books are printed in Asia, in Singapore and China, and there are no
environmental standards. Ancient forests being cut down to print children’s books
where we tell stories about preserving the environment. It makes no sense to me.
So this was printed in the U.S. and it was printed by a printer in St. Louis that
runs on wind power.

LD: Wow.

1117-Butt_Ugly-540LM: I just did as much research as I possibly could to find out how could I make
this as green as green can be. … Then after the book was printed, I found out
about this new wonderful organization called Eco Libris … it’s a tree offset
company … when you make a contribution to them a tree will be planted in a
developing company. … So not only is the book green and no trees were cut
down to create this book, but also trees are being planted if you buy this
book.

LD: That’s great. That’s really a nice give back.

LM: So you can feel good about buying the book.

LD: How does that pencil out in terms of the cost of the book?

LM: It’s twice as expensive to publish a book this way, but we have to start. I’m
not going to make a lot of money on this book, but what I’m trying to do is start a
conversation within the publishing world.

LD: And you are also donating some money from the book to CALM.

LM: Yes, some of the proceeds are going to CALM. I used to be on the board of
CALM … also some of the proceeds will go to animal rescue
organizations.

LD: Are you working on another children’s book?

LM: Yes, there’s another on in the series which is called Butt Ugly Love, he falls
in love with the most beautiful dog he every saw. She’s absolutely perfect and
he’s smitten at first sight. It’s about true love and you find out on the last page as
they are strutting off into the sunset that she only has three legs. Of course he
never saw that and it didn’t matter he’s in love and she’s perfect she’s
beautiful.

LD: That’s very sweet.

LM: … Then there’s a third in the series,Butt Uglier, and that’s of course when
they have puppies. And then that’s it.

LD: So where are you with the books?

LM: Butt Ugly Love will be out around Christmas 09, the story is written and the
illustrator is working on the illustrations and right now she’s at the point of trying
to conceptualize what this beautiful dog that he falls in love with will look like.

LD: Is the illustrator someone you had a connection to?

LM: The illustrator is Terrie Redding, she was from Santa Barbara and she
moved to Dallas, Texas a couple of years ago. … Then my husband does all the
coloration and then the layout. I had no idea what a huge aspect of book
publishing art direction would be.

LD: What’s your husband’s name?

LM: Richard Kriegler. He is an Art Director, Matte Painter and Concept Artist and
he’s done scores of movies, and children’s films, he’s done Stuart Little and
Pinocchio and Thomas and the Magic Railroad and he also did Contact and
What Dreams May Come.

LD: That was a beautiful looking movie.

LM: What Dreams May Come, what inspired him, he did the concept work for
that movie, and do you remember the art that he disappeared into? Those were
inspired by Richard’s paintings that are hanging in our house.

LD: Oh, those are gorgeous.

LM: So I always say thank goodness I’m married to Richard because otherwise I
never would have been able to afford him … He’s also the art director for one of
the top selling videos games in the world. So I tell him that this is his penance he
has to pay for taking children away from reading, he has to art direct all of my
children’s books.

LD: How long have you been in town?

LM: We’ve been here going on 11 years. I first moved here, our big entree into
Santa Barbara, this big old run down house that had been on the market for four
years, I think. And then when we bought it somebody told me about CALM and
how they do the designer showcase house. And we had done houses before and
renovated them but never one quite this large and never one where we had two
small children. Hannah was six months old at the time. So we put the house up
to be a design showcase house … so it’s like we came into town and opened our
home to thousands of people. So I am always running into people that say, “Oh
yeah, do you still have that train bed in your son’s room?” (Laughs) Everybody in
town has been in our house.

LD: What else do you do when you’re not working?

LM: Well I love to garden, I love to go on walks through beautiful Santa Barbara,
and I mean we’re so lucky to live here. I explore areas up the coast, I love to
hike. To take care of my chickens. I love to watch the chickens in the garden. I
always feel like I’m looking at an old painting, just watching the chickens walk
through and free range in the garden, it’s so beautiful and peaceful. I think it must
lower your blood pressure.

… I’m always working on some cause. Right now it’s to the send the fifth graders
at Roosevelt to Astronomy Camp. … We need to raise $15,000 to send the kids,
and I happened to raise my hand at the meeting and said I’ll take that
on.

LD: It’s supposed to be a great camp.

LM: … Our fundraiser is going to be a Chicken Coop Tour, Loupe de Coop on
March 22.

LD: That sounds really fun.

Vital Stats: Lynn Montgomery

Born: Upland, CA, on April 24th

Family: Husband Richard Kriegler; daughter Hannah, 10; and son Austin,
15

Civic Involvement: CALM, Roosevelt School, Pearl Chase Society

Professional Accomplishments: Won a Writer’s Guild Award Adapting Mrs. Piggle
Wiggle for Showtime and Universal; won an LA Emmy award for writing and
producing a documentary that dealt with the failures of the child abuse protective
system in Los Angeles; produced a 100% green children’s four-color children’s
picture book, Butt Ugly.

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, It was
wonderful for getting inside the head of a dog; there are some chapters in there
that I will re-read many times in my life, but they’ll always make me cry.”

Little-Known Fact: “I have never had a beer in my life, but I love wine.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on November 16, 2008. Click here to read it.

Noozhawk Talks: Leslie Dinaberg sits down with Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson walks workshop clients through the steps necessary to achieve purpose, personal and business planning, fun, effective delegation through team management, and accountability. (Clay Nelson Life Balance™ photo)

Clay Nelson walks workshop clients through the steps necessary to achieve purpose, personal and business planning, fun, effective delegation through team management, and accountability. (Clay Nelson Life Balance™ photo)

Life Coach Clay Nelson has been working with businesses and individuals to improve lives for more than 25 years. Starting this week, he’ll share with Noozhawk readers his time-tested techniques for helping people and companies fulfill their potential, maximize profits, and make themselves, their clients, and their families happier.

Leslie Dinaberg: What are some of the basic ideas that you teach with Clay Nelson Life Balance(tm)?

Clay Nelson: … I’ve been teaching people for 25 years to take care of themselves first and to put their family first and to have a billing system that serves them and they understand, and to understand what margins are and to understand marketing and to understand the value of writing down what you want so you can create what’s next, just not store what you already know.

…Family comes first. Think about that. You’re on your deathbed; money can’t hug you, number one. Number two, I doubt any of your previous clients will be there, so you have to really be looking at what’s really important, and that’s family. Then who are we the roughest on? And that’s family. So I’ve been getting people straight.

A lot of what I speak on in my speaking endeavors and my radio show and my newsletter and my blog and my “Just a Thought” email bulletins is all about communication and all about hugs and all about effective listening and all about having a plan and all about getting what you want first so you can teach others.

… Plus if you’re over 40 years old nowadays, whether you like it or not, you’re a leader, everybody’s watching you. So if you’re broke, bent over, tired and your truck’s all dirty, who is going to want to follow you? So you’ve got to be healthy, you’ve got to be able to forgive on your feet, you’ve got to be able to dance with the future, you’ve be able to stand around and say “I don’t know but let’s get it on because that’s what we do.” Then everybody dies at the end. (Laughs).

LD: It seems like now, as opposed to 25 years ago, people are starting to get that idea that it’s not just about how you are in the office, it’s about how you are in life. But I would imagine when you started out that was not something that everybody bought into.

CN: No, 25 years ago people would listen to me and go what planet did you come from? But now people want to hear what I have to say. My speaking career has tripled in the last 15 months. And you know the truth is what I’m saying now just has a different title, but what I’m saying I said 25 years ago, and it’s not about how cool Clay is, it’s just what human beings need to be with each other.

I mean stop being jerks. And if you don’t like what you’ve got, plan to have something different. And if somebody’s got something more than you got, take them to lunch, ask them how they did it and then be quiet. They’ll tell you.

LD: So what will the column for Noozhawk be about?

CN: The column is going to be talking about how you can have what you want, talking about planning, talking about forgiveness, talking about health, talking about how we merge all of it together, your spiritual side, your financial side, your family side and everything else all together because that’s what it’s all about.

… Life is all about the choices that you make. Everybody talks about how they were influenced one way or another and the truth is you may be influenced but the choice you made was yours … You are the only person that has a say in how your life turns out. So if you don’t have what you want or if you don’t have the health you want or if you don’t have the relationship you want or if you don’t have the money you want, you can change it because you did it.

… There is no past eraser, all you can do is learn from it and if it felt good and didn’t hurt anybody, do it again. (Laughs) If it didn’t feel good or it hurt somebody, say you’re sorry and don’t do it again. And that’s life. There isn’t anything else.

LD: That’s powerful.

CN: I mean what else can you do? You know if you want to live from feeling bad for what you did, okay. But it’s in the past, you can’t change it. You can only learn from it.

LD: It sounds like what you’re talking about would have an application for almost anybody.

CN: Anybody. If you’re over eight and you can read, all the way up to 80 and you still want to read. I don’t care who it is, male or female, we’re all the same.

LD: And when you’re preparing to speak to a group of teenagers versus a group of contractors, are the basics the same or are they different?

CN: I think where I want to leave them is the same, in that they are the only person that has a say in how their life turns out, and if there’s something driving them from their past they have to forgive it, make room for it, if they don’t whatever stays in their conscious mind the longest they become.

… My biggest problem with the talks I give is I’ll get in trouble either with the Fire Marshall, because there are too many people who want in the room, or I get in trouble with the next speaker that is coming in because nobody wants to leave. They come up to me and say the same thing; you were talking just to me.

LD: That’s great that you can connect with people in that way.

CN: Yeah. They get that I’ve lived where they are and I’m not telling them to go change or fix anything, I’m saying, “hey, if you don’t have what you want, choose something and get moving. ”

… The human mind is a wonderful tool, but it’s designed to keep you safe, and safe lives in something you’ve already done. Or the past. So if your mind is designed to keep you in the past, if you think about stuff do you think your mind is going to let you step out there and do something you haven’t done? No, your mind’s going to say you’re going to die, your mom’s going to be mad at you, you’re going to prison, you’ll have to eat worms, your pants are going to drop off. (Laughs). I don’t know, whatever it is, whatever it takes to stop you your mind will do. So I live my life with enough fear in it so that the hair stands up on my arms all the time, but not so much fear that I get stopped. So I want to have just enough fear to feel alive, but not so much fear that I have to be stopped. And if there isn’t enough fear to have my hairs stand up on my arms, I go make some because that’s life.

Also it keeps me from bending my elbow and putting too much food in my mouth.

LD: I can’t wait to see what you do on Noozhawk. How long have you been in Santa Barbara?

CN: For 31 years.

LD: What else do you do when you’re not working?

CN: I love to go fishing and not talk. … I have a Harley that I ride and you don’t talk on the phone when you’re on that thing. … I love to garden. … I have Hitch, my new 9-month-old English bulldog who is my best friend. No matter what I do it’s okay with him. We go to the beach two and three times a week so it gets me out more and away from the telephone and I get to play with him. I’ve been married for 24 years, living together for 30 years and I’ve almost lived through the hormone change. I get to know whether I’m going to live or die first thing in the morning. That’s supposed to be humorous.

LD: It’s too close to be humorous. If you could pick three adjectives to describe yourself, what would they be?

CN: Intuitive, unstoppable, energized-that assumes I know what an adjective is, by the way.

Vital Stats: Clay Nelson

Born: “On April 28, 1944 in El Paso, Texas in an airplane with my twin sister. My mom was flying from the East Coast to the West Coast; my dad was building Camp Roberts. … They had to put the plane down in El Paso because the twins were born on the plane.”

Family: Wife Susan Oyloe Nelson; Audre, age 36, lives in Santa Cruz, and is getting her Ph.D. in psychology; Elizabeth, age 22, attended Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising and is now working for Jacqua Beauty in Carpinteria; C.J., age 17, is a senior at Dos Pueblos, and taking classes at SBCC.

Civic Involvement: His own 501(c)3 Transforming America’s Youth (TAY), Special Olympics, Unity Shoppe, Safe Harley Riders, Toys for Tots Ride

Professional Accomplishments: 30 years of corporate leadership, founder of Clay Nelson Life Balance(tm), a division of Consulting Services Network LLC.

Little-Known Fact: “My secret desire is to build a go-cart out of a Harley engine I have in my garage.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on November 11, 2008. Click here to read the article on that site.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Erika Carter

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Artist Erika Carter (courtesy photo)

Artist Erika Carter (courtesy photo)

Downtown Santa Barbara’s 1st Thursday events have grown into a popular hive of art, music and wine, and few spots are buzzier than Erika Carter’s Studio 3 East gallery, (http://www.erikacarter.com/) located at 3 East De La Guerra Street above Starbuck’s. Here Carter, a Santa Barbara native, talks with Leslie Dinaberg about living an artful life.

Leslie Dinaberg: What are you working on now?

Erika Carter: It’s a holiday show. It will be the third annual show for Donna Asycough and myself … this one is “Arbol de Vida” which is the “Tree of Life.” … The paintings I do are all retablos; those are the little tin devotional paintings, folk art. …This year I’ll be doing 100 of them.

LD: Wow.

EC: Yeah, I know. It’s a lot of work. Donna and I are both just very passionate about Mexico. We can’t get enough of it.

LD: How do you psych up to do 100 paintings?

EC: It’s insane. I get all the tins out; I prep them all at the same time. Most of them are collage transfers, so I take photographs, transfer them, and do some things. … This is all collage, this is all photo transfer, and then I paint on it too as well, so it’s a mixture. I’ll go and I’ll photograph like crazy and then I’ll come back and start looking at my images, start laying them out and then I get to a point where they all get started. They’ll all be to a point where there will be 100 of them sitting there and I’ll start cranking and it will be 10 hour days.

LD: And do you primarily paint here in the studio?

EC: This is it, so it will be a mess in November. It’s very sad for the artist (Melissa Gill) showing here in November.

LD: There’s something kind of cool about that because most gallery space isn’t studio space.

EC: No. This was originally a studio space, that’s all it was, and for me to survive and have a studio space which of course wasn’t as big as it is now, was to start doing shows to help pay the rent, which has been really great. I would do a show, have a few friends, and hang some artwork for the weekend. Then people started hearing about the gallery space and it grew and now I’m booked through 2009.

LD: Wow. That’s awesome.

EC: Well it’s awesome and it’s not awesome because it’s a lot of responsibility for the next year. It’s a little scary because of economic times. … We break even; no one is getting rich up here, it just pays for itself. When I have my shows I make money. I’m lucky because my stuff sells, but that’s when I make money because I keep my 50 percent. So I try to do two to three shows a year and that kind of pays me, then the rest of the year the shows that we have up pay for the space, and sometimes it does pay more.

LD: Do you also do events? It’s such a cool space.

EC: Yes, we’ve done lots of private birthday parties here and stuff like that, so that’s great. On 1st Thursdays we have a liquor license too, so we sell lots of wine–that helps.

LD: So have 1st Thursdays helped your business?

EC: Yes. I think it’s great exposure. It’s definitely daunting at times because you know how fast three weeks goes by. I’ve got to take down a show, put up a show, it’s really hectic. It gets really crazy. And I just signed up for another year of it.

LD: So you’re obligated to be open.

EC: Yes. We’re open Tuesday through Saturday 12 to 5 and obligated just to the artists that have shows here. They’re all painting right now for their upcoming shows. It’s kind of a scary time. It’s like wow, I hope we sell something.

LD: Maybe people should stop investing in the stock market and buy art.

EC: Well it’s funny; I was just talking to somebody about that. … It is where people should invest. I mean it’s a good investment compared to the stock market.

LD: The pieces are one of a kind.

EC: Yeah, exactly. It exists, it is what it is, and it usually almost always holds its value. And you’re enhancing your living space, or your attic. Whatever.

… (Running the gallery) it’s been great, what I’ve learned is invaluable. Every aspect, working with groups of artists, getting to know all of the artists in Santa Barbara, being part of that. That’s a hard thing to break into.

LD: But you’ve been an artist in Santa Barbara for a really long time.

EC: I have. But it’s really easy for me to just close my doors and sit in front of my canvas and not talk to anybody for weeks. Even though I’ve been painting here forever and ever, it’s very easy to get locked into your own little world and talk to maybe two artists. You know of all the other artists but you’re not really communicating. It’s much different when you actually have created a space and now you can actually show their work. They just come to you and it’s been great. I mean the art I’ve seen and the people, it’s all been really great.

LD: Prior to this did you have a studio somewhere else?

EC: No. I’ve been here almost 20 years. … When I moved in here this was lower State Street. Paseo Nuevo did not exist. When I moved in here everything was shut down around us, everything was boarded up, my rent was $250 and it was that little teeny room over there. … Nicole Strasburg (http://www.nicolestrasburg.com/ ) was in the unit over there and Liz Brady (http://www.lizbradyart.com/ ) was here too, she had my little space and some tattoo artist had been there. When I moved in the room was tattooed, the ceilings and beer cans, it was so hideous.

LD: It’s totally cool now and has a very different feel from most galleries.

EC: That was kind of the point too. I don’t like walking into galleries. I never have. I’ve always felt that they’re too reserved; it’s just a little too snooty or elitist. I don’t have that problem now, but when I was much younger I just felt really intimidated. For a long time I just used to show in coffee shops, which is still great. I still encourage people to do that. Just hang your art wherever you can in this town.

LD: Have you always wanted to be an artist?

EC: No. Isn’t that funny. I never thought I was talented enough to be an artist. I don’t even really call myself that now. It’s kind of a stretch. It’s not a stretch because that’s what people need to title you something, but it’s definitely something you’re always trying to achieve. You’re hopefully always getting better and getting more secure with your work. Some paintings you make and you’re like wow, I did that. I can’t believe I did that it’s amazing and then other stuff you can spend two weeks on something and go holy sh*t I can’t paint. What was I thinking?

Vital Stats: Erika Carter

Born: Santa Barbara (St. Francis Hospital) on October 25, 1962.

Family: Husband Dr. David Dart; son Carter, age 20; five adult stepchildren and their six children.

Civic Involvement: ” I look at it as my civic duty is that I am showing local artists and allowing them to either start their careers or continue them.”

Professional Accomplishments: Artist, owner of Studio 3 East gallery.

Little-Known Fact: “I’m not high energy at all (laughs). A lot of people think that I am. They think that I’ve just got tons of energy and I’m not. I fight for my energy, definitely. I love a good nap in the middle of the day.”

Originally published in Noozhawk in October 2008. Click here to read the story on that site.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Jamie Allison

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Jamie Allison (photo by Lesley Hall)

Jamie Allison (photo by Lesley Hall)

Finding a way to combine fun, fitness and philanthropy was Jamie Allison’s goal when she founded Moms in Motion in Santa Barbara in 1999. Now she’s taking the show on the road, with 5,244 members in 140 cities, 45 states and four countries.

Leslie Dinaberg: How did Moms in Motion get started?

Jamie Allison: It was a hobby. We started with friends and family, there were14 of us who did the Triathlon team … For me it was about feeling overwhelmed with wanting to belong to a few charities, wanting to belong to a few social groups, wanting to belong to a few fitness teams that were already organized out there, and then feeling totally stressed out with the idea of how am I going to do that and be a mom and be a good wife and do it all.

… I started looking around for mommy/baby groups but that wasn’t really what I wanted either. I think there’s a really great purpose for that, especially for brand new moms to meet at the park with their babies, but after a while I wanted to move and get my fitness in and meet other women in the community that had those same interests. Yet at the same time I really wanted to be able to get everything in one place so I didn’t feel so maxed out and spread thin, and that’s when I thought about incorporating the charity part and then the social part.

Our whole foundation, our principles are fun, fitness, and philanthropy and in all of our groups locally and nationally those are the three principles they have to integrate into their programs. What I’m finding is that has set us apart as a unique niche. … It simplifies your life if you choose to just get everything in that one place.

LD: And the team leaders choose which nonprofits to support?

JA: Yes, it’s up to them. We’re kind of unique in Santa Barbara because we have multiple leaders here (Amanda Nicolato leads a bootcamp and weight training, Emily Watson leads a hiking team, Laura Francis leads the stand up paddle board team, Sean English leads the cycling team, Chrissy Lombardi leads the core conditioning and half marathon training teams, Ernesto Paredes leads the triathlon training team, and Mandy Burgess leads the surfing and conditioning team). … We meet every other month and talk about the different charities. Some leaders like to continue with the same charity year after year, some leaders like to mix it up, some leaders are getting new information about what’s out there each season but it’s their choice and the whole purpose is to constantly educate our members on what’s out there. So we give them a little taste of that charity and we either volunteer or we piggyback a fundraiser, or we create our own fundraiser and collectively we kind of do what we can to help that charity. So we invite the director to come and speak to us and kind of bring their wish list of wants and needs and then we as a group decide what we can do.

LD: It’s great to offer that opportunity because it’s hard to volunteer when you have young kids at home.

JA: Especially when your kids are little. Some members are so tapped out they can’t do anything and that’s okay, at least they’re getting the information about that charity. And there are others that are gung ho and are amazing with what they’re doing. A lot of those members, I’m thinking of Domestic Violence Solutions, have stayed on as independent volunteers and that’s when we really feel like we’ve contributed because yes, we’re adopted that charity for the season but when people continue on and that’s pretty awesome. And the triathlon team just raised money for Village Properties’ Teacher’s Fund and Computers for Families and so many of our members weren’t aware of those two opportunities, so it was pretty awesome.

LD: Do you train with one of the teams?

JA: I stepped out of the coaching arena, so yes now I get to enjoy doing that. And you know it’s hard to always take off that coaching hat completely. …Right now I’m running with Chrissy’s running group.

LD: really liked your blog just talking about training with the group from San Luis Obispo. There’s something really nice about being able to do that.

JA: The instant connection of it was so surreal for me because it was like closing your eyes and hearing the conversations I could have been here with our group, and it’s just connecting women and you’re at a kind of similar stage of life. I mean not everybody because we have 60 year olds running with us, we have mother-daughter duos, but for the most part where we are at this stage in life.

… When I was in San Luis we were talking to one of the moms who was a four-time marathon finisher, she was going through the empty nest syndrome. So she was talking to me about her kids had just left for college and it was really kind of fun because they kind of had a need to share why participating in Moms in Motion was nice for them.

I was feeling like I didn’t want to interrupt their practice but it was really wonderful to hear all of the different perspectives about why this is important to them, it’s fulfilling. That part of it is so great; it’s really what’s keeping me excited.

…When I was up in San Luis they wanted me to talk about how this all came to be and I was just talking about how important it is at this stage of life, I mean for me, to continue making friends along these lines that lift every body up. It’s a group that gets together to support each other and I was talking about all that, and I was saying how cool that is … how we’re building community and really that to me is what this is all about, building a sense of community and one of the members piped in she said, “but you forgot something think it’s like one of the most important things.” I was like what is it, what is it?

And she said “you know, when I leave for practice my girls are running around the house playing Moms in Motion.” And I thought wow. That gave me chills. This is really important for our kids to see mom taking care of herself because when she takes care of herself she’s taking care of the whole family.

LD: Is it hard for you to step out of the coaching and let local teams do their thing? Is that challenging for you at all?

JA: No, it’s not. … When I worked for the school district, my boss, Mike Couch, he was assistant superintendent and he brought me in as a reading coordinator for junior and senior high schools, to implement reading programs for kids who couldn’t read. I’ll never forget the way he led me. He said, “Jamie this is the program, you need to implement it. You just check in every week and tell me how it’s going.” And I thrived on that because I got to be creative, I got to make it my program, I didn’t have someone who was micro-managing me. I always thought gosh, that’s the way to lead. I mean obviously you’re going to have setbacks with people who try to take advantage of the situation and then you have to deal obviously with that, but for the most part I think with this I feel like if you set the structure and the model up and you provide that and you’re there for support and you have a pretty good sense of people that you bring in, my deal has always been let them lead. Get out of the way.

LD: You are sort of conspicuously absent from the Moms in Motion website. Is that intentional?

JA: Well sort of. I’ve always been a behind the scenes worker. It’s not really about me, it’s about them, and so I kind of put myself to the side. I’m there, if you want to find me you go to history and then there’s a place for me talking about all the little awards and all that good stuff, but I kind of feel that that’s not what Moms in Motion is really about–it’s really about connecting women to each other and developing that community.

LD: If you could be invisible anywhere in Santa Barbara, where would you go and what would you do?

JA: Onstage at the bowl with some of the musicians. I could be a backup singer and they wouldn’t even know it.

Vital Stats: Jamie Allison

Born: Santa Rosa, CA, January 21

Family: Husband Michael; daughters Kate (age 7) and Samantha (age 3).

Civic Involvement: “I really do that through my Moms in Motion groups.”

Professional Accomplishments: Teacher, Masters in Education from UCSB, Santa School Districts’ Secondary Reading Coordinator; Founder/CEO of Moms in Motion

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: A Map of the World, by Jane Hamilton

Little-Known Fact: “I studied with a Shaman in Peru for a few weeks.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on October 20, 2008. Click here to read it on that site.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down with Leslie Westbrook

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Leslie Westbrook

Leslie Westbrook

Building on her lifelong interests in travel, fine art, and antiques, longtime local writer and editor Leslie Westbrook recently went public with her treasures, opening up a storefront, Leslie A. Westbrook, Art & Antiques, in Montecito’s upper village.

Leslie Dinaberg: Tell me about your new business venture?

Leslie Westbrook: I used to have an antique shop 20 years ago on Coast Village Road (Basement Antiques). So when I travel, I’ve been a travel writer for a long time, I’ve bought things and brought them back and sold them, sort of to supplement my income, but not in a big way.

LD: So you took your air miles and went to Brazil.

LW: I thought I’ll go down and I’ll buy some stuff and I’ll bring it back and I can sell it to collectors and/or consign it or sell it to shops. My area of interest and emphasis has always been art, but from South American “Santos,” because I’ve always liked them and been interested in them. So I went down there, I spent four days going to flea markets and a couple of antique dealers down there that I know and I bought a bunch of stuff. And I have a friend, sort of like my Brazilian son, he speaks Portuguese and helps me. Then I went off to Argentina and I said “here’s the money, ship this off DHL.”

LD: Now I know you and Miguel Fairbanks (who runs a wedding, event and portrait photography business in the back studio) are old friends.

LW: Yes and I just happened to say to him, “what are you doing with this space?” And he said, “You know, I need to rent it. Do you want to rent it?” … I wrote a check.

Three days later customs went on strike and held all of my goods and they’re still down there. … All of the sudden I had an empty shop, so I thought, I’d better get creative. I had a few pieces from the previous shipment…. and then I have more art than I have wall space in my house, so I brought in a Toulouse Lautrec and a Manet and I sort of started tearing things off the walls. Then I looked for a couple of contemporary artists who were local but who weren’t really showing here, like sculptor Jim Martin (www.jimmartinsculpture.com) and mixed media artist Barbara Bouman Jay (www.barbaraboumanjay.com and Ed Lister, who is an English artist who lives in Montecito but still doesn’t show here. … And then I took some things on consignment so and I bought a few other things. But I’m still waiting for my stuff to come from Brazil.

LD: How is business?

LW: Little by little the word is getting out. It’s picking up. What is really good for me is the decorators and designers are discovering me.

LD: That’s great. It seems like this is kind of antiques area in the upper village. How does this business fit in with your writing?

LW: Well, interestingly enough, I’ve been writing for California Home for about ten years and I also contribute to Traditional Homes and I wrote years ago for Art and Antique newspaper, I was the west coast editor, so I’ve always had an interest in art and antiques and design and I spent years scouting houses and writing about people’s gorgeous houses, so that ties in nicely. I am very open if someone is either decorator or they have a beautiful home and they want to bring me a disk of photos to look at for submission because I actually sit here and write all day. I’m here with my laptop and pity the poor customer if I’m lost in reverie, I have to tear myself away and become a salesperson. But it’s really kind of like a writing studio with a lot of stuff around me for sale is what it’s kind of turned into. And it’s nice to be writing here as opposed to being home alone–here I have more human contact. People come by which is really nice. So I have a shingle.

LD: I can definitely see where that would work. Do you think you’re still going to be traveling for your writing?

LW: I kind of tied myself down here. It’s a little bit of a dilemma. All of a sudden life I went oops, but I will have to go on buying trips if and when things get here and I have to replace them so in that event I’ll either get someone to sit here or I’ll close the door for a week and say gone buying. So right now I don’t have any travel plans but probably in October I’ll go back down to South America.

I wish I could clone myself so I could travel and be here. It’s a shift. Or if I do well enough at some point I could hire someone. I’m not in that position yet.

LD: When did you come to Santa Barbara?

LW: About 35 years ago. I came here to live on a hippie farm; Lambert Farm There’s a story I wrote about it in the new Carpinteria Magazine (http://carpinteriamagazine.com/). It was about 1973.

…. I grew up in Santa Monica but I used to come here in the summers. My best friend, her grandparents had Stewart Orchids, so we used to come up and stay at her grandparents’ house in Hope Ranch and that was when I was about 11 or 12,and then I met this boy at the Renaissance Faire and he lived on a farm called Lambert Farm with Kenny and Kathy Bortolazzo, they were married, and all these other people, so I moved up to live with him on this farm. It was this really cool place and it was all artisans and everybody had their own little Hobbity houses, outdoor bathrooms.

The romance was a summer romance but I fell in love with Santa Barbara and the love affair lasted with Santa Barbara.

LD: Were you always a writer?

LW: I always wrote. When I was first here after the hippie thing I worked as a cook on this estate and I made a documentary film and tried a lot of different things and I worked in advertising, and did headline writing and copywriting and then I turned into a travel writer. … I was an art major in college. I never finished school but I always loved to write and just 25 years later here I am, journalist, girl reporter. It’s fun to be interviewed though because I know when I’m interviewing people sometimes I want to share stories too.

LD: If you could pick three adjectives to describe yourself, what would they be?

LW: Gregarious or outgoing, compassionate, and honest.

LD: If you could be invisible anywhere in Santa Barbara, where would you go and what would you do?

LW: I would probably want to be in Oprah’s house (laughs), see what she needs and see where I could fill in a few holes.

Vital Stats: Leslie Westbrook

Born: Pasadena, June 14.

Family: “Mom, sister, dad, I don’t have a husband, I’m single, I don’t have any children, however I’m a fairy godmother.”

Civic Involvement: “I like to volunteer for different organizations every year, most recently I worked with Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic and the Art Museum Council. Lately I’ve been looking into bipolar people and working with FACT (families advocating for compassionate treatment).”

Professional Accomplishments: Journalist for 25 years; owns and operates Leslie A. Westbrook, Art & Antiques at 1482 East Valley Road, Suite 36, Montecito (805-969-4442).

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett

Little-Known Fact: “The men in my life all died, dumped me or went to jail!”

Originally published in Noozhawk on August 3, 2008. Click here to read the story on that site.

Noozhawk Talks: Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Stephen Jacobsen

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Stephen Jacobsen

Stephen Jacobsen

After serving 16 years as Senior Pastor at Goleta Presbyterian Church, Stephen Jacobsen recently took over as Executive Director of Hospice of Santa Barbara.

Leslie Dinaberg: Did you always want to go into this kind of work?

Stephen Jacobsen: No. … I was a history major at UCSB a long, long time ago, so that whole thing of where do things come from, why is the world the way it is, it’s interesting to me. … I think too, in my ministerial work, it had a focus within a congregation. I did get involved in the community in a number of things over the years, but here at Hospice of Santa Barbara it’s like there are no boundaries. I can be anywhere in town listening and learning, so that’s pretty fun. It feels like a big toy box.

LD: Is that unusual to go into a school like UCSB and then go into the ministry?

SJ: When I was at UCSB I had no interest at all in religious stuff. …There are friends of mine that still can’t believe I ever went into this. But I was there in 1970, the bank was still smoking and lots of smoke was in the air of all kinds, so in that whole milieu it was a pretty exciting time, a pretty fascinating and wonderful time. … I made some decisions that weren’t too good for my health psychically as well as physically, and out of that I came to a personal crisis and then found a little grace point out there in the universe that kind of turned me around.

… Later, that led me into a relationship with the woman who is now my wife and we started going to a church and I was like, “I’ll be darned, every time I go here it’s kind of like this experience I had.” Before I thought organized religion was the most dull thing there ever was, but this has actually been going on for thousands of years, these writings in any tradition, so that’s what got me into it. UCSB was the last place … I never took a religious studies class there. … Personally, it’s a wonderful kind of a wonderful grace to where I kind of screwed up my life there. Here I get to go back and be a tax paying, responsible kind of a person who’s trying to help, and in that sense, I never thought I’d get back to Santa Barbara. But here I am, and in that sense it’s kind of a circle that I feel I wouldn’t have ever dreamed of.

LD: I know you served on the board before becoming executive director. What initially drew you to become involved with Hospice of Santa Barbara?

SJ: I’ve been in ministry 27 years and wherever I was people had such reverence for the work of Hospice and I got on the board in the 80s in Ventura County, when I was working in Santa Paula and it was an interesting board to be on. … Often in our culture we’re kind of like whoa, keeping things at arms length, and going through those things (loss of a loved one) kind of slows us down a little bit and makes us a little more reverent. So I thought this is interesting chemistry to be around where it’s people who have gone through some tough things in life. …Gail (Rink, the retiring executive director of Hospice of Santa Barbara) and I would do occasional programs together and I just loved hearing her speak.

… So with all that then, what got me interested in the job was I just felt personally in my life, I am 55 and I’ve been doing what I had done for 27 years and it was wonderful, but I thought I would be open to something different. I have a great appreciation for what this organization does, but also a sense that at this point in Hospice of Santa Barbara’s growth it really wants to–in addition to doing all of the care giving it does for people–move to work with others in the community.

… There’ s a movement, the Alliance for Living and Dying Well … it has these two goals, to do kind of the nuts and bolts thing of how can we get all the services well integrated? How can we get advanced directives very available to people? But then there’s this second kind of a thing that the alliance is very much wanting to do, which is take this message, to form and articulate this message and take it into the culture in which we live.

There’s a saying that I really like by a guy named Matthew Fox, which is, “If we savor more we buy less.” And so instead of saying I should buy less, it’s like if I come to terms with the idea my life is limited, then I start to enjoy each detail more and then I just don’t feel like I have to buy quite as much because what I am doing is really awesome.

LD: It’s amazing how quickly we lose touch too. When you’re in that moment of something big happening you think I’m going to remember this forever and then it fades and you go on with your life.

SJ: Yeah, yeah absolutely.

LD: As you evolve from a board member into the executive director that sounds like that’s going to be one of your things you’ll emphasize.

SJ: Yes, I think of my job as internal and external. Internal is the usual things that an executive director does, supporting and helping to manage the volunteers and staff and in that sense I kind of feel like a guardian. I want to protect my people and give them what they need but on the other end is this kind of external community relations thing and we’re interested in doing a lot of community education and collaborative things.

… One of my favorite definitions of leadership is the interweaving of relationships, so there’s one thing about setting the vision but there’s another thing about just seeing how all the relationships at all the different kinds of levels can just be woven together all the time so it’s strong, it’s not just one person out there in front of a charge. So a lot of what I look at is how to keep weaving relationships between Hospice of Santa Barbara and the healthcare people in town, the educational groups, all kinds of stuff.

LD: What do you do when you’re not working?

SJ: I love the beach, bicycling, I love to swim, I love opera, I love baseball. I’m a big Dodger fan, and there are 31 people that work here, but I don’t think there’s anyone else that cares, so I had to learn that the first week. … I love to travel. I don’t think I’ll be doing as much traveling here, but in my previous job had two weeks every year and I could save them on account, so I went to Mexico City and I loved kind of spiritual journeying, going to see the world. Here a lot of the journeying will be here in town.

Vital Stats: Stephen Jacobsen

Born: Nov. 8, 1952, San Bernardino

Family: Wife Ann; daughters Autumn (30, lives in Seattle), Alegra (21, lives in Austin, Texas), and Aria (18, a freshman at UC Santa Cruz); grandson Asher; Sophie the dog; and two chickens, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley

Civic Involvement: Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion and Public Life (UCSB) advisory group; board member Hospice of Santa Barbara andIsla Vista Youth Project; recent past president of the Interfaith Initiative of Santa Barbara County; former board member of La Casa de Maria Retreat House

Professional Accomplishments: Senior pastor at Goleta Presbyterian Churchfor 16 years; Visiting Scholar at the UCSB Religious Studies Department; taught courses in history and religious studies at Heritage University in Toppenish, Wash.; pastor at Community Presbyterian Church in Wapato, Wash.

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: La Sumida Nursery “smallest ripe tomato” competition

Originally published in Noozhawk on October 6, 2008. Click here to read it on that site.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down with Cecilia Rodriguez

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Anna Kokotovic, left, former executive director of CALM (Child Abuse Listening & Mediation), gave new Executive Director Cecilia Rodriguez her start with the organization more than 20 years ago. (Jennifer Guess photo)

Anna Kokotovic, left, former executive director of CALM (Child Abuse Listening & Mediation), gave new Executive Director Cecilia Rodriguez her start with the organization more than 20 years ago. (Jennifer Guess photo)

Starting as a volunteer in 1984, CALM‘s (Child Abuse Listening & Mediation) new Executive Director Cecilia Rodriguez has proven her passion for protecting children from abuse. Now she wants to focus on prevention, reaching out to young families to help break the cycle of abuse.

Leslie Dinaberg: So you started as a volunteer at CALM?

Cecilia Rodriguez: Yes, when my own children were very little and I was trying to get away from my life as a full time mom. I wanted to be able to talk about something more than diapers and baby stuff, which is fine but when I got involved here at CALM as a volunteer, within minutes I realized that this was what I would do for the rest of my life. That’s why I warn volunteers when they come here, I say “beware this agency has a way of grabbing you.” The mission is just so compelling and we’re protecting the most vulnerable in our community and helping families to grow and change and break the cycle of abuse.

LD: So you went graduate school and became a marriage and family therapist.

CR: Yes and Dr. Anna Kokotovic, the executive director at the time, offered me a position doing intensive in-home therapy, doing treatment at people’s homes, in the streets, in schools. Wherever families hung out, that’s where I hung out.

… The wonderful thing about in-home work is that you really get a much clearer picture of what’s going on than you do when they come to the office. You rely here on what they tell you, but when you go there and you see the conditions that they are living under, the stressors that they are facing, the challenges, and the poverty. Then you realize that some of the things we innocently ask people to do in their homes are just not possible. So we have to adapt it so that it’s something that really will work for them.

LD: How willing are people to have this kind of an intervention of people coming into their homes?

CR: I am always so humbled–and I’m going to start crying because I always cry about this–that people trust us enough to allow us to come into their home. I am always so touched by that, and it just shows you the level of distress that they’re in, or they are seeking so much, they want support.

LD: What programs are you emphasizing now?

CR: … My focus now, as executive director, is to focus more on prevention than on trying to repair the problem after it has occurred. With teenagers it would be so much better not to get to that place. That’s why we’re really emphasizing preschool, emphasizing preschool aged children aged 0 to 5, the younger the better. And it’s not the children we’re focusing on, it’s the parents so that we can support them to be better families, to listen to their children to be supported themselves. You know, a lot of parents haven’t been supported, didn’t get optimum family situations and so they just repeat what was done. If in their family they were raised in a really punitive family environment, they will tend to do the same thing unless we can intervene. … We try to target young families, even before they have their babies. We get referrals from obstetricians and pediatricians and the Public Health Department when there are certain risk factors and then we begin working with them on bonding and attachment issues from day one.

…We have a whole team of home visitors called Great Beginnings, and they are the ones that go to homes of the very young children.

LD: You have a lot of different programs and a lot of things going on, but what is your perception of the needs of Santa Barbara County versus what you’re able to provide.

CR: Well, there’s always more need than we’re able to provide and again, the need is I think, because I’ve been doing this for a lot of years, and I’m tired of coming in after the fact when abuse has happened and then we react by wrapping our CALM services around the family. That’s why I want to focus on support and prevention efforts, teaching parents how to be better parents and families how to be there for one another. There are so many stressors in families’ lives these days and it’s getting even more challenging now, financial stressors, our economy, that’s adding another, and our families have always been stressed in that way because we work often with families of lower social economic class, so it’s always challenging for them, but then it’s even more challenging now.

LD: Obviously, there are people that have higher risk backgrounds than others, but in some ways everybody has that potential to go too far.

CR: Right. We all have the capacity to abuse given a certain set of circumstances, given certain life stressors I think we can, like you say, cross the line or lose sight of what we’re supposed to do with our children.

LD: In addition to earlier, is there anything else that you feel like is a shift from what’s been done in the past?

CR: Support for preschools. That’s also where I see that children who are experiencing neglect or are growing up in stressful situations where they are exposed to domestic violence, they are not ready to learn; they’re not ready for kindergarten. You know kids are getting kicked out of preschool, this is shocking to me … If you can’t make it in preschool oh my gosh. But you know, when kids are aggressive that’s an automatic “we can’t deal with you here” because they hurt other children. And not every preschool does that, kicks kids out, but there are some, and we see kids here who can’t make it in preschool setting. It is sad. So what we’re doing is we’re partnering with, for instance, Storyteller, and we’re offering support to children and the teachers so that we can help these children to be successful so they’re ready on day one in kindergarten they are ready to learn.

LD: That’s really important.

CR: Yes because what happens if they’re not ready and they’re disruptive from day one they get tagged, you know these kids they get tagged, even in preschool, as the problem kids and they’re going to be problem, problem, problem and they’re going to fail in school.

LD: That’s really sad.

CR: This is a great fact that I uncovered the other day. Do you know that our volunteers provide us with 10,000 hours a year of volunteer time? We have volunteers provide childcare. What our families tell us is one of the most helpful things that we do. When they come here for an appointment they can bring their kids and the kids will be taken care of.

LD: When you’re not working what do you like to do?

CR: I am a total gym rat. I’m an exercise junkie. I go to the Goleta Valley Athletic Club. What’s really important about this work is that it can be very stressful work, of course, you can take a lot home with you, and self-care is very important and I try to model that for the staff. We really stress the importance of when you’re not here when you’re not working, surrounding yourself with beauty, with culture, with laughter, good books, whatever it is that feeds your soul, that’s what you need to do when you’re not here.

So I work out because I’m a fanatic about it, just because it makes me feel good, and also I’m a gardener, My garden is my pride and joy. I love my garden so I’m always out there in my garden. And I have a really solid family, which also helps.

Vital Stats: Cecilia Rodriguez

Born: Los Angeles, November 25, 1957

Family: Husband Bob Stanley; two grown children, Tom who lives in Bellingham, WA, and Clare, who lives in Granada, Spain.

Professional Accomplishments: Art Teacher at Marymount in the 1970s, staff member at CALM for more than 22 years.

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez

Little-Known Fact: “I love Cheetos. That is my junk food of choice. About every six months I have a Cheetos attack and I just totally give into it.”

Originally published in Noozhawk in September 2008. Click here to read the story on that site.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Larry Kreider

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Larry Kreider (Noozhawk photo)

Larry Kreider (Noozhawk photo)

Beer is more than just a passion for Larry Kreider; it’s also a business. Before he discovered the pleasures of fine craft made beer, Kreider had endless campfire debates over the superiority of Budweiser to Miller and Coors. Now he’s spreading the joys of pairing homemade food with handcrafted hops at Goleta’s Hollister Brewing Company.

Leslie Dinaberg: When did you first develop an interest in beer?

Larry Kreider: It was kind of an epiphany. I was working as a manager for Home Depot in Torrance, and I had to approve checks. I kept approving these checks that said Manhattan Beach Brewing Company, and I finally asked the guy, “What’s the Manhattan Beach Brewing Company? Do you make coffee, soda, what do you do?” He said, “No, we brew beer.”

… I had never heard of that before. It was close by, so I went and visited it and it was just oh my God, this is like nirvana.

… For a couple of years I was just so pissed at Budweiser that they had brainwashed me into thinking that that was the best beer. … But then after I started brewing some beer myself, you start having an appreciation for the technologically perfect beer that they are able to make, especially with breweries located in different parts of the country.

So I’ve kind of come full circle. To their credit, they do take a big part in getting people to drink more beer period. … For the past three or four years the growth of beer consumption has been pretty stagnant, but craft brewed beer has earned double digit increases in consumption.

LD: How did you get started in the restaurant business?

LK: I moved to Santa Barbara in 1995 with the intent of opening up the Santa Barbara Brewing Company. I had some partners from the South Bay area … the three of us were middle-aged bachelors, had never worked in a restaurant, never brewed beer before but we knew someone in common that had opened other brew pubs and could help us. … Our naivete kind of helped us. …That’s right when lower State Street was starting to become a little gentrified. … We were in the right place at the right time

… That’s where I met my current partner, Eric Rose. I hired him to be a part-time brewer assistant. … We worked together there for about four years and then I sold my interest in the brewing company to my partners who are still there and still doing well. I moved on and at that time I was becoming involved with Elements.

I knew, from the very first week I met Eric that at some point in his life he was going to open up a brewpub on his own, professionally. We stayed in contact for four years in that interim where I was trying to get Elements off the ground, and he was still at the brewing company perfecting his profession, brewing better beers.

(Eventually) Eric and his father (Marshall Rose) started putting together a business plan, and they contacted me and wanted to know if I was still interested in doing a project. And I said, “absolutely.”

LD: Even though there are a lot of restaurants, it still feels like Goleta has room for more.

LK: People have been extremely supportive and we’re flattered and humbled by the response that we got when we came out here. There was a pent up desire for people to go to locally owned and operated restaurants without having to go downtown.

LD: Is the beer you brew only sold here?

LK: We have the ability with our type of license to self distribute beer. But not to sound smug or anything, but we’ve been so busy trying to keep up with the demand here that we haven’t pursued that avenue yet. We have beer on tap at one place and it’s the Hungry Cat. We’ve developed a nice relationship with the chefs that work there, and they’re willing to put different beers of ours on tap and then create dishes around it.

LD: Can people buy beer to take home?

LK: We have the growlers only; we don’t sell it in kegs.

LD: Do you have a favorite beer?

LK: The one that’s in front of me. (Laughs)

LD: I know you’re here full time but you still own part of Elements?

LK: Yes, but it has nothing to do with the partnership that owns Hollister Brewing Company. That’s just me personally. My partner there, Andy, knew that at some point I was going to get back in the beer business. Fortunately for me my wife Tina is able to keep our interest going in Elements.

LD: She mentioned to me that you guys get a little competitive.

LK: Yes we do. We check sales with each other on a daily basis and see who is doing what. We’ve even tried to get some synergy a little bit out of it, if they need employees or if we need employees we’ll see if they have people available, stuff like that. But it’s a completely separate entity.

LD: Does whether or not UCSB is in session affect your crowd very much?

LK: Everyone said when we were building the place, “oh brew pub right by a university, that’s going to be busy,” and people had this pre-conceived notion it would be filled with these undergrad students drinking beer. We’re not that kind of a place. We make a craft made product so it’s a little more expensive.

.. I think anyone would be naïve to say that the university doesn’t affect every business in Goleta. It does; there’s a huge population increase, but we’ve been able to keep to our core demographic of the people who live and work here in Goleta and not just the students who tend to be a little more transient from year to year.

… It’s so funny, the three busiest weekends that we have are graduation, move-in and parents visitor’s week. So for 49 weeks a year the students go to Albertsons, and whatever is on sale they buy, but the three weekends that mom and dad are in town they bring them in here to foot the bill (Laughs).

LD: What else do you do when you’re not working?

LK: As you know, I have two young kids, so that takes up pretty much all of the time that I’m not here. I have to give credit to Tina — you know, trying to run two restaurants with two young kids is not the easiest thing to do and we’ve been able to. Our partners are very cognizant of that also … I try to take Sunday off regardless of what’s going on and that’s kind of our family day.

LD: Looking down the road, would you ever want to open another Hollister Brewing Co.?

LK: I could see opening a different variation of this. This was our first shot together and most of the menu design, the beer design, the food pairings, came from Eric. He’s got the most sophisticated palate. This site lends itself more toward the volume that we have to do and we’ve been very fortunate that we have that, but if you really want to get into a palate driven place you need a little bit smaller place. So we can see doing that at some point in the future. Maybe a smaller venue where we could still supply it from here, not necessarily brew it there, but have a really nice palate-driven, food-driven, foodie place with really nice wines, really good beers, pairing with more entrée-type foods and things like that.

LD: It sounds like an amalgamation of your two businesses.

LK: Exactly. Something like that maybe sometime but there’s no immediate plan. I mean, we’re still pounding the turf here and trying to get this going. But we’re well ahead of what our scheduled business plan said. Thank you to the people in Goleta that they have been very supportive, and we do thank the people from Santa Barbara, too, who come all the way out here to Goleta. (Laughs) I swear people think they have to cancel their newspaper subscription and cancel their mail just to go to Goleta.

Vital Stats: Larry Kreider

Born: Aug. 30, 1958, in Martinsburg, Pa., “with a population of more cows than people.”

Family: Wife Tina, son Jake (8) and daughter Claire (4)

Civic Involvement: Santa Barbara Mission, Washington School

Professional Accomplishments: Manager at Home Depot; co-owner of Santa Barbara Brewing Co.; current co-owner of Hollister Brewing Co. and Elements.

Little-Known Fact: “People look at me as the beer person since I’m out here, but I mean, If I go into a restaurant and I don’t like the beer selection they have, I’ll order a Budweiser … It’s the best of that style of beer. … We just don’t like the fact that they market to get people to think that that’s the only style of beer there is.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on September 7, 2008.