Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Renee Grubb

Posted on March 10, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

Renee Grubb

When Renee Grubb and Ed Edick founded Village Properties in 1996, they strove to create a community-conscious real estate agency. Part of that dedication to Santa Barbara involved creating the Teacher’s Fund, a nonprofit that makes it easy for teachers to get much-needed financial support for schools. Now Grubb is paying that community-minded spirit forward even further. As the new chair of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce, she has already begun raising scholarship money for at-risk students.

LD: Let’s start with real estate. How is the market right now? Is it a good time to buy?

RG: Well the market is good. I’ve been busy because the number of sales has increased, but this in the last two and a half weeks. … One of our agents yesterday in the meeting gave a number of how many properties went this year so far, and that’s back from January, and three quarters of them went in the last two and a half weeks. So all of the sellers and the buyers who have been, rightly so, a little nervous about the market, are definitely getting off of that and making offers.

LD: So does that mean it’s a good time to buy right now because prices are lower?

RG: Yes. There are deals and the time to buy is when somebody isn’t already making an offer on a property or something, A lot of people they say, “Oh I want to go back and see it three or four times,” and then by the time they go back and see it the third or fourth time there’s either an offer on it or it’s gone. But we’re seeing more multiple offers. There was a property on Sea Ranch, just outside of Hope Ranch. They put it on the market for $1,990,000. It was kind of a fixer and it had something like 12 offers. It went for $300,000 over the asking. I was like what was that all about. We’re starting to see some of that happening again.

LD: Have you always worked in real estate?

RG: No. Before I got into real estate I was pretty much just raising my children but before that I was in the medical industry. I was actually an assistant for an ophthalmologist.

LD: How did you come to start the Teacher’s Fund? I always thought you must have been a teacher before you went into real estate.

RG: Not me, but teachers can make the best real estate agents because they’re already attuned to service and caring … The Teacher’s Fund started in 2002. When we started Village we made a decision that we were going to pretty much support children and children’s causes because you know, you get so many requests. …What happened was we were doling out money for this and that $50 for that and $500 for that … and then one day we hired a PR person. It was really her idea. Her son had come home from kindergarten and he had this long list of things that he had to bring to school. So she said to this teacher … “How do kids bring all of this if their parents can’t afford it?” The teacher said, “Well I make sure every child has the same. I buy it.” So that’s where the idea came from.

… We started out doing just pretty much South County elementary schools, kindergarten through sixth grade, and we were being able to manage that but we weren’t getting very many donations. We did a couple of fundraisers but then Orfalea Family Foundation actually saw in the South Coast Beacon, that wonderful editorial on the Teacher’s Fund, and they called us and they said “Hey we’re interested in that.” I will be forever grateful for that.

LD: That’s wonderful that Orfalea is working with you.

RG: Since Orfalea came aboard we have gone countywide and we’ve gone to junior high, so we are really covering a lot of classrooms … As of this year, I didn’t count the last month, but we have funded $450,000 to 1,090 classrooms since we started and we’ll definitely hit the $500,000 mark this year.

LD: You’re chairing the Chamber of Commerce too.

RG: I’ve been on the board for four years … a lot of people come and ask for endorsements. … This year we are trying to be supportive of the city with the green awareness we’re trying to inform business people so that they are aware of the different ways that they can do that within their businesses and their homes. So we’re kind of pushing that a little bit, I am also trying to support as many of the new businesses in town as possible.

At my installation on January 31st, we decided that we were going to try to raise some funds for at-risk students. The scholarship is called “Chance for Change,” and we set it up with the Santa Barbara Scholarship Foundation, … it’s basically for students … who choose the better path, rather than going into a gang. … We had a speaker, we had a young man who, his brother is in jail and his dad left him when they were kids, you know pretty typical thing, he was raised by his mom and his sister… so he’s being sent through school by a scholarship and he came and spoke.

We had decided that we would try to raise $20,000, which would send five young people to City College for two years. We talked about it and had this young man speak and raised $114,000 that night.

…. It’s just been amazing. It was 250 people in the room and we had donations from as high as $20,000 down to $100, and it felt like almost everybody in the room gave something. It was great. It was an amazing evening.

LD: He must be a great speaker.

RG: I’m telling you, he was so sincere and you knew and his mom was there. It was very exciting. They were just like in amazement that we were able to do that in one evening, but that just shows the generosity in this town.

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

RG: Well this is going to sound silly, but I love movies and if I see movies a year in a theatre I’m lucky, so I would love to be able to go to the movies and not have to worry about my cell phone and in the middle day. I would love to do that. That would be just a real treat for me.

Vital Stats: Renee Grubb

Born: January 22, Long Beach, CA

Family: Husband Ed, Daughters Erin and Natalie, and grandchildren Sydney (6), Kelsey (3), Hope (2) and Luke (18 months)

Civic Involvement: Chair of Chamber of Commerce, Founder of the Teacher’s Fund, Montecito Union Education Foundation, Business and Technology Awards Committee, California Association of Realtors Director, Budget and Finance Committee for Santa Barbara Association of Realtors, City of Santa Barbara Infrastructure Financing Task Force.

Professional Accomplishments: Co-Founder and Owner of Village Properties, has sold real estate in Santa Barbara since 1983.

Little-Known Fact: “My husband and I have been married 37 years and we’ve lived in 32 homes. So we fixed and flipped. And I’ve been in my current house ten years, so you can imagine how many houses we lived in.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on March 10, 2008.

Noozhawk Talks: Leslie Dinaberg sits down with Nancy Harter

Posted on February 29, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

Nancy Harter, courtesy photo

After eight years of service of service on the Santa Barbara School Board, Nancy Harter has earned some reflection time. She talks about what it was like to sit on the board, and what she has planned for the future.

Leslie Dinaberg: How did you get interested in running for school board?

Nancy Harter: In March of 2000 when the secondary bond (a $67 million bond to
improve the infrastructure and modernization of aging campuses)
was on the ballot, Irene Falzone and I co-chaired the campaign. She was a
Santa Barbara High parent at the time; I was a Dos Pueblos parent. Once I got
through that election I started to become a regular at board meetings, then I
decided to run in November.

LD: Are your kids out of the school system now?

NH: Yes, long since. People run who don’t currently have kids in the system and
I think that they can do a terrific job, but for me, a big part of being on the school
board was having that network and knowing at least a couple of staff members
on every single campus and on some campuses knowing a lot of the staff
members, so when issues would come up you had people to call, people to
network with and find out what would be the impact would be on the school.

LD: I think you get less agenda-driven information if you’re calling them as
someone that you’ve known for a while, as opposed to as a board
member.

NH: Right, for me it made a big difference. Actually one of my favorite columns of
yours was the one about going to the PTA meetings because that’s what
happens, you start going to the PTA meetings, you take on more and more
responsibility, the next thing you know you’re the president and then low and
behold, the next thing you know you’re running for school board.

LD: The whole thing has been interesting to me because I started covering
school issues before my son was in school. My perspective definitely changed
having been involved on the inside.

NH: Yes, your perspective changes. You personally have a lot more invested and
there’s just that unbelievable personal connection.

LD: That probably gives you a good insight too.

NH: I think it did. My kids attended the Goleta Elementary Schools but for
secondary, I was a secondary parent from 1992 until 2005, so for 13
years.

LD: Were you ready to be done?

NH: I wouldn’t say that, because there are still issues simmering on the stove
that I would really like to be a part of but, you know, better to leave a day early
than a day late was how I felt about it. I really was not anxious to do another
campaign. Sort of the upside and the downside of school boards in Santa
Barbara is that really good people always run, but it’s an election. You can’t just
assume that you’ll be able to retain your seat without running a
campaign.

LD: What were some of the highlights of your school board experience?

NH: … A big part of it was building relationships, creating a bigger network,
creating relationships with other agencies. The City of Santa Barbara for
instance, we’ve got a great relationship with them now and it was virtually non-
existent when I came on to the board.

… Another big piece for me was the whole paying it forward sort of piece. When I
came on to the board it was a great board-Fred Rifkin, Claire Van Blaricum,
Bob Noel, Steve Forsell-and Claire really helped me with my campaign and
mentored me as a new board member. I took that responsibility really seriously,
so there wasn’t a single election cycle that went by in my eight years where I
didn’t encourage somebody to run, help them with their campaign and then help
them get started on the board.

LD: Are you going to stay involved in local politics or local school issues?

NH: For me it’s about educational policy. I’m not interested in running for
anything else, I’m really happy to be involved in the nonprofit world and efforts
surrounding the schools but I don’t think I’ll ever run for anything again. (Laughs)
It’s a really different skill set to put yourself out there and sell yourself to
somebody with that tape running in your head of your mother saying that the
least interesting topic of conversation is yourself, it’s just hard to put yourself out
there. But I find it very easy to work with other people and collaborate with other
people over issues to come to resolution. I’m not a natural born campaigner,
that’s for sure.

LD: When we scheduled this interview I thought it would be completely non-
controversial, but I did read your op-ed piece in Noozhawk and I have to ask you
about the Bob Noel editorial. Why did you finally write that?

NH: You know, I’m not interested in rehashing it. I stand by what I said and I
don’t need to keep beating the drum. It really had to do with calling for the
superintendent’s resignation and then not participating in the process. … it was
more about the method than about the message.

LD: Is there anything you wish you would have said or done differently in
retrospect?

NH: … I’m not a regretful person, so I would say no. I think I worked really hard
to keep a high level of discourse, and that was the kind of board that I came on
to, and I think I succeeded.

LD: So what’s next?

NH: I have always been involved in the nonprofit world and I’m taking on some
new nonprofit responsibilities and I would just really like to pour myself into that in
the short term and then see how things play out. There’s no grand plan in place.
You acquire this incredible body of knowledge about educational policy and then
you go off the board and it’s like, so now where do I take this? So hopefully there
will be some opportunities that allow me to tap into that expertise, but I don’t
know what they are yet.

LD: Do you have any advice for anyone considering local public office?

NH: I think a lot of people don’t run because they think that as a school board
member that you have some sort of legacy building obligation, that somehow you
need to create some new program or accomplish some grand achievement and I
really think that that is a mistake. I think that you can build a legacy by coming
really well prepared to every single school board meeting, by talking to your
friends and neighbors about issues and getting different opinions. I don’t think it
has to be something physical left behind when you’re done with your
term.

I think that there are a lot of really smart capable people out there who have a
really passionate interest in schools and then talk themselves out of it. And we’re
lucky in this area in Santa Barbara and in all of our surrounding school districts;
there are a lot of really smart people who are willing to run for school board. But
you know I don’t think that people should be, certainly they shouldn’t be scared
away by the issues. You know you’re involved in group think, you’re problem
solving with other people, the burden isn’t solely on you. But also, I think people
get scared away when they read in the paper about the occasional inflammatory
public comment and that’s not every board meeting.

LD: I would imagine you would have to get used to that somewhat too, not that it
would ever become easy.

NH: Well if you have a good internal compass you know which public comments
to pay attention and to take to heart, and you know which to just flip the switch
and just not pay any attention.

… I think we’re lucky, especially in the secondary district, we’re one of the few
areas where everybody takes advantage of the public school system with a
handful of exceptions and I think the secondary is one of those school districts
where you probably have the biggest group of haves and have nots who come
together every school day. And that doesn’t happen in a lot of communities.

… When you have a really bad night at a school board meeting, the best antidote
is to get to a school campus some time before the end of the week because the
energy is just unbelievable on any of the campuses. I really like it.

Vital Stats: Nancy Harter

Born: San Francisco, April 29, 1953

Family: Husband Larry; daughter Anne, age 28; son Jake, age 25; and daughter
Julia age 21.

Civic Involvement: Santa Barbara School Board; Santa Barbara Education
Foundation; Future leaders of America, Berkeley Alumni Association’s
Achievement Award Program; joining the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in
January.

Professional Accomplishments: Eight years on the Santa Barbara School Board;
Masters Degree in English, taught freshman English at the University of
Nebraska; has a law degree but never practiced law. “My oldest was born my
third year of law school, so my involvement in the world has almost always been
nonprofits.”

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of
Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tracy Kidder, but I
usually read fiction.

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 29, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Chris Mkpado

Posted on February 18, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

“Saving the world, one piece of trash at a time,” is the motto for Textile Waste Solutions. Since Christopher Mkpado founded the company in 1995, he has quietly recycled tens of millions of pounds of textiles that would have otherwise ended up in our local landfill.

Leslie Dinaberg: Tell me about Textile Waste Solutions (http://www.twaste.com/).

Chris Mkpado: Basically … it is a new kind of trash company. The difference between what we do and what the regular trash companies do, the big difference, is they take trash from homes or from wherever they pick it up, take it straight to the landfill and bury it. We have a different idea. The idea is to take this specialized stuff that is recyclable and recycle it so that it doesn’t go into the landfill.

Textile waste is about eight percent of our total waste; it’s a very valuable number in the sense that 95 to 98 percent of textiles are recyclable. The economic benefit from that is huge. It outweighs other recyclables. … Let’s take our immediate environment, Santa Barbara County. The need for industrial rags in Santa Barbara County is huge. Santa Barbara County will spend up to $1 million every year on rags.

LD: Wow. That’s a lot of money.

CM: So here you have $1 million of product that is used in this county that used to come from outside of the county. The raw material was right here, but in the past it was buried in the landfill. You lose on tax revenue when you do that too. … When a contractor … picks up a bag of rags or a box of rags, he pays sales tax, right? Where does that sales tax end up? It goes back to Orange County or San Diego or wherever. Basically it goes out of the county. So look at the $1 million industry that the county must pay on rags, $75,000 of sales tax is lost.

LD: My speculation is that most people probably don’t realize that the product is actually available locally. They’re probably patting themselves on the back thinking, “Oh, this is recycled.”

CM: You’re correct. We’re very happy to hear about the green movement now and all this excitement that people are getting into, but thing is we’ve got to do it and do it right. … We want to do it where we can reap the most economic advantage. That’s what it’s all about.

… When I started, my business was export-based … now I realize there is this local need for this product. We can serve this market in this county. The county will be making extra tax dollars.

LD: How did you start this business?

CM: We started when I came to this country (He’s originally from Cameroon). My wife Sharol (Mulder) and I were married in Korea. We came to Santa Barbara, her hometown, when she was pregnant with our son Christian (now 15). … I was looking for what I could do and I have a background in export. … So I decided I would start looking for things that I could export.

LD: And you started out sending used clothes to third world countries?

CM: Jim DePew (who lived in Montecito and owned thrift stores all over) had been trying to export used clothing and failed. …. That’s how it all got started.

… But he couldn’t supply us the quantity we needed. So then I started looking into how else can I get extra supplies. And I found that there are thrift stores all over the place, right here where I live. So then I decided to approach all these thrift stores and introduced myself. Some of them were kind of lukewarm about the whole idea. Some of them embraced the idea right away, Alpha Thrift Store being one of them. And so we … started taking from thrift stores and decided hey, we need a warehouse, we need this, we need that, and that’s how the whole thing came about.

LD: So at that point in time, your goal was to find stuff that was reusable?

CM: Right.

LD: And assuming there was stuff that wasn’t reusable, was that then being recycled at that point or was that being thrown away?

CM: At that time it was being thrown away. … About 30 percent of everything at that time went to the dump.

… When the idea of the industrial rags came, I said why not. If we can recover 30 percent of this material we turn over it’s going to balance what we’re losing on export. And that’s why we are where we are today.

LD: And now all your materials come straight from thrift stores.

CM: That’s true. … Thrift stores dispose of about 80 percent of all donations. … At Alpha Thrift Store, for example, … every week we are there with a seven-ton truck.

LD: Wow.

CM: Yes, every week seven tons. And that’s one store.

LD: Now I know the city of Santa Barbara has started to buy your product through Buena Tools, and you’ve got the city of Santa Maria on board.

CM: Yes, actually we’ve gotten the most help from the city of Santa Maria. The city of Santa Maria took leadership from day one.

LD: Can you talk a little bit about why textile recycling is so low impact compared to other types of recycling?

CM: Textile recycling is the only recyclable that does not consume a lot of energy to be able to develop it for reuse. It is the only recyclable that you may not need water to make it useable. You don’t need any chemicals to recycle textiles, compared to say plastics, where you need tons of powerful chemicals to recycle plastic. Not that I’m against that, but I’m trying to point out the advantages of recycling textiles. Textiles use the least amount of resources. …. after recycling about three million pounds of textiles, my electric bill every year is under $1,000.

LD: That’s phenomenal.

CM: That’s the energy consumption to recycle about three million pounds. Go recycle three million pounds of cans and see how much you pay in your electricity bill. … You just need the machine to compress it, a little bit of wire, and send it out. … The beauty of this whole thing is that right now as we speak there is a need for industrial rags. This product is going to come from somewhere.

Take the city of Santa Barbara for example, the city was bringing in close to 80,000 pounds a year of rags. And that 80,000 pounds went into the landfill. It’s a disgrace. And now by changing the way things are done, the city has prevented an extra 80,000 pounds from going into the landfill, without even hiring anybody to do the job. I mean how much would it cost the city to divert so much waste?

LD: Your enthusiasm is so infectious. What do you like do when you’re not working?

CM: I like to coach AYSO soccer, that’s my passion. … I can’t wait for the next soccer season.

Vital Stats: Chris Mkpado

Born: Cameroon, West Africa; July 29, 1963

Family: Wife Sharol Mulder; children Christian, 15, Alexandra, 10, and Kele, 10

Civic Involvement: Coaching AYSO soccer; Santa Barbara County Foster Parents Association (http://www.fosterfamilysupport.org/index.htm)

Professional Accomplishments: Worked in the international export business throughout Asia, creating markets in China, Africa, the Philippines, and the former Soviet Union, among others; owner and founder of Textile Waste Solutions

Little-Known Facts: Chris’s middle name is Udodi, which means “peace.” Chris and Sharol adopted their daughter Alex through the foster care system.

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 18, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Sissy Taran

Posted on February 3, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

Author Sissy Taran, courtesy Noozhawk

A combination of laughter and tears helped Sissy Taran survive the sudden death of her husband Bernie, in June 2005. “There aren’t any magical answers to survive the loss of a loved one,” says Sissy, but she hopes to help others by bringing that same bittersweet combination of humor and compassion to her new book.

Leslie Dinaberg: Tell me about The Sun Will Shine Again: Life Lessons from a Year of Grieving? How did you come to write the book?

Sissy Taran: People kept asking me how I was doing, and I had no answer. Usually I’m not shy and I’m not at a loss for words … Finally I came up with, “Well I’ll just write a book.” (laughs) That was my response to “how are you doing” because I didn’t know how to say it any other way.

So (five months after her husband’s death) I’m at the temple…and I see the Rabbi’s door open and I decide I’m going in and I’m going to ask the Rabbi to write a forward for this book that I’m going to write.

Now I have no idea how to write a book. I don’t have the foggiest idea how to write a book. But the door was open, so I went in and I spent an hour with him and when I was through, I said, “Gee, do you want to co-author this book with me?” … Then I went home and I called my neighbor (Laurie Deans Medjuck) to ask her how to write a book. … She ended up being the editor.

…The Rabbi started to interview me, he interviewed me for seven months, an hour and a half, every week, and I spoke, we spoke, 500 pages, 100,000 words. … The whole book came from the transcripts.

LD: Did you feel like in reflecting on what you had said originally that your feelings about some things had changed?

ST: What happened was I didn’t feel like the same person anymore. When we started writing it and making it into the book, it was this person I watched grow. This person I watched from the very beginning of her baby steps. It was almost like taking myself and putting myself over here and being totally removed and watching the growth and how she became empowered and looking at it now, two years later, I still look at her as another human being. It’s fascinating.

LD: How much of how you feel now do you think has to do with the act of writing the book, as opposed to going through the whole grief process?

ST: Well, interesting enough, I didn’t think of the book as being cathartic. It was only after I did it, it was like visiting a therapist, but I didn’t know that.

… We were doing something for somebody else. It wasn’t for me. I was writing this because there was nothing available I felt that people could relate to. So I had a project and I like projects.

LD: One of the things that really struck me was how you always think about someone grieving the big things like holidays, but not how many little day-to-day reminders there are.

ST: I think probably the turning point for me was putting in the new driveway. … when we make a decision we bounce it off of people. … But in the driveway I didn’t do that. In the driveway I shook hands with the person that put in the driveway. I didn’t have a contract, I didn’t bounce it off of anybody and I said, this was it. Now I didn’t know at the time that that was going to be as monumental in my life … when I drive up to the driveway every single day … and I drive up to those rocks. Those are MY rocks. I did that.

… we walk it all differently, but it’s our individual walk. So this, somehow, and I don’t know why, this book was burning within me. Somehow. Because I’ve never written and if I had to sit down at a computer I still wouldn’t have written a book.

LD: But it’s interesting how you came up with a way that worked for you and you were able to do it and it felt comfortable and it reads like you too. And I think there are a lot of levels to relate to it.

ST: The interesting part was that I thought that it would be much more about Bernie and it ended up not being. It started out where the rabbi and I were co-authors. It didn’t turn out that way, because he’d ask a question and I’d spend an hour talking. And then it turned out that it became a legacy to my mother.

So it changed its direction. Bernie was the vehicle for me to experience all of this, but the lessons that I learned as a child and the things and the sayings that she taught me, that was really the bread and butter of it. … Throughout this book you will find quotations from my mother, Buddie Shrier. Some of these I found after she died, written on lists or pieces of paper and collected in a small wooden box. Others were simply things I heard her saying on an everyday basis. The life lessons they express form the foundation of my life and had an enormous influence on how I coped as I mourned the loss of my husband. … So for me, this is really a tribute to her. So as it started it out, where it was co-authored with the rabbi. Didn’t happen. Where it was about Bernie, didn’t happen. It’s my journey.

LD: It’s interesting too that you say that because that’s something that has struck me about people that I’ve known that have lost a spouse. One of my friends lost her husband when she was pretty young and she’s gone to accomplish things professionally that she would never have done if she were married, because she wouldn’t have had to. It’s definitely an example of one of those one door closes another one opens kind of thing. …

ST: That’s right. And it’s a choice, Leslie. It’s really, really a definite choice and you can watch those who do it and you can watch those who don’t do it and I think we’re born genetically with our certain DNA that we’re positive or we’re negative and then you have a choice after that. And my choice and was to do this, to make a difference.

… I’m just along for the ride and wherever it goes, it goes.

LD: Well it’s a great accomplishment to have written a book and have it sitting in front of us here, even if it never goes anywhere else. The fact that you wrote it and you got everything you got out of writing it. And the product itself is a whole other journey.

ST: I did it and I love it. You know it’s interesting, I look at it, and just like they can’t ever take your education away from you, I am always going to be a published author.

Vital Stats: Sissy Taran

Born: Detroit, Michigan, November 26, 1944.

Family: Three grown daughters, Tiffany, Francine and Nadine; Son-in-laws Scott and Zach; and grandchildren Ethan and Blythe.

Civic Involvement: Mentor to two children in the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse’s Fighting Back program; CALM; Anti-Defamation League; Coalition Against gun Violence; Hadassah; B’nai B’rith Temple.

Professional Accomplishments: Former elementary school teacher who has been honored with outstanding service awards from the Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara PTAs.

Little-Known Fact: “My dad was part of the Kennedy administration and I was raised on a ranch outside of Bakersfield.”

Benefit for Hospice of Santa Barbara and Congregation B’nai B’rith

On Sunday, February 10, from 2 to 4 p.m., Hospice of Santa Barbara’s Executive Director Gail Rink will interview Sissy Taran and Rabbi Steve Cohen about their experiences working on “The Sun Will Shine Again: Life Lessons from a Year of Grieving.” Then refreshments will be served and all book sales from that day will go directly to Hospice and the Temple.

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 3, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Joe Holland

Posted on January 28, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

Joseph E. Holland, courtesy photo

With three elections scheduled in Santa Barbara County this year–including the presidential primary on February 5–one would think that the county’s election chief Joseph E. Holland has his hands full. The elections office staff of 12 will ramp up to about 1,200 by Election Day. Luckily, he’s used to multi-tasking. County Clerk, Recorder and Assessor since 2003, Holland manages a $13 million budget and four divisions: Assessor, Elections, Recorder and Information Services.

Leslie Dinaberg: This is a big year for you guys with the early presidential primary, the spring primary and then the presidential election. What does that mean for your office in terms of work?

Joe Holland: …Most people don’t understand how complicated elections really are, which is good, that’s what we strive for. People want to come in, vote their ballot and have their ballot counted…that’s all that they need to worry about or need to think about. But behind the scenes, it starts with voter registration. When you register to vote, you, of course, register by your address and that determines what type of ballot you will have. What jurisdiction you are in. Are you in the city of Santa Barbara, the Goleta Water District, what congressional district are you in? It’s a lot of work just making sure that every one of the 183,000 registered voters gets the proper ballot on election day…that’s where the first level of complexity starts.

Then…you’re designing the ballots…we handle candidate filing. You’re making sure that all the candidates are properly signed up for their office …we have to hire poll workers, we have to calibrate voting machines, we have to deliver polling supplies, and we have to train poll workers…We have 215 precincts at the polling places and so…there’s nine hundred to 1,000 poll workers you have to hire across the county.

LD: Do you try to get the same people for each of the three elections?

JH: Yes we try to and a lot of them will work for all three elections. You know that’s quite a challenge … with these three major elections in 2008 it means we have to do all this work three times and that’s the first time we’ve ever had to do that…. Three major, statewide elections in one calendar year, I think this is the first time in history that’s ever happened…

LD: That’s a big job.

JH: …Most people don’t understand, but we send out ballots 60 days before the election to overseas voters in the military, so really although everybody knows the election is February 5th, it really started for us December 5th.

LD: Speaking of absentee ballots, how many permanent absentee voters are there?

JH: There are 90,000. …

LD: Are there any cost savings when people vote by mail?

JH: No, because we’re running two elections. We’re actually running a poll-based election and a mail ballot election. As long as we’re doing both, it really isn’t saving us any money because I still have 215 precincts and I still have to hire poll workers for all of those precincts. So it really doesn’t save money, it actually costs more money, but it does lead to a higher voter turnout because it makes voting easier.

LD: What is the rate of return of people that register to vote by mail versus the other registered voters?

JH: …If you look on average over the last 13 countywide elections…75 percent of people who receive a ballot in the mail return their ballot. For those people that vote at the polls, on average, 50 percent return. …The more people I can get to vote by mail the higher turnout I’m going to have…the turnout in Santa Barbara County has been going up.

LD: That’s good. I would assume that the presidential election years are typically a much better turnout than the off years.

JH: Yeah. In November 2004 we had an 80.5 percent turnout in Santa Barbara County. That was the highest turnout since 1976. … For this primary election, here we are as of January 11th, we’ve had the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary and it looks like both the Democratic and Republican contests are still very much undecided, wide open.

In March 2004 we had a 55 percent turnout for the presidential primary, but it was pretty much decided by March 2004 who was going to be the nominee for both major parties.

LD: It will be interesting to see how long it takes to come to a consensus.

JH: This ballot doesn’t have senate, congress, state legislature, all that March 2004 did have. So what going to happen on February 5th? My guess is it’s going to be a very big turnout….I’m going to guess it’s definitely going to be higher than 55 percent. It probably won’t be as high as 80 percent but it might approach 70 percent.

LD: When you’re in your crunch time, do you have deputies in the other areas you’re responsible for, that you can delegate more stuff when there’s an election going on?

JH: Yes. I have excellent staff…they do a great job so I spend my time doing this kind of stuff (interviews). And I sit in meetings and have them report to me and make decisions.

You know what’s fun? On Election Day, I actually drive around to all the various precincts, check on all the poll workers, and that’s a lot of fun.

LD: I would imagine you probably have some poll workers that have been doing it for years.

JH: Oh yeah. It’s great to go see them every Election Day. What I like about elections is they are so positive. People are there because they want to be there. Because they want to vote because they want to make a difference. And even the poll workers, they are there because they want to be part of this making a difference, and it’s pretty exciting.

LD: It’s fun. We always like to take our son, who is 8. He loves to go and get the little sticker.

JH: You know that’s the one thing about vote by mail, you don’t get the sticker. I love those stickers.

LD: I love the efficiency of it and the convenience of voting by mail, but there’s something kind of nice about going in there and casting your vote.

JH: I’m not vote by mail, so I vote at the polls. …That way, I get all the candidates materials mailed to me all the way up to Election Day. If you just vote by mail and you turn in your ballot they stop sending you stuff.

LD: That’s efficient data management. You must have really powerful technology to manage all the data.

JH: It starts with the vote registration database, 180,000 registered voters. We anticipate that we’ll probably get a good amount of people registering to vote before January 22nd, which is the last day to register to vote.

If you look back to 2004, we got 25,000 new registrations right before the November 2004 election. So how do you process 25,000 voter registration applications? It’s quite an undertaking. We had a whole bunch of people working late at night trying to get that done by the deadline. Now we’ve got what’s called ICR, intelligent character recognition, so when you fill out your voter registration card, you’ve hand written all of your data in there. We actually can scan that in and this machine will read your handwriting. … We don’t have to do that data entry. So what we’re hoping is that this presidential year if we get a whole bunch of those in, it’s going to go much quicker because all they’re doing is just verifying what’s right.

LD: Sounds pretty high tech.

JH: When you return your absentee ballot you sign the outside of the envelope, and there’s a bar code on there that tells us who you are. So when we receive that envelope back, we send it through a machine that’s called an ASR, automatic signature recognition machine. It goes through, it tells us that we’ve received Leslie’s ballot on this date at this time, and that it compares your signature with the signature that we have on file for you with your voter registration card, and if it matches, then it accepts it.

…(Before June we’ll have a new technology so that) when your ballot is received you’ll be able to go on the Internet and type in your name and it’ll tell you whether or not your ballot was received and on what day. So if you’re voting by mail you can verify that indeed our ballot made it to our office.

…Another machine that we have for the first time this year is we have an automatic envelope opener. … We get all these ballots that are accepted, ready to go. Now we need to open them. We used to hire a whole bunch of extra people to sit around a big table and just open the envelopes.

LD: Sounds like a lot of carpal tunnel.

JH: Yeah. This year we have a machine that actually can do 5,000 envelopes an hour and will open them on three sides, lay out the envelope, and plop the ballot into a bin. And by opening up three sides of the envelope, … the reason why you need to do that is to make sure that you didn’t leave any ballots inside of an envelope.

… The average voter should not be thinking about these things. They don’t need to, we’re thinking about them, because if there was a close race and two or three ballots were stuck in those envelopes, then that’s not good.

LD: When do they start tabulating the vote by mail ballots?

JH: We can start opening and processing them and tabulating them ten days before the election. We have a secure room that’s behind glass walls, with video cameras in there, with security cameras, and the public is welcome to come watch this process. We’ll actually start running ballots through vote tabulation machines and then in another room we have the computer that has place where those results will go. Now no one can look at the results but then on election night we will…. every ballot that we have in our hands prior to Election Day is tabulated and the results go up on the Internet at 8:05 on election night.

LD: That’s definitely a change with the technology. I can remember when they would be counting absentee ballots for days after an election.

JH: It’s a huge change. …

LD: What is the approximate cost to the county for each of the three elections?

JH: Each one will cost roughly a million and half dollars. The primary election, the special primary election that the state legislature added statewide, that’s probably costing $100 million. The estimates have been up to $100 million.

… The governor did say …that the state intends to reimburse the counties for it…however we’ve been looking through the budget and we can’t find where he put the money in.

But remember the statewide special election in 2005; they did not fund that ahead of time. They waited until all the costs came in and then they funded it. So we’re hoping that this will be reimbursed similarly.

LD: But just the February election?

JH: Right.

LD: Do you still like this job?

JH: Oh yeah, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a little scary because we’re only human and you know people are going to make mistakes and there’s not a whole lot of room for mistakes when you’re running elections. We just knock on wood. We have made mistakes but nothing serious and we’re doing everything we can to see that it doesn’t happen, but you know, we’re human.

LD: Can you tell me a little about the other things you do, besides elections?

JH: As recorder we record all official records, grant deeds, trust deeds, when you buy a house. … Birth and death certificates. … I’m the civil marriage commissioner…we issue passports and we do that in three offices, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Lompoc, which is very unique. I don’t know that there are any other counties that do that.

…Then as assessor, which is my other hat, I describe and assess all taxable property in the county of Santa Barbara.

LD: What are the property taxes looking like?

JH: We have a $57 billion assessment right now for the county and with the current foreclosure situation; the increase in the assessment is not as high as it’s been in the last few years. It’ll still be an increase. We may go to three or four percent increase this year. Last year it was seven percent. Two and three years ago it was ten, eleven percent. It you multiply that by $55 billion that’s a lot of money.

The county right now is facing layoffs because the property tax assessment is not going up as high as it was in the previous years. That plus the fact that they had to make some adjustments in retirement that is causing layoffs.

…I lowered the assessment on 7,000 houses last year because of the economy. These are people that bought at the height of the market and their house is no longer worth what it’s assessed at. So I went out and all my staff went out under my direction, and we identified those 7,000 homes and we lowered their assessment to the fair market value as of January 2007. We’re going to do the same thing this year as of January 1, 2008 and my guess is the number of homes we’re going to lower the assessment on may go up to as much as 15,000. It’s mostly in the north county. Places in the south county such as Hope Ranch and Montecito have not gone down in value, at all, they continue to go up.

LD: That’s another tough job. What do you do when you’re not working?

JH: I’m involved with the Courthouse Legacy Foundation … there are some areas of the courthouse where there really has been some severe degradation of the actual structure where it has fallen into disrepair. It’s too beautiful to ignore and have it fall apart. …This courthouse legacy foundation is hopefully a vehicle that can take private and public and mix the two together and try to come up with solutions.

LD: When you do get the time to relax, what do you like to do for fun?

JH: My daughter Michelle plays water polo for Dos Pueblos. …I like to go watch her play sports. That’s a blast.

Vital Stats: Joe Holland

Born: April 24, 1957 in Los Angeles

Family: Wife Kathy and children Scott (21), Bridget (20) and Michelle (14)

Civic Involvement: Courthouse Legacy Foundation, United Way Board of Directors

Professional Accomplishments: Elected to the Office of the Clerk, Recorder, and Assessor in 2002; former Audit Section Supervisor and Real Property Appraiser for Santa Barbara County

Little-Known Fact: Joe met his wife Kathy when he was a student at UCSB and they were both working at Vons on Turnpike Avenue.

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 28, 2008. Read the original story here.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down with Laura Inks

Posted on January 21, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

Laura Inks (courtesy photo)

New years are all about reflecting on the past, the present and the future, and Laura Inks was in a particularly reflective mode when we caught up with her this week. With the ink barely dry on her divorce papers, Inks had also just ended another era as she completed the sale of her “baby,” ARTS ALIVE! Creativity Center, to its new owners Anthony Parisi and Laura Eliseo.

Leslie Dinaberg: So are the new owners planning to keep ARTS ALIVE relatively intact?

Laura Inks: Yes. They are both artists. … They’re building an art center in Kaui and so their plan is to have some synergy between Kaui and Santa Barbara and kind of live in both places and even have artists maybe go back and forth as like an artist exchange program or something, which would be really cool.

LD: What a great gig that would be.

LI: I know…she’s a dancer and … he is a glass artist … they’ve hired Jeanine Richards, her son was J.R. Richards of Santa Barbara High, he passed away a couple years ago. And she had Camp Lorr in Montecito for like 25 years. … She’s going to be running the ARTS ALIVE camps. Her husband just died, like last week, and so she’s thrilled to have a project to sink her teeth into.

LD: Wow, so you’re not going to be part of the new team?

LI: No. You know it’s so hard to create something and then raise it. It’s like a child, and then to turn it over to somebody. But I feel really good about this couple. They believe in my whole dream. The mission is to have a space where people can come and create and express themselves and especially for children and adults too. So they are going to continue to that. And Jeanine I’m just thrilled that she’s going to continue that.

LD: Well congratulations for you. I know you were concerned about the future of ARTS ALIVE!

LI: Well I didn’t know what was going to happen; I just knew that financially I couldn’t do it anymore. I was married for 17 years and that kind of helped cushion my starting a new business while I still had food and shelter and then with the separation that changed.

LD: Do you know what you’re going to do now?

LI: I don’t know. I’m really excited. I’ve had some really good job interviews and nothing’s panned out quite yet.

LD: Are you trying to stay in the arts field?

LI: Well I don’t know. I consider myself to be an art educator/social activist. One of my strongest skills is networking and getting the word out and meeting people and connecting people, so it could be with a nonprofit, helping them get the word out about programs and projects. I’m still the president of the Arts Mentorship Program, which is a nonprofit that’s under the umbrella of Community School Inc. … The project I’ve been working on is the Graffiti Project.

LD: What is that?

LI: It’s taking teens and young adults who do graffiti and giving them a controlled environment to create in … then to find venues for exhibiting their work. We’ll have a show in the gallery at ARTS ALIVE! of the kids graffiti artwork (through January 31st).

The idea is that first of all, the people that come here and paint on the boards and canvases that we give them are not painting on the street. We’ve had four events so far where we have music and a barbecue and a big event where they can come and spray paint. We provide them with paints and boards and everything … kids from about 14 to about 26 and some amazing artists.

Kids have already gotten jobs from them being here and doing their work and people coming up and saying, “Wow I’d like something like this on the inside of my dojo,” or, “I’d really like this on the side of my building.”

LD: That’s exciting.

LI: Yeah, it is. Also I want to expose them to other types of street art where they can move into some type of field where they can make a living…We just got a $5,000 grant from the fund for Santa Barbara to cover the cost of what we’re calling the junior organizers. I’m kind of like the head organizer but I can’t do it alone.

…Every time we have an event we have between 100-150 people show up to paint or support the kids who are painting. And we also, this is really cool, the last time we had an event, the kids from the teen center who have been making music, who have been singing over at Chapala, like they are rappers and what they call DJs … they came and performed.

…I’m trying to just give them a space to be creative and an outlet for their art form, which I think is very valid. A lot of people don’t think that graffiti art is art but that’s because it’s vandalism and they are out there on the streets doing it. So I’m trying to direct their energy into something that’s more positive and is more community-based.

We have had kids here from all different gangs…but it’s been so peaceful. It’s like the kids that are the artists, they really get what I’m doing and they’re respectful of it, which is amazing and it’s really cool.

LD: And I’m sure it’s in part because you are showing them respect for what they’re doing.

LI: Exactly. It’s a two-way street.

LD: Does it seem like the kids think of themselves as artists?

LI: Oh yes. They absolutely do. They are very serious. They have color palettes, they have sketchbooks, they’re not just coming here tagging, these are artists that need a big venue to work in and unfortunately they take to the streets because they don’t have opportunities like what it is I’m trying to create, I am creating. It’s pretty cool. And I especially like being around all the young people because it keeps me young, it keeps me hip. Even though my teenage kids don’t think I’m hip (laughs).

LD: There’d be something wrong if they did.

LI: Absolutely that would be abnormal. But their friends think I’m cool. It takes a village. Like I’m taking somebody else’s kids and getting them in some positive direction and hopefully someone will do that with my kids.

LD: That’s a really cool project. How do people contact you now if they want to contribute or get involved?

LI: Just email LauraInks@cox.net.

LD: You talked about applying for jobs now. Have you lost the urge to run your own business?

LI: Yeah. I kind of just want a paycheck. I don’t want to have sleepless nights anymore. When you have your own business there’s really no down time. … I’m at the age now, I’m going to be 50 this coming year, where I feel like I really don’t want to do something I’m not passionate about. I don’t want to just go punch a clock somewhere…I’m just going to not stress it and be open to receive the direction of the universe. Not to sound airy-fairy but I think everything happens for a reason and there’s good energy out there and the right thing is going to come along.

Vital Stats: Laura Inks

Born: : Pittsburgh, PA, November 20, 1958

Family: : Children Camdon (14), Olivia (16), Amanda (25), and Shawn (31) and two granddaughters, Alonnah and Ashlee.

Professional Accomplishments: : Founded ARTS ALIVE! Creativity Center; Award winning art teacher; Real Estate salesperson and Rookie of the Year; Women’s Economic Ventures Entrepreneur of the Year

Civic Involvement: : Community School Inc, Arts Mentorship Program; Santa Barbara Education Foundation, Keep the Beat

Little-Known Fact: : “Probably that I have so many kids and that I adopted my two older kids.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 21. 2008. Click here to read the article on Noozhawk’s site.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down with Dr. Alois Zauner

Posted on January 14, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

Dr. Alois Zauner (courtesy photo)

Strokes can be paralyzing and debilitating: There are 4.5 million strokes every year in the United States, making them the third leading cause of death and the number one cause of disability. But thanks to the addition of a new Neurovascular Center at Cottage Hospital, under the leadership of Dr. Alois Zauner, swift and less invasive treatment for strokes and other brain illnesses is now available right here in Santa Barbara.

Leslie Dinaberg: Tell me about the new Neurovascular Center at Cottage Hospital?

Alois Zauner: The idea is really to build up a Neuroscience Center. The first aspect was really the most difficult, to build the neurovascular service. It is like trauma service, your head injury needs to be treated right away and the same for stroke. …

The problem for this region is that centers are in Los Angeles (UCLA or USC or Cedars) and then the next places are in San Francisco (UCSF or Stanford) and basically for 500 miles there is nothing. … So frequently in the past a patient, let’s say in Ventura or Oxnard, has a bleeding aneurism or a stroke, and does not get on time to UCLA or some other place.

The idea is really to build, in partnership with other hospitals, a Neurovascular Center for this region, not just for Santa Barbara. …And also help some other hospitals to provide service, because not everybody has to come here. Some stroke patients can be treated in smaller hospitals.

LD: Is it more about having the doctors with the skills to perform those surgeries or is it also about having the equipment?

AZ: It’s kind of both. The key issue is that it’s the upfront investment in what is called a Neuro-angiography suite and also … the material we use is very expensive. So you need to have a certain infrastructure and tools to really do it and then you need the ICU critical care units. It takes quite a lot of infrastructure…Building the new hospital some of the focus is on the neurosciences and the neurovascular unit is the first major step towards that direction. We already do spine surgery, there is neurology here, but some other programs will be new. There will be treatment for Parkinson’s and we’ll do brain tumors and also child development and things like that.

LD: That’s interesting.

AZ: …One reason for me to come here me is also a closer collaboration with USCB, especially the neuroscience research institute.

LD: So they have a research institute even though they don’t have a medical school?

AZ: Yes, UCSB has a neuroscience research institute and they do have very fine engineering and a lot of what they’re working on is related to pre-clinical science. …We’re doing the fundraising right now. …

LD: Did the hospital have this vision and then go out and find you to run the center or did you come in with a vision and they’re now creating the center?

AZ: Very good questions. I think when I was a fellow at UCLA there was always the talk that Santa Barbara was unserved … that a lot of the patients don’t make it on time to the right place when they had a stroke… Then I think Cottage had a consulting company, … (they were making) a major investment and had to be sure that they were targeting what’s needed for this region. So they were told neurosciences and then somehow I got involved.

I think the initial vision of Cottage was more to have a stroke center, but you know I think it merges more with what neurosurgeons do; you cannot just have a stroke center because you have strokes but also the aneurisms … and a full spectrum of vascular diseases.

LD: It makes sense with our aging population.

AZ: Yes, in town but also everywhere, it’s not just for Santa Barbara, it’s for this region…One of things we’re doing is using a Robot in the ER and they can communicate with the people here. The Robots are made by a company here in SB called InTouch Health (www.intouchhealth.com), we have them here in the ICU … right now we have this at home, but the idea is that we’re partnering with other hospitals so they will have this in emergency rooms and assist the physicians who is not expert in say neuro, and discuss the films and can ask the patient questions and we can then decide how to treat them. … Critical care is also very important and I’ve spent a lot of time the last six months to work with the nurses and technicians because we do so much more to monitor the brain so that’s very important.

LD: How far away is the center from completion?

AZ: The neurovascular is in place, basically, but I think that the neuroscience center, that will take a while. …

LD: Can you explain the new minimally invasive techniques you are using?

AZ: A traditional way to treat an aneurism is do open surgery. So you do a craniotomy (where you surgically open the skull) and we go into your brain… we still do about 15-20% like that because the minimally invasive technology with the things we have right now we cannot do 100%, maybe 85%. In the case of neuroendovascular surgery a tiny little catheter goes into the brain…and we pull out the clot.

LD: In addition to being less invasive is there less chance of other complications?

AZ: … Less invasive does not mean that there’s less risk. Yes there’s less pain involved, they get to go home much quicker, the ICU care is much easier, like the aneurism we had today can go home in a few days. So yes, patients have less pain but it’s not always less risks.

LD: Is there a specific person that you’re working with at UCSB to make all this happen?

AZ: Matthew Tirrell is the Dean of Engineering. I think he’s the person who is really the key.

LD: Why did you choose to come to Santa Barbara to build this center?

AZ: What I wish is that we really can build this up, that we make a difference in the community. …It’s also I think very important for us to really be connected to UCSB to develop a center, because really what we do is so new that I think you cannot completely separate it from research or new ideas and I do hope that in a smaller hospital we can also work with researchers. It’s easier than in a big medical facility.

Vital Stats: Dr. Alois Zauner

Born: Austria

Family: Wife Teresa, son Alexander, age 10 (“they’ve only been here six weeks)

Professional Accomplishments: Medical degree from the University of Vienna; surgical internship and neurosurgical residency training at the Medical College of Virginia; combined fellowship in neuroendovascular surgery and diagnostic and interventional Radiology at UCLA; one of only 50 Neurosurgeons in the U.S. with training in neurointerventional radiology and endovascular techniques; director of Neuroendovascular Services at the University of Miami in Florida, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery and Radiology; working to establish a new Neurovascular Center at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.

Little-Known Fact: “My family would like to have me back in Austria.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 14, 2008. Click here to read it on that site.

Goleta Native Has a New Story to Tell in Remote China

Posted on January 8, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

Sipping green tea while schmoozing in Mandarin with Chinese Communist Party officials is a long way from shooting the breeze with buddies after surfing the waves at UCSB’s Campus Point, but it’s all in a day’s work for John Wood.

A former Peace Corps volunteer, Wood and his wife Lousia recently started the Tree House Scholarship for university students in rural, northwestern China. In addition to assisting students with their education costs, these scholarships will also help fund post-graduate travel for students who would not otherwise have the resources to explore their own country. These students, who are studying to become teachers, will be lucky to earn about $25 a month if they secure jobs when they graduate.

Writing about their experiences is another component of the program. The students come from incredible poverty. One tells the story of the deep bloody cracks in his father’s hands from collecting trash, while another writes of being raised in a cave house by a grandmother with bound feet. “They have phenomenal stories to tell,” says Wood, now 30

The stories of rural China in the 20th and 21st centuries remain largely unknown, both inside China and abroad, but Wood is aiming to change that by improving his students’ abilities to communicate and helping to get their stories out to the world.

“Because of the way that the government is structured and with the way people relate with each other, a lot of those stories haven’t been told,” he says. Even within families. For example, Wood tells the story of a student saying she felt uncomfortable asking her parents to talk about their backgrounds. “She went so far as to tell me that she didn’t even know her mother’s given name, she only knew her as mother.”

Using their “crazy foreign teacher” as a scapegoat, students came back with fascinating accounts of their lives. “These are really remarkable stories that we’ll publish and distribute to donors,” Wood says. “The idea is that people who are interested in China or just people that are philanthropic in general will be interested to read these first-hand accounts of what it’s like in rural China.” (http://www.thetreehousescholarship.org/students.html)

It’s no surprise that these stories struck a strong chord in him. Growing up in Goleta, Wood had passions for both writing and social justice from a very young age. “When I was going to La Patera Elementary School I remember I wrote an editorial (on gun control) for the ‘Goleta Sun,’ says Wood, who went on to graduate from Dos Pueblos High School and UC Santa Cruz.

He began his professional life teaching high school in South Central Los Angeles, and worked as a journalist in London, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica before joining the Peace Corps, where he was assigned to teach at Long Dong University in the eastern portion of Gansu Province. “Despite the sophisticated timbre of its name, Long Dong University actually has nothing to do with the entertainment industry,” says Wood. Gansu is one of the poorest provinces in China, and it is regarded among Chinese people as a dusty and barren frontier land, a “backwards” place best to be avoided.

The newlyweds arrived in China in June 2005 with assignments to teach English to Chinese students studying to be teachers. “There are more people studying English in China right now than there are native English speakers in the rest of the world combined,” Wood says. “It’s incredible; everybody in China, every single student is studying English. It’s just wild.”

Considered development work, Wood explains that he was primarily “in a classroom with future teachers and working with them to improve their English and improve their teaching skills. Most of our students had extremely basic grasp of English…we found ourselves spending a lot of time on basic pronunciation, on classroom presence, on building vocabulary, just really basic, basic stuff. When people think, ‘Oh John was a University Professor in China,’ what they have in their mind is probably not exactly how it was.”

And what’s it like being a 6′ 4,” Santa Barbara surfer dude in China? “There is absolutely no blending in,” laughs Wood. When visitors ask what kind of clothes to pack, he says, “you could bring a pink tuxedo and wear that down the street and you would not be anymore out of place than you are already going to be.”

Even though he’s stared at everywhere he goes, Wood says, “One of the things I love about China and Chinese people, there’s so little apathy and so much interesting curiosity and enthusiasm because here is a country that’s been closed to the outside world for so long…people know very little about Western China, and Western Chinese people know very little about the rest of the world and so it’s really a fascinating place to be.”

While China is booming, it’s the China of the eastern seaboard, of Shanghai and Beijing, Hong Kong and Guangzhou that most westerners read about. Wood says, “The reality is that the vast majority of Chinese people do not live in these eastern hubs. Some two-thirds of the population (estimated at 1.3 to 1.5 billion) still works the land. Most of the rest live in cities scattered across the vast provinces, earning very little and enjoying few freedoms.”

One of the freedoms not enjoyed in China is access to the news. “We call it the great firewall of China,” Wood says. “The Communist Party spends an inordinate amount of money on controlling Internet news sites…it’s not the news, it’s the good news.” Wood says he will sometimes be in the middle of reading a breaking news story online, only to find it censored (access removed) before his very eyes.

Despite the challenges of navigating such a different culture, the Woods are definitely making the most of their time in China. Last summer they volunteered with the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai. With their Peace Corps service now complete, Louisa works as the Communications Director for the Special Olympics East Asia, and John does translations and works export an extremely fast-growing, sustainable type of soft wood developed to reduce the demand on old-growth cedar and redwood.

Prior to founding the Tree House Scholarship, they also helped to establish “the Tree House,” at Long Dong University, an English library, study and discussion room, complete with all sorts of books, magazines and reference materials, as well as movies, music and board games to help students master the English language. A team of about 24 student volunteers keeps the Tree House running, and the materials–almost all which were donated by foreign teachers, their friends and families–in order. For information about how to donate books visit http://www.thetreehousescholarship.org/donors.html

He’s excited about the initial response to the Tree House Scholarship: “It was huge…a dozen or more people have already said they’re sending in checks and we’re already getting donations people who want to contribute pro bono services. It’s exciting.”

The new scholarship program isn’t the only exciting thing going on in Wood’s life. Louisa is expecting their first child, due to be born in a very modern Western style hospital in China, on Cinco de Mayo, which seems very fitting for this adventurous pair.

“We always joke about how nothing western seems foreign anymore. Europe used to seem so exotic, and interesting … now if I see an Italian news story and I see a police car and it says “polizia,” I just say to myself what could that possibly mean, as opposed to scribble scribble dot dot dash circle,” laughs Wood.

“Coming to China was a very intimidating thing to begin with, but we really just committed ourselves to it and it’s paid off hugely,” he says. “Martin Luther King Jr. once said that injustice everywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We feel something similar could be said of poverty. Poverty anywhere is a threat to wealth everywhere. There are no national borders. And while there are those in the United States who suffer very real hardships, all of them have some degree of mobility, some degree of access to support networks, however humbling or hard to obtain those may be. The same is not true in China. The Chinese poor live in a tightly controlled and politically charged environment, with shockingly little power to change their futures.”

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 8, 2008.

Designing Woman

Posted on January 1, 2008 by lesliedinaberg

DeNai Jones, courtesy photo

Some girls dream of being princesses, but DeNai Jones dreamed of being a bag lady.

Piercing aquamarine eyes peeking through a wild tumble of blonde curls are the first things that strike you about DeNai Jones. From the funky flare of her vintage dress to the toes of her Betty Boop shoes, she looks every inch the fashion designer that she is, known in chic circles for her combinations of bold, sophisticated color and unusual textures and textiles.

It’s no surprise that her bags grace the arms of A-list stars like Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Salma Hayek, Gwen Stefani and Heidi Klum–but they’re more likely to be found wearing them on the playground than the haute couture runways. DeNai has won over the shoulders of women all over the world with her stylish line of diaper bags.

When DeNai–who wasn’t yet a mom at the time–set out to find a gift for a pregnant friend and found shelves full of “pastel colors, teddy bears and cutesy stuff,” she recognized a market for high-end, fashionable diaper bags. She sewed the first prototypes in her parents’ garage in Ventura, and paid homage to her father’s childhood nickname for her by naming the venture Petunia Pickle Bottom.

DeNai started her career as a kindergarten teacher, but says, “I was always sketching and painting. The arts were always my passion.” Her parents encouraged her to choose a more stable career path, but part of her attraction to teaching kindergarten was getting to do so many fun art projects in class.

Her husband, Braden Jones, dreamed of starting his own companies. Driving up the coast to Ventura from San Luis Obispo, where he had recently graduated from Cal Poly, the young couple had a heart-to-heart talk, and DeNai confided that she had always wanted to be a designer.

“It was kind of one of those ideas that you just carry in your mind with you,” she says. “We decided to travel a bit. We just started having those kinds of conversations. If you could do anything what would you do? We didn’t have a mortgage, we didn’t have children, no commitments besides ourselves.”

Braden encouraged DeNai to go after her dreams. She quit teaching to focus on developing her first samples. Within six to eight months, her bags were on the shelves of local stores.

The business quickly grew and they turned to DeNai’s best friend from Ventura High School, Korie Conant, for help. I was completely stunned,” when DeNai invited me to her parent’s cabin in Mammoth and showed me the bags, says Conant. She came on as a partner, taking on responsibility for marketing and brand development. Since then, the company has grown exponentially, with moms all over the world carrying their diapers Petunia-style.

Jones says that it’s still exciting to walk down the street and see someone carrying one of her bags. “I still kind of panic, my breath gets taken away and I usually will hide a little bit and … and follow them a little bit,” she says. “It’s still just as exciting as it was the first time I saw a bag on the street.”

Little details like the filigree on a staircase or a carved wooden pattern from a church eave inspire DeNai’s designs. Travel is high on her list for both relaxation and design inspiration. “I love to travel so much and experience all the different cultures that are out there. The world can be very small if you let it be,” she says.

Costa Rica is a favorite place for family time with Braden and their son Sutton, age two. They’re expecting another baby (it’s a boy) in March, and DeNai now has the flexibility–and additional staff–to focus on her children and come into the office just two days a week to concentrate primarily on design.

Living in Ventura, where she can walk to her salvaged brick office on Kalorama Street from her home downtown, helps to keep things real for DeNai. “I do love when we go out to New York for trade show and we come back it’s like, ‘Oh a breath of fresh air.’ It’s good to go for inspiration and shopping and looking around. All of those things are definitely imperative to developing the product. But I do really appreciate that we are kind of in our own microclimate here. We’re protected from a lot of the vindictive nature you see in the fashion world.”

And what’s it like to be in business with your best friend and her husband? “It’s easy actually. We all have different talents that we bring to the table with a common thread of creativity,” says Conant, who became a mom to Beckett in October. “There are no egos in the room which helps us survive. Ultimately, we are friends first, business partners second. We make it a practice to spend time with each other outside of the office on a weekly basis, that’s one of the keys to our business relationship–we truly are the best of friends.”

Braden says he’s learned a lot being in business with his wife. “Because we have a relationship on many levels, she never ceases to surprise me. … Although she considers herself risk adverse compared to me, she really does take every risk needed to be successful in life and business. However, she would probably be modest and tell you otherwise. It’s really the best of both worlds to share success on every level with the love of your life.”

“I love being at work with my husband and being able to see him in the office. Korie’s been my best friend since high school. It’s always nice for the three of us, even when we have to go to trade shows or take trips for the company, that we actually enjoy being together. It’s really been a dream, ” says DeNai.

A very sweet dream indeed.

Originally published in Ventana Monthly. Read the article here.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Janet Wolf

Posted on December 31, 2007 by lesliedinaberg

Janet Wolf, courtesy photo

Issues like the environment, housing, transportation and social services usually top the agendas of county government, but women’s health is also high on the list of concerns for Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf, who celebrates her first year in office in January.

Leslie Dinaberg: I know health is a big concern of yours since you had a heart attack (in December of 2004). How do you manage to stay healthy with such a busy job?

Janet Wolf: I try to continue my daily exercise routine and eat healthy foods. I started a “walk and talk” program, so instead of meeting some people for lunch they would come and we would do a walk and talk downtown. I didn’t want to get into the habit of eating out all the time, so I kicked off this idea at the American Heart Association Wear Red Day last year.

LD: That’s a great idea.

JW: We’re going to do it again in February for the Heart Association.

LD: So you’ve become a heart health advocate partially in response to your own experiences.

JW: Yes. I went through a physical rehabilitation program and changed my diet. I went to a five-day program offered through the Mayo Clinic called Woman-Heart. Women who’ve experienced heart disease, not necessarily heart attacks but a whole myriad, were trained to become spokespersons for women and heart disease.

…I made a commitment that I was going to speak about it and talk about my experiences. They wanted women who did not have a medical background, so they could easily relate to other women about their experiences.

When I returned from the program I was incredibly motivated to get the word out because, as I’m sure you know, heart attacks are the number one killer of women.

… Lois Capps was the co-sponsor of a bill–Heart Disease Education, Research and Analysis, and Treatment (HEART) for Women Act–I was honored to be asked to go to Washington and testify for this bill. In a lot of ways it’s been a way for me to just speak out about something that I’m so passionate about. Talking to women who are moms about heart disease, diet and exercise can also have positive impacts on their children.

LD: Prior to your heart attack, had you ever been told to watch anything by your doctor?

JW: No. Everything was fine. …When this all happened, it just threw us all for a loop.

LD: I can imagine.

JW: I just felt extremely lucky to, first of all, live in Santa Barbara and get really top-notch care when I was in the hospital. But I think the thing and the message to women is prevention and then to know that when you feel that something is not right, don’t wait–take the initiative to get to the doctor or get to the emergency room.

LD: What did it feel like? It doesn’t sound like the dramatic thing that you see on TV.

JW: No. My husband said that, “you didn’t clench your heart and fall over.” It happened over time. I was having what felt like indigestion … (for several days) … I called my doctor… he prescribed medicine for indigestion, so I went and got the prescription filled and it didn’t help. … In the middle of the night I woke up and the pain was incredibly intense.

… By the time I got to the hospital I was having a massive heart attack. By that time the main artery was 100% occluded.

LD: I know this is a stereotype, but do you think that women are more likely to ignore their symptoms because they’re taking care of their families?

JW: I think that is partly true. When I was at the Mayo Clinic there was a woman who said she was having angina while she was at her son’s soccer game but she didn’t want to miss the soccer game. I am grateful that most women know about getting mammograms and colonoscopies … but we need to work harder about the letting people know about the increase of heart disease among women. We must be proactive.

LD: Switching gears a little bit, what’s like to be on the Board of Supervisors?

JW: It’s very exciting; it’s very challenging and rewarding.

LD: I know you served on the Goleta School Board for 12 years, how is it different?

JW: The obvious difference is that this is a full time job and the issues are broader, but I think a lot of the same skill set transfers over … For me it’s just really important to be prepared and on top of my game. And I find the meeting’s fascinating and engaging and it’s very interesting to deal with such a variety of issues. … Trying to have a really positive impact in our community. And that’s the rewarding part. And also meeting some incredible people. I’ve been very lucky to have a great staff.

… I think … we’ve taken care of outstanding issues that the county was dealing with like uniform rules, sphere of influence, and we have some issues that are coming before us like Goleta Beach and we’re also starting the Eastern Goleta PAC that’s going to be the planning document for our community. … I’ve got a great group of colleagues too to work with. Even though we certainly …don’t agree on everything and philosophically I have a point of view they may not share, but I think there is a mutual respect.

LD: That’s always good to hear. What do you think our biggest challenges are right now as a county?

JW: Right now I think it’s aligning our budget with our priorities or our fiscal challenges with our priorities.

LD: I keep hearing at the state level the budget is going to be so bad, how does it look in the county?

JW: There have been very conservative estimates on the impact on the county budget and because of the potential there’s been certain budget principles that have been put into place that are a little troubling to me. I think we will be impacted but there are also ways on the revenue side to try and enhance that. I have requested that the board hold a budget workshop in late February or early March to review the preliminary budget so that we can have input earlier on in the process.

… It’s certainly not a rosy picture but I also don’t think it’s total a bleak picture either. … If you have to make cuts, in my opinion, you look at the whole picture and you make them timely and wisely.

Vital Stats: Janet Wolf

Born: Los Angeles, May 17, 1954

Family: Husband Harvey, three daughters, Jessica (27), Stephanie (24), and Kim (20)

Civic Involvement: Alpha Resource Center, Planned Parenthood, National Charity League, League of Women Voters, Women’s Heart Health Advocate

Professional Accomplishments: Worked as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for more than 20 years; served on the Goleta School Board for 12 years; current member of the County Board of Supervisors

Little-Known Fact: “I love making necklaces. It’s a new hobby. I just discovered it.”

LeslieDinaberg.com

Leslie Dinaberg Editor & Writer

Category Archives: Profiles

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Renee Grubb

Originally published in Noozhawk on March 10, 2008.

Noozhawk Talks: Leslie Dinaberg sits down with Nancy Harter

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 29, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Chris Mkpado

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 18, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Sissy Taran

Originally published in Noozhawk on February 3, 2008.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Joe Holland

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 28, 2008. Read the original story here.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down with Laura Inks

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 21. 2008. Click here to read the article on Noozhawk’s site.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down with Dr. Alois Zauner

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 14, 2008. Click here to read it on that site.

Goleta Native Has a New Story to Tell in Remote China

Originally published in Noozhawk on January 8, 2008.

Designing Woman

Originally published in Ventana Monthly. Read the article here.

Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Janet Wolf

Originally published in Noozhawk on December 31, 2007.

Originally published in Noozhawk on March 10, 2008.

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Originally published in Noozhawk on February 29, 2008.

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Originally published in Noozhawk on February 18, 2008.

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Originally published in Noozhawk on February 3, 2008.

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Originally published in Noozhawk on January 28, 2008. Read the original story here.

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Originally published in Noozhawk on January 21. 2008. Click here to read the article on Noozhawk’s site.

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Originally published in Noozhawk on January 14, 2008. Click here to read it on that site.

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Originally published in Noozhawk on January 8, 2008.

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Originally published in Ventana Monthly. Read the article here.

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Originally published in Noozhawk on December 31, 2007.

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