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PATTY CARPENTER | TRACIE SPECA-VENTURA | BEN JACOBSON | ROCKHOUNDS

Journal SEPTEMBER 2014

MAGAZINE OF THE CENTRAL COAST

PLUS

SLO FIRE CHIEF GARRET OLSON

805-543-2172

805-904-6616

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Larry D. Smyth

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Wow!! What a spectacular city and hilltop view!! Comfortable custom 3 bed, 2 1/2 bath home. In the city but with a country feel.

Living room and kitchen have vaulted ceilings, many windows and is flooded with color and light. Four distinct levels. Private jacuzzi off master bd. Numerous Upgrades! Don’t miss this one! $650,000

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REALTOR®

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Beautiful single level 4 bedroom home in Nipomo. Featuring 2351 sqft of living space, Granite Counter tops, walk-in pantry and Alder cabinets throughout. Vaulted ceilings, bay windows & gated front courtyard. A place to call home! $559,000

The Fairways at Blacklake. Bring your golf clubs and enjoy life on the Central Coast. Spacious floorplan with two very private master suites. Three sliding glass doors open onto patio and backyard. Skylights, dual pane windows. Easy care yard and fenced... perfect for your pets. Golf cart garage. Great opportunity to live in this highly sought after golf course community. $459,000

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Beautifully decorated single-level Orcutt home for sale in the sought after Southpoint Estates, a gated community! Living room features a gas insert brick fireplace, wet bar for entertaining, a bay window and vaulted ceilings. $429,000

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Paddy Doron REALTOR®

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David Hamilton REALTOR®

Linda Irigaray Broker-Associate

Annette Mullen REALTOR®

CONTENTS

Journal PLUS MAGAZINE OF THE CENTRAL COAST

The People, Community, and Business of Our Beautiful Central Coast ADDRESS

654 Osos Street San Luis Obispo California 93401

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PATTY CARPENTER

PHONE 805.546.0609 E-MAIL slojournal@fix.net WEBSITE www.slojournal.com

EDITOR & PUBLISHER Steve Owens ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Erin Mott GRAPHIC DESIGNER Dora Mountain COPY EDITOR Susan Stewart PHOTOGRAPHER Tom Meinhold DISTRIBUTION Keith Malcomson, Kyle Owens

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BEN JACOBSON

ROBERT REYNOLDS

ADVERTISING Jan Owens CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Susan Stewart, Natasha Dalton, Joseph Carotenuti, Dr. Julian Crocker, Sarah Hedger, Maggie Cox, Will Jones, Deborah Cash, Ruth Starr, Heather Young, Marta Peluso, Gordon Fuglie, Joseph T. Page II, Rachael Lange, and Marilyn Darnell.

Mail subscriptions are available at $20 per year. Back issues are $2 each. Inquires concerning advertising or other information made by writing to Steve Owens, JOURNAL PLUS MAGAZINE, 654 Osos Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. You can call us at 546-0609, our fax line is 546-8827, and our e-mail is slojournal@fix.net. View the entire magazine on our website at www.slojournal.com JOURNAL PLUS MAGAZINE is a free monthly distributed to over 600 locations throughout the Central Coast and is also available online at slojournal.com Editorial submissions are welcome but are published at the discretion of the publisher. Submissions will be returned if accompanied by a stamped self addressed envelope. No material published in the magazine can be reproduced without written permission.

Opinions expressed in the byline articles are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the JOURNAL PLUS MAGAZINE. Cover photo by Tom Meinhold

PEOPLE 8 10 12 14 16 18

PATTY CARPENTER SLO FIRE CHIEF GARRET OLSON TRACIE SPECA-VENTURA DONALD HUNTINGTON & DONALD PIERCE BEN JACOBSON BOB RACKERBY

HOME & OUTDOOR 20 22 24 26

EMPOWER SLO County’s Energy Program RUTH FASH ART TALK

COMMUNITY 28 30 32 34 36 42

OUR SCHOOLS—Dr. Julian Crocker SLO SYMPHONY Meet the Red Violin HISTORY: Happy Birthday SLO PALM STREET SLO Councilman, Ashbaugh VANDENBERG’S Space and Missile Center COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD

BUSINESS

37 DOWNTOWN SLO What’s Happening 46 EYE ON BUSINESS

FOOD / AT THE MARKET SLO ART SCENE

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COMING UP AT THE

PERFORMING ARTS CENTER SLO MARIACHI FESTIVAL September 06 | 6:00 p.m.

Christopher Cohan Center Presented by Monarca

BLUE MAN GROUP September 23 & 24 | 7:30 p.m.

Christopher Cohan Center Presented by Cal Poly Arts

SCHOOHOUSE ROCK LIVE! September 26 | 7 p.m.

Christopher Cohan Center Presented by Cal Poly Arts

DAVE BARRY September 27 | 8 p.m.

Christopher Cohan Center Presented by Cal Poly Arts

GORDON LIGHTFOOT September 30 | 8 p.m.

Christopher Cohan Center Presented by SBL Entertainment

WWW.PACSLO.ORG | 805-756-4TIX (4849)

From the publisher

J

an and I had the opportunity to attend the special recognition event for Dr. Ben McAdams at the SLO Performing Arts Center (PAC) last month.

Dr. McAdams (pictured left with Wayne Lewis) has been instrumental in making the PAC a reality and one who continues to be one of its biggest supporters. Heather Cochrane, Executive Director of the Foundation for the Performing Arts Center and Ron Regier, PAC General Director coordinated the tour, demonstrations and the special presentation on stage. Fun was had by all and a well-deserved honor for Dr. McAdams.

In this month’s issue we continue to feature several people who make a difference, beginning with our cover story on SLO’s Fire Chief, Garret Olson. We review Chief Olson’s first year on the job. Next we feature Patty Carpenter and the great things she is doing with Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

Tracie Speca-Ventura just completed a major project within the new 49ers Levi Stadium and Will Jones writes about Ben Jacobson’s journey helping others.

There are two art scene stories and a review of the Symphony’s upcoming concert featuring Elizabeth Pitcairn in recital with the Red Violin.

Plenty more good reading again this month.

Enjoy the magazine,

Steve Owens

A proud tradition of serving our community for over 30 years

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patty carpenter

Bill and Patty Carpenter

big heart, big spirit ... and key to “big” success on the central coast

By Deborah Cash

T

hose lucky enough to do what they love for a living walk among us. When that positive energy results in bettering people’s lives and the world around us, we can only be thankful for such people—and grateful when we know them. Patty Gonzalez Carpenter is one such beautiful soul and after having lived a life that’s been interesting, varied and sometimes challenging, she’s now in the ranks of those who’ve found a passion for their daily work and as a result, has enriched the lives of many young people in the community and achieved success for a program that makes it possible. Oh, and she’s happy, too!

Currently working as Development Director for Big Brothers Big Sisters, Patty has a way with people—and a way with words. “They’re like tiny plants,” she says of the clients of her nonprofit’s local chapter of the national organization dedicated to matching up young people (Littles) in the community in need of an adult friend or mentor with someone willing to spend the time and energy such a commitment requires (Bigs). “If you water them, they grow,” she said, “and what we do is turn on the spigot to bring huge and positive changes to these kids’ lives.”

Essentially, Patty’s role is to bring in the green. “I coordinate fundraising and events; I try to find new money all the time,” she explained.

Patty said that on the one hand, “We’re blessed to have so many wonderful nonprofits at work for great causes in the community,” but on the other hand, “It’s a challenge to walk around always looking for dollars.”

Patty’s no stranger to trying situations. She and husband Bill moved to SLO in 2002 looking for “something smaller” and a little more hometown than what they were experiencing in Newport Beach. They wanted to raise their daughter Isabel, then two years old, in an atmosphere that was, Patty says, “less frenetic.”

Bill and Patty, who met when a mutual friend asked her to come help Bill, Patty and their daughter, Isabel with a start up restaurant in southern Cal, said their mutual dream and vision was to have a business of their own. “We looked and looked,” she said, “and then we found Linn’s (restaurant) on the corner of Marsh and Chorro streets in Downtown SLO. It seemed like a fair deal and we loved it. We changed the name to Corner View, put in a bar and had a great run for eight years. Our customers were incredible and during that time, we were thrilled to become part of the community.”

During the downturn in the late 2000s that proved devastating for many small businesses, the Carpenters found themselves unable to continue operating. “Our war chest wasn’t big enough, the economy was up and down and there were a lot more restaurants in town since we arrived,” Patty said. Serving on the Board of Directors of the Downtown Association during that time, Patty had a ringside seat to see firsthand what was going on for many independent businesses. “It was hard to see all these people losing their investments and livelihoods due to employment regulations, the financial crisis and many factors; when it became obvious those same things were affecting us, we knew it was time to pull the plug.”

Regrouping, Bill and Patty looked ahead and focused on the positives: they felt they had established strong roots and connections here, Patty’s mother Patricia was a permanent resident of their household and able to help in raising Isabel, both had backgrounds in a variety of industries.

Remarkably, after the closure of their business they found themselves, as Patty says, “Blown away!” “I was always ‘Patty of Corner View’ and my identity was wrapped up in that,” she said. But the outpouring of support from the community was more than they anticipated and within months, both Bill and Patty were back on their feet and have resumed a life that

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“Mostly to shuttle her around,” Patty laughs, noting that their daughter will be starting high school this year and is heavily involved in golf and soccer. Bill now works with Richardson Properties in commercial real estate but as Patty quips, “If you want to buy a house from him, you can!”

Talking about her origins and life before SLO, Patty gets a kick out of sharing, “I was born in East L.A.!” as if the song was written for her, perhaps. She grew up in San Gabriel Valley and went to an all-girls Catholic High School where she was, she said, “kind of a jock” but perhaps also a bit of a renegade in that she and her schoolmates liked to joyride in the “old nuns’ elevator.” During Patty’s upper-classman years, her father Dario Gonzalez took ill and her focus shifted from school to family but eventually she attended Long Beach State University. She spent a Semester at Sea and then lived in Colorado where her love of skiing had brought her some years before.

Patty’s not without her funny side, as most who know her will attest.

She shared that when she and Bill had been dating for some time, he planned a “surprise” birthday party for her and of course, it didn’t stay a surprise for long as good friends always spill the beans. Patty told Bill that she knew about the party and added, “While we’re at it and since all our friends will be there, it would be the perfect time to get married.” So, ultimately the surprise was on the guests who, after the nuptials, got wedding cake instead of birthday cake.

“I’m kind of family-centric,” Patty said, “I love staying in touch with long time friends and all my family.” She also said she loves to travel and share fun experiences with friends: “We have an amazing group that loves to eat and drink well.” At some point, she said, she’s look-

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Patty shows her early academic side.

ing to ride horses again—a much loved activity from her past.

For now, Patty remains clearly focused on her work with BBBS, proudly sharing that their fundraising activities are above projections and their most recent “Big Event” exceeded all expectations for budgetary goals. Through her efforts, there’s been a 40 per cent increase in funds raised, “We blew past our record. The generosity of our donors amazes me.” But she also says, “It’s not about me. I’m a worker, that’s who I am. We have an amazing staff and Board of Directors who are phenomenal and really believe in what we do.”

While she prefers to work behind the scenes and declines credit, Patty deserves BIG recognition for her dedication and talent as well accolades for her BIG contribution to our community over many years.

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slo city fire chief

garret olson

reflects on his first year

By Heather Young

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arret Olson has been the San Luis Obispo City fire chief since Aug. 30, 2013. Though he was deputy chief of the department for a year before becoming chief, he served as fire chief of the Scottsdale Fire Department for eight years.

“Most people looking at my resume would say I took a step back [taking a job as deputy chief after being chief, and SLO being a smaller department], but this has been anything but a step back for me and my wife,” Olson said, adding that in each city, Mesa, Scottsdale and now SLO, he never thought he would move. “My career progression has been more about going to wonderful new places, not leaving places.”

He said that SLO is now the end of the line, especially since, he said with a laugh, it’d be a solo Olson that would move because his wife, Susan, of 23 years has found her paradise. The couple has one son, Mitch, who left for college in Virginia when his parents moved to SLO two years ago.

He started his career as a firefighter in 1990 for the Mesa Fire Department when he was 23 years old. He worked for that department, touching every position, until he left to be fire chief of the Scottsdale department in 2004.

Though he grew up in a firefighting household—his dad retired as a fire chief three years ago—he didn’t plan to go into that profession.

“I didn’t grow up as a kid wanting to be a firefighter, that’s why I went to the Air Force Academy,” he said.

After he graduated high school, he went to the Air Force Academy. It was there, two years into his studies, that he realized that even though he’s patriotic and thinks highly of those serving in the military, his heart was at the local level. He left the academy and began studying fire science, before finishing his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration management and his Master of Arts degree in organizational management.

The swearing in ceremony with SLO Police Chief Steve Gesell presiding.

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As chief, Olson said one of his priorities is establishing healthy relationships and maintaining communications. One way he keeps the lines of communication open with his staff is by producing biweekly video updates. The 15-minute video that he uploads to YouTube includes kudos, great things going on, operational information and what’s upcoming up.

Garret next to the old fire wagon at Fire Station 1

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However, Scottsdale, Ariz., is a city of 220,000 people and SLO has a population of nearly 46,000.

Garret, Susan and Mitch Olson

“I think when you make a good effort to communicate you close down the rumor mill,” Olson said.

While the videos are uploaded to YouTube and are public, they are not searchable. Olson sends link to the staff after he edits and uploads the video. He said the videos take him anywhere from an hour to four hours to edit, depending on how many photos he adds. He shoots each video in a different location, often at the fire station, and spends his evenings editing.

In his focus of developing relationships, he visits many organizations in SLO. In those visits he works to build relationships as well as to dispel common misconceptions people may have about the fire department. He has found that even those Garret during a Rotary project at the DeGroot home. employed by the city don’t entirely know all that the fire department does, so he includes Fire 101 in the city’s employee newsletter.

Next up, Olson is preparing for the department’s five-year strategic planning and is gathering feedback and input from the fire staff and community at large before presenting it to the SLO City Council.

“That’s what I do at night,” he said. “I enjoy what it does for the organization.”

To open the lines of communication with the public, Olson created a comment card of sorts that fire captains give to people who have been served by the fire department. The online feedback was a project Olson began before he was named chief.

“We like to provide them with an opportunity to give feedback,” Olson said. “We ask them how we did.”

The card includes the department’s mission: “You are our mission.

Your San Luis Obispo City Fire Department takes great pride in being your primary paramedic provider for emergency medical needs as well as providing you professional fire, rescue, fire prevention and public education services. We are here for you.” The card asks for feedback by either going to the web address listed or by scanning the QR code on the card, or calling the chief or deputy chief. The captain’s name and the incident number are listed on the card given for reference.

Olson said that as soon as a person hits submit on the online feedback, he gets a notification on his cell phone. Additionally, if anyone calls his line at the fire station—781-7390—they are immediately transferred to his cell phone if he is not in the office.

“I really want people to know our desire to serve them is genuine,” Olson said. “That’s why I’m happy to have my cell phone ring on the weekend with a complaint [or praise].”

Olson’s entire fire staff is made up of 51 people—including himself.

Forty-two of those are emergency response personnel and nine are office staff, including the fire prevention bureau.

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“It’s a small and very, very talented and active staff,” Olson said.

As chief of the Scottsdale Fire Department, there were 260 staff members.

“I had layers of people to delegate to and I thought I was short staffed at the time,” he said.

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PEOPLE

TRACIE SPECA-VENTURA cREATING A ONE-OF-A KIND ART COLLECTION AT LEVI’s STADIUM

By Rachael Lange

S

ports & the Arts (SATA) is proud to put its mark on sports and entertainment venues across the country.

Its most recent project has taken it inside the new Levi’s® Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers. Though it takes a keen eye for talent to transform a sports arena into a living gallery of art, Sports & the Arts is doing it—with a woman at the helm!

Tracie Speca-Ventura, founder of Sports & the Arts and curator for over 15 years, has integrated over 20 artists on her current project to form the Levi’s® Stadium Art Collection. Speca-Ventura thrives on blending mediums to form an interesting and diverse array of talent bearing the task of invoking the viewer. A vision and passion for the arts and athletics is what helps Speca-Ventura transform spaces into experiences!

“Sports and competition create emotion, passion, highs and lows, on and off the playing surface! We work to capture these raw feelings within the pieces created,” explains Speca-Ventura. It’s this belief that has propelled Speca-Ventura and her team to be leaders in the industry of bringing art to sports. Tracie’s keen eye and motivation drives Sports & the Arts to create and install collections that will engage and provoke everyone from the casual sports fan to the art aficionado.

Sports & the Arts collections now grace the office walls of organizations such as the NY Yankees and Yankee Stadium, the Amway Center (home to the Orlando Magic), the Prudential Center and The Miami Marlins ballpark. In addition to commercial and private clients, Speca-Ventura has generated more than a million dollars for charitable causes through donations and fundraising efforts. Her relationships with athletes as well as nationally renowned artists, and her talent for discovering up and coming newcomers in the nooks and crannies of the US, is what makes her a leading broker in the industry.

Speca-Ventura’s resume is as colorful as some of the artwork she commissions. Her involvement in the sports and arts worlds dates back

to her college days in the early ’90s. After spending a summer on the road with the Cincinnati Reds as the personal assistant to Pete Rose and family, Speca-Ventura learned the inner workings of professional sports franchises. It was then that she stumbled across an intriguing sports art gallery in Southern California. With her background in athletics and love for the arts, Speca-Ventura found herself employed and coordinating her first art opening with the Los Angeles Kings and celebrating Wayne Gretzky. Many events followed which led to her organizing fundraising exhibitions with the TJ Martel Foundation, LA Sports Spectacular and the Philadelphia Flyers. In 1991 Speca-Ventura delved deeper into the world of fine art when she joined forces with the Sports & Entertainment Gallery as assistant director and curator. During her four-year tenure she organized various exhibitions, including one that was hosted by baseball legend Mickey Mantle. Speca-Ventura has broken down doors and charged into what is typically deemed a man’s world and in doing so, has made a name for herself.

As SATA started to expand and develop a custom vision for each project, Tracie teamed up with her sister-in-law, Camille Speca, who oversees the extensive photographic research, theming and project development for SATA. Though often conceptualizing the next big

Club Space Graphics image courtesy of Sports and the Arts and the Art Collection at Levi’s Stadium.

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Tracie with 49er VP of Marketing, Ali Towle.

a thrill as she was able to find the most picturesque moments and many hidden gems contained in the 1,300 installed pieces, the largest Yankees installation ever compiled. Together these sisters work tirelessly to expand the visual enjoyment of the fan and create a museum destination which inspires reflection and awe.

Tracie Speca-Ventura is proud of her past achievements with Sports & the Arts, which have brought her to the platform she stands on today. However, she believes as the journey continues many more great works are to come! Excited by each new venue, Sports & the Arts is proud to create visual power that will last for generations.

Rick and Tracie Ventura on the red carpet at the art Opening for the Art Collection at Levi’s Stadium.

idea on separate coasts, these women work side by side, providing each other with a sounding board—whether it’s to reign in wild ideas or to encourage each other to reach higher. Camille has worked in the graphic design and pre-press industry for over 20 years, and has contributed to campaigns and collateral for a wide-variety of clients including John Hancock, Wells Fargo, T. Rowe Price, Wrigley, Campbell Soup Company and Pfizer Inc. She joined Sports & The Arts in 2007 and works closely with the client from concept inception to final installation. Camille’s love for music, history and the bygone eras aid in her capturing a nostalgia within the collections that touches the viewer. Culling over 30,000 images for the Yankees project was

Suite Corridor graphic celebrating the history of San Francisco Music image courtesy of Sports and the Arts and the Art Collection at Levi’s Stadium.

Though Speca-Ventura’s work finds her spending time at various stadiums, she can often be found on the sunny golf courses of the Central Coast of California, as she is an avid golfer and her husband a Head Golf Professional at San Luis Obispo Golf and Country Club.

About Levi’s® Stadium Levi’s® Stadium will not only be the new home to the San Francisco 49ers, but it will also serve as one of the world’s best outdoor sports and entertainment venues. It was designed by HNTB and is being built by Turner/Devcon for the Santa Clara Stadium Authority. The $1.2 billion venue will have 1.85 million square feet, seat approximately 68,500 and will feature an expected 165 luxury suites and 8,500 club seats. It was designed to be a multi-purpose facility with the flexibility to host a wide range of events, including domestic and international soccer, college football, motocross, concerts and various civic events, and will be expandable for major events such as the Super Bowl. For more information, go to http://www.levisstadium.com/.

BNY Mellon Club space image courtesy of Sports and the Arts and the Art Collection at Levi’s Stadium.

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Santa Lucia Rockhounds:

Donald Pierce and Donald Huntington

Donald Huntington and Donald Pierce

6-time people’s choice winners

By Natasha Dalton

D

on Huntington and Don Pierce joined the Santa Lucia Rockhounds in 2008, and became instant ‘rock stars’ at the Rock, Gem and Jewelry Show, which the club organizes annually in Paso Robles.

The club is a member of both—state and national—Federations of the Mineralogical Societies and its members are passionate about their mission of promoting the study of mineralogy.

In the last six years, the club’s membership grew tenfold, and its meetings are always well attended. “We invite experts to give talks on geology, metal fabrication, lapidary and other subjects,” Pierce explains. “I myself once did a presentation on the history of the local chrome mines, because I’m the only one who has the pictures of strip-mining. Nobody knows anymore what the chrome mines even were, and what went on there. But because all my uncles worked there, and because I grew up around these mines when I was a little kid, 50 years ago, I know what it was like.”

“We have different types of collectors in our club,” Huntington chimes in. “Some look for interesting stone and then make things out of it; the others know how to hunt down old stone on the market that you can barely find anymore. Some are really knowledgeable about rock formation, petrified wood, jewelry making—and that’s what makes our meetings so fascinating and helpful. Some have ‘eyedropping’ collections and come up with very elaborate presentations at the show. It’s hard to compete with them,” he adds.

to try to outdo ourselves,” Huntington chuckles. “It’s really getting tough.”

And their work challenges the others as well. Recently, Huntington gave a speech to the Junior Rockhounds: “You don’t have to compete,” he said. “But if you like rocks, make a case for them. You’d be surprised to see the different cases the kids came up with,” he smiles approvingly. “Before, they wouldn’t even think about it.”

The kids, as young as 7, have their own regular meetings, run by a professional geologist. “It’s a bit like boy scouts,” Pierce says: “There’s a patch that they have to earn, and they work hard for it.”

Meanwhile, their own imagination forces Huntington and Pierce to try out new, ever more sophisticated, techniques. At their first show, they surprised everyone by elevating some of the rock in their display case for maximum visual impact. Nobody had done that before.

Until then, people just put their pieces of rock on the shelves and labeled them. It’s the two Dons who switched the focus to making displays more ‘eye-catching’: ‘What will little kids get attracted to?’ they asked.

Huntington is too modest: there’s a reason why some club members jokingly call the two Dons ‘the rock mafia.’ So far, there hasn’t been a show where they didn’t receive the top prize.

And it’s not just kids who cling to their cases at the show. Comments they receive could make anyone’s day: “Beautiful!” Incredible!” and even “How did you do this?!!”—are just some of the many compliments left by the hundreds of visitors, impressed by the artists’ work.

At the last show, held in May, the duo’s displays won the 1st and the 3rd places. “Our victories put us in a bind: every year we have

“Everyone wants to know what we’re going to do next—and we just tease them,” Huntington says. Each case they make is totally different,

Eagle

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piecing things together, and I get excited about the project,” he admits.

That’s how the Fish Tank came to be. “Don came up to me and said: ‘We’ll make a case and throw in some fish. That’s my idea,’” Pierce remembers. Reluctantly, Pierce decided to explore the possibilities. The two found a brochure about Pacific Coast fish, and when they began carving the fish, they realized that they could make them all look exactly like the pictures.

“They had the right colors, and they were all made out of local stone,” Pierce explains.

Seascape

and has its own theme. “When we arrive at the show, club members begin to follow us around to see what we’ll put in the case,” Huntington smiles. “It’s a lot of fun.”

“We enjoy winning, but what delights us most is the expression on people’s faces, especially kids’, when they go by our case, and exclaim: ‘Wow! Look at that!’ That means more to me than anything,” Pierce comments.

“But it takes a whole year of work to get to that point,” Huntington adds, “if we don’t mess up.”

It turns out, some types of rock are quite fragile, and even a little fracture can cause it to break. When that happens, a new piece needs to be made.

“Look at this spider,” Huntington says, “I have a whole box with his broken legs. Don once broke our bald eagle,” Huntington adds sheepishly, and Pierce explains: “The guy to whom I was showing it almost had a heart attack when I dropped that eagle on the floor; it broke into many pieces.”

Apparently, breaking rock (and then gluing pieces together) is a part of the job.

Running out of rock, while carving can become more of a problem. “I love carving animals,” Pierce says, “but it’s not unusual that you start carving something, and end up with something else!” Then, the whole project has to be re-thought.

“Our neighbors think that one day we’re going to kill each other,” Huntington laughs, describing some of his more emotional debates with the other Don. “Everyone who shows up

at the shop says that we act like an old couple, arguing and bickering all the time.”

“People think we get mad at each other, but it’s just how we talk; we’re never at a loss for words.” Pierce sums up. “We’ve known each other since we were little kids. In fact, my dad dated his mom before my mom and dad got married. Morro Bay was once a very small community.”

The two Dons still live in close proximity to each other and socialize often, but both insist that it’s their differences that make their artistic collaboration a success.

“I don’t have his creativity, although I can come up with ideas to start something,” Huntington explains. He enjoys just taking a rock and slicing it up, and making something out of it, while Pierce, who comes from Salinan Indian tribe, has always been good at making arrowheads, jewelry and carvings.

Yet, when Huntington first asked him to collaborate on making a case for the show, Pierce hesitated.

For a panoramic effect, they hung the fish in the case on different levels and inserted lit mirrors that were tipped at the top. On wires across the case they stretched moss and made it look like seaweed. A shrunk and painted piece of Styrofoam inside the box became a rock. Then they threw some of the Pierce’s jewelry on the bottom of the case, and a story of a shipwreck was there to contemplate. A line with a worm on it added another touch of reality to the scene.

“That’s the kind of thing that kids like to see,” Pierce says. “The show has a large array of things: some people sell stuff from other countries; others sell only what comes from one country. But we just enjoy pleasing the crowd.”

He lives by his dad’s words: “Never look up, look down: you never know what you might find there.” The two friends have already found some interesting pieces for the next project. “It’ll be colorful,” they promise. And that’s all we’ll know—until next May. To learn more, go to: www.slrockhounds.org

It’s a good thing that Huntington doesn’t give up easily. “After we made a couple of pieces he could see what can come out when we both work together,” Huntington says.

He admires Pierce’s capacity to see things 3-dimensionally. “In our layouts he can always predict what will look good to the eye,” Huntington says. And that’s important, because in their creations, the rocks tell a story. And it’s usually Huntington who comes up with the story idea.

“Some of his ideas I just toss out,” Pierce says. “‘Don, no, it’s too hard!’ But then I start S E P T E M B E R

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PEOPLE

ben jacobson

Manager middlehouse, men’s sober living

By Will Jones “You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do.”

—Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake Thirty-year-old Ben Jacobson will graduate from Cal Poly in December with a degree in Sociology and a minor in Criminology. In the fall of 2015 he will begin law school. He manages Middlehouse, a men’s sober living facility on Augusta Street in San Luis Obispo, home to fourteen recovering alcoholics. But in 2007 Ben was desperately sick, addicted to both drugs and alcohol, already saved three times from death by overdose, the owner of a criminal record for serious crimes. When his circumstances could not get any worse, Ben reached out for help and now, almost seven

years clean and sober, he extends his helping hand to men with stories similar to his.

Ben and his family moved to Arroyo Grande from Iowa when he was two. “My parents are well-known in the community. My dad’s a general contractor and my mom and my sister are both nurses.” By the time he reached high school, Ben appeared to be a typical California teenager from a loving, healthy family. He was on the swimming and water polo teams at Arroyo Grande High School, with expectations of continuing with sports in college. He skated, surfed and spent countless hours wake boarding at Lopez Lake.

No one in his family ever used drugs or had problems with overuse or abuse of alcohol.

“I was never motivated academically, although I had the ability. In high school I started hanging out with different people, partying, losing interest in learning. I rarely attended classes in my senior year but somehow managed to graduate. Even now I’m not crazy about school, but I know it’s the path to my goals so I work hard at it.”

Ben followed a classic path into addiction.

“Some people can experiment with alcohol and drugs and it goes no further. I took it to a whole other level, starting with alcohol, then pot and on to pills and heroin. In high school I loved the rebellious aspect of it, the anarchy. It was fun. By my junior year I knew I wasn’t going to college and I didn’t care. My lifestyle was more important to me, and I was making money selling drugs. Everyone knew, even my coaches.”

Although his parents knew most of what was going on, like many parents of children with Ben’s problems, “they hoped I would grow out of it,” Ben said. “I needed to get out of the house, so I moved right after high school and started installing hardwood floors for a living while continuing to use and sell drugs.” Use of opiates like oxycontin led to intravenous heroin use by the time he was eighteen and a habit that eventually cost him $400 a day.

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Ben’s legal problems began with a grand theft auto charge when he was twenty-one.

With his parents’ support he managed to get

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off with house arrest, but the drug testing threatened by probation never happened, so he continued to use. In January of 2007 he was arrested in an undercover drug sting.

Those charges resulted in a drug diversion program sentence, which he failed.

“From January until August I was in and out of rehabs, sober living and jail. I knew I was headed to prison. I had flat-lined three times from overdoses. My best friend died in my arms on his twenty-first birthday. I needed to change. I got back into sober living and started my road to recovery. I was angry, I hated everyone and I barely slept for fiftyeight days while I detoxed, but with the help of the other men in sober living, I stayed with it. I had a great family and I was killing them.

They had spent years wondering when they were going to get the call that I was dead. I finally realized how much I was hurting them and I was determined to change.”

Ben has been clean and sober since October 16th, 2007. Since then he has earned two Associate degrees from Cuesta and drug and alcohol counseling certification. He

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laundry and paying bills, paid off his debts and restored his relationship with his family.

Middlehouse is a registered California non-profit that has been in operation in San Luis Obispo since 1967, established under the guidance and encouragement of Dr. Joseph Middleton, a prominent San Luis Obispo County physician. It is a residential facility for men who are alcoholic and who admit having a problem with chemical dependency.

The goal of the Middlehouse program “is to help men who suffer from chemical dependency achieve lasting and successful sobriety.”

“I love sharing my experience with guys who are coming in beaten up from drug and alcohol use and ruining their lives. I can relate to them and help them through the recovery process. I can give guys hope that they can turn their lives around.” Ben sees his own recovery as nothing short of a miracle. As an attorney he hopes to make a difference in the legal system, to encourage treatment rather than incarceration for chemically dependent offenders.

“I was a menace to society. I didn’t care if I died, I didn’t care if I lived.

Thanks to recovery I have a chance to give back to society and make a difference. I have a second chance at life. I’m super grateful and I’ll always remember where I came from. I’ll never forget how much pain I put my family through and how many people I hurt. No matter how bad someone’s life is, I can give them hope through my example. That means a lot to me.” managed the first sober living facility where he lived, and in July of 2010 became the manager of Middlehouse. Along the way he went to court and had his felonies expunged, learned life skills like doing

For more information about Middlehouse, go to www.middlehouse. org or call 544-5328. Middlehouse will hold an Open House from 2-5PM on Saturday, October 4, 2014. All are welcome to attend.

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PEOPLE

bob rackerby the fuzz that wuzz

By Marilyn Darnell

T

he Fuzz That Wuzz was the brainchild of Los Angeles Police Department retiree, Bob Rackerby. As part of the family of LAPD retirees living on the Central Coast, Bob says his late wife, Aileen, came up with the “Fuzz” part of the name (a term for policemen in the 1970s) and he came up with “That Wuzz,” meaning retired. Bob was inspired one day, as he watched neighbor and former colleague, Freeman Calvert, walking up the street to join them in a cup of coffee.

Tom Scott and Francis Anderson joined Rackerby and Calvert to create the Fuzz That Wuzz, a recognized retirement group of the Los Angeles Police Department. Their purpose: to bring retirees of the Department and their spouses together to socialize at quarterly luncheons, a strategy that has served them well these 34 years.

Bob, nicknamed “Rack,” put his nearly 30 years (1948 - 1977) of investigative experience to work to locate other retirees. Those skills had

been honed on the streets and freeways of Los Angeles as an accident investigator, who for a time worked out of an abandoned meat market on Van Owen St. that the LAPD rented for a police station.

Memories of high speeds and patrol car advancements come easily to Bob these days, it’s as though they happened yesterday. One memory is the 1946 stock Ford with no heat or air conditioning that had a pulley system that went from the siren mounted on the right front fender into the car under the dash. The siren would sound as long as the wire was manually pulled. Then there is the shivering cold weather in West LA and Venice that he would relieve by getting 3 or 4 kerosene lanterns in the back seat to keep warm (he confided others would join him).

Fuzz that Wuzz retirees meet quarterly for lunch to socialize and renew friendships.

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Service and giving is a part of police life and lives on in the Fuzz That Wuzz. Members Terry Barclay and Patty Fuller have taken the helm for 2014. Members Judy Aikens and B.G. Perriguey sing with Kindred Spirits with Aileen and she was instrumental in their performing at the December festivities. John & Carolyn O’Connell give of themselves at AmpSurf.

Bob Rackerby joins fellow retirees who served in West Valley Division, LAPD.

The 1950s brought him a car with heat.

The 4 door patrol car #12272 had an interceptor engine and he recalls reaching 60 mph in no gear topping out at 102mph in gear. In the mid ’60s, before the California Highway Patrol, the corridor of Highway 101 from Balboa Blvd north to the Los Angeles County line was within his jurisdiction. It proved to be his perfect proving ground for the Pontiac that he heard was being considered for the new fleet. His memorial test reached 140mph.

He recalls going so fast that when he put on the brakes, he leaned on the steering wheel with such force that it warped. He also burned the brakes. His telling brought an unapologetic twinkle to his eyes. The model was not added to the fleet.

The first luncheon of the Fuzz That Wuzz was held in 1980 at the Elks Lodge in San Luis Obispo. More than twenty-five retirees with their spouses attended. Freeman Calvert became the first president, while Bob Rackerby concentrated on the leg work.

Today, luncheons bring as many as 120 attendees from throughout California; stories abound, friendships renew, camaraderie lives on. Such camaraderie is found at the Fuzz that widows of retirees continue to attend and are welcomed with open arms. The third Thursday of March, June, September and December are times to look forward to. Venues have changed throughout the decades, but one mainstay has been December at the Madonna Inn. In celebration each year, retirees who attend the December luncheon, are greeted with a gallery of gifts. Each retiree’s name is recorded and pulled out randomly for them to make their personal choice from the gallery; every retiree goes home with a gift. In addition, the leadership for the upcoming year is announced. The following year brings new possibilities with an injection of new talent and generosity, something the Fuzz That Wuzz excels in.

When asked how he feels about the Fuzz That Wuzz today, Bob expressed the love he has watching retirees come together having a good time; amazed that some weren’t even born when he was on the job. His satisfaction comes from “doing something good,” leaving his “mark.” In closing, he stated it’s “part of me.” (Bob, it’s a part of me too—thank you!)

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HOME/OUTDOOR

slo county’s empower program launched

free home site visits can help homeowner’s energy challenges

T

he empower program in San Luis Obispo County is pleased to introduce to the community, its “Energy Coach,” Paul Menconi, registered Professional Engineer and a local expert in home energy efficiency. Menconi’s role is to conduct empower’s FREE home energy consultations for qualified homeowners.

The empower home energy efficiency program launched recently in San Luis Obispo County, as part of an expansion to serve the entire TriCounty region as emPower Central Coast. The program goal is to help homeowners and contractors overcome obstacles to implement home energy improvements. While creating access for local homeowners to energy efficiency resources and low cost financing, the program also aims to support job growth in the local residential construction industry.

Last month San Luis Obispo County hosted a press and community leader briefing and private home tour to educate them about the empower home energy efficiency program. The average California home has a 30% leakage of energy. After the free audit and making their suggested changes, the leakage drops significantly, saving the homeowner thousands of dollars annually.

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“As a San Luis Obispo County resident, Paul understands our region’s unique home energy needs and is immediately available to local homeowners as an expert resource,” said Kami Griffin, Assistant Director of the Sand Luis Obispo County Planning and Building Department.

Menconi has seven years of experience working in residential energy efficiency on the Central Coast. He finds that many homes in San Luis Obispo County are not as energy efficient as the homeowner may think. Homes of any age, including newly built may qualify fir empower programs.

“I am finding that every type of home has some degree of energyrelated issue, some very minor, some quite serious,” said Menconi.

“Older homes, remodeled homes, even the newest, high-end homes can all use some help.”

A free home site visit from the Energy Coach can help address homeowners’ individual energy challenges and upgrade opportuni-

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Part of the group that toured a home in SLO that the people of emPower made energy efficient, including SLO County Supervisor, Adam Hill and SLO City Mayor, Jan Marx.

HOME/OUTDOOR SLO County Supervisor, Adam Hill gets an explanation on the methods the people of emPower use to help homeowners discover their energy leakage.

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Since its inception, emPower’s outreach efforts have led 4,500 interested individuals to engage with the program resulting in home energy activity in nearly 400 homes and vital boosts to the local economy through the participation of local contractors and credit unions. emPower envisions that the broader service area and new offerings will bring substantially higher rates of participation and success.

The emPower program is administered by the Counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. To learn more about emPower, visit www.empowersbc.org.

About emPower Central Coast

ties, San Luis Obispo County homeowners may schedule a free home energy consultation with the Energy Coach online at www. emPowerSBC.org or by phone at (805) 781-5623.

As part of his Energy Coach visit, Menconi takes a comprehensive look at a home’s energy performance, including the condition of the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning system, insulation levels, water heater, and other major appliances that contribute to high energy bills.

The emPower program was established by Santa Barbara County to help the community preserve the environment by lowering energy consumption and stimulate the economy by creating jobs through innovative, voluntary solutions to support a sustainable building performance market. The program recently expanded its services to Ventura County and San Luis Obispo residents as emPower Central Coast. emPower is funded by California utility ratepayers and administered by Southern California Gas Company, Southern California Edison Company and Pacific Gas & Electric under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission, the US Department of Energy Better Buildings program and the California Energy Commission with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars. emPower’s low cost financing is offered in partnership with Coast Hills Federal Credit Union and Ventura County Credit Union. More information at www.empowersbc.org.

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HOME/OUTDOOR

slo art scene

internationally acclaimed artist gives ruth fash art talk

By Marta Peluso Really good art simultaneously reveals both good and evil. It brings up complicated questions rather than proposing smug answers.

—Andrea Zittel, Artforum magazine, 2010

discovery that “There is really no such thing as a non-creative gesture.”

On Sunday, September 28 at 3 PM Andrea Zittel will give the RUTH FASH ART TALK in the Cuesta College Humanities Forum, Room 6304. This public event, including parking on the SLO campus, is free of charge, with refreshments and reception to follow.

Zittel continued her investigation of art-asa-way-of-life in 1994 with the creation of A-Z Ruth Fash East, a three-story opento-the public Brooklyn storefront in which people could experience her latest work. Rather than spending time buying and choosing what to wear each day, she simplified the process by making clothing to be worn for three consecutive months at a time. The result is that she wears an elegant uniform of her own design for each season.

Renowned, cutting-edge artist Andrea Zittel presents this year’s RUTH FASH ART TALK. Her experimental and remarkable work transforms acts of living into acts of art. Her work includes paintings, architectural “living units,” handmade clothing, recycling systems, breeding projects and A-Z West, a 35-acre desert site near Joshua Tree, California.

Zittel’s artwork is featured in exhibitions throughout the world including a 2012-13 display in a street-level window at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Her art also has been featured in Artforum magazine, on the cover of Art in America and in the book Andrea Zittel Lay of My Land.

On a tour of A-Z West in April, a painting in progress sat against Zittel’s studio wall with large letters splayed across a desert landscape posing the question, “To Live Within or Without Society?” Her compound seems to embody that question. It’s located in an isolated community on the eastern edge of the Mohave Desert, yet attracts people from all over the world.

In a 2009 interview in “Believer” magazine Zittel said, “When I left graduate school I was totally stumped by the fact that I had been in school studying art for seven years and still didn’t know what art was.

So I set up different kinds of experiments to figure it out.”

This exploration led her to look for artistic gestures in everyday activities, like repairing a leg of a table. “There are so many decisions that go into everything. Is it going to be painted? Is the leg going to be turned on a wood lathe so that it matches the others?” The answer to her experiments was a

Ruth Fash Art Talks’ Committee and two SLO County Architects.

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nected us to the culture at large. Thus the RUTH FASH ART TALKS was conceived to continue her involvement in this community with a lecture series that brings an important person from the art world to SLO County to give a public talk.

RUTH FASH ART TALKS is a collaboration among ARTS Obispo (the SLO County Arts Council), Cuesta College Art Department and a volunteer committee comprised of Lorraine Conlen, Elizabeth Johnson, Stacy Williams and myself. For more information, including how to make a donation in support of this ongoing lecture series, visit the Ruth Fash Art Talks Facebook page, email RuthFashArtTalks@ gmail.com or ARTS Obispo at programs@artsobispo.org.

Prototype for Billboard at A-Z West-Joshua Tree, New York, Los Angeles titled The Three Pointed Shape of My Life, by Andrea Zittel.

In 1999 she spent the entire summer living off the coast of Denmark on a handmade 54-ton floating island. In the fall of that year Zittel moved to A-Z West in Joshua Tree where she unites home, gallery and studio, along with providing space for visiting artists to create work in a program called High Desert Test Sites.

The 35-acre desert compound is a conscious attempt to bring together everyday life and art. Her aesthetic is of functionality, simplicity and beauty. All meals are served out of bowls. Recycled cardboard packing boxes are soaked, broken down and redesigned into shelves used throughout the compound.

Zittel’s melding of art and life has led her to designing small, practical “living units.” These units are lived in on the A-Z West property, displayed in museums and bought by collectors.

Andrea Zittel was born in Escondido, California and lives in Brooklyn and Joshua Tree.

Since 2005, the RUTH FASH ART TALKS has brought seven innovative speakers to San Luis Obispo County. Rachel Rosenthal, an icon in the world of performance art was the first, followed by successful young visual and new media artists Andrea Bowers and Amy Franceschini.

American Crafts curator Jo Lauria spoke in 2012, and Ruth’s very own accomplished son and daughter-in-law, William and Barbara Fash, took time off from Harvard University’s Peabody Museum to speak to us about their important archeological work in Copán, Honduras.

Ruth Fash held a key volunteer position in the 1990s at the SLO Art Center (now known as the SLO Museum of Art or SLOMA). She worked alongside curator Arne Nybak as his assistant. Ruth’s main legacy from that time is that she wrote the guidelines and headed up the committee that hired the first paid curator for our most established local art institution. Although Ruth has been gone now for nearly 10 years, her generous spirit is still felt and continues to inform life on the Central Coast.

Besides her works of art in public places that included banners on the streets of San Luis Obispo and the sculptural tapestry “Firecracker” that hung in the entrance to the SLO branch of the County Public Library for many years, she taught in the Department of Art and Design at Cal Poly, curated exhibitions for SLOMA, and her artwork is part of their permanent collection.

Several local people were inspired to organize a lecture series in Ruth’s name after her death in 2004. Ruth believed that bringing vibrant visiting artists into our midst enriched our lives and conS E P T E M B E R

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though the prospect of moving may be in the distant HOME/OUTDOOR Even future, you owe it to yourself to learn how you can enjoy carefree living in your own home for many years to come.

at the market

You Don’tand Have to Move Simple amazing curry

Feel Safe and Secure

It’s a fact of life that as we get older, Pristine is fully with seasonal veggies some day-to-day tasks become too licensed and insured.

By Sarah Hedger much to handle on our own. That All of our workers doesn’t mean you have to move away are carefully screened eptember is a pretty darn from the comfort of your home. and pass a criminal good month. Sometimes it’s referred • Personal Pristine Home Services is• aHousekeeping local background checkto as a shoulder month, being it’s not Care yet not quite Fall. The that helps San Luis Obispo and drug test,entirely givingSummer, you peace of mind • Yard company • Handyman Maintenance weather is a little of both, keeping us on County residents avoid the high cost when someone Pristine working ourfrom feet, guessing howis warm to dress each day. On the fun, food front, we are pretty Servingof moving All oftoSan Luis Obispo County a retirement facility. in your home.lucky with all this month has on offer—A

S

“She helps meabundance with bathing and other Enjoy Affordable Living of Summer produce around personal care. She is so wonderful to me.

Home Services Specialist whole lot of goodness! Often there is an

(if not in your own backyard), with Fall All of our services can be provided She should bedeliciousness cloned! …and is season and thethe likesprice of apple daily, weekly, or on an as-needed basis. (a personal favorite) welcome us very reasonable.

She even didhere mytowininto cooler days. At our local markets, From housekeeping You to handyman services and plumbing to preparingyou meals.need There is no task too large or pay for only the services San Luis Obispo dows!” R. Watson, aside from an abundance of apples on too small for Pristineand Homewe Services.

All of ourthose services can be providedatdaily, weekly, or on an as-needed provide services a price offer, there is residual Summer produce basis. You pay for only the services you need and we provide those services at a price you can“They afford. took the to ask me exactly withtime the likes of tomatoes, zucchini you can afford. what I wanted. arrived onpotatoes, time, did and They summer squashes, and Pristine Home Services made it possible for tomatillos.

The intro to Fall includes exactly what I asked, and the price was Convenient One-call us to stayService comfortable and independent kiwis, persimmons, pomegranates, reasonable. Ifigs, would recommend Pristine grapes, avocados, and a lot of the nut in our home.

When Mary was diagnosed Our personal care services include a friend.

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So many options! people at Pristine became a very important tion, transportation part andofnon-medical Before you make any decisions that our team. They were trustworthy, care. Our housekeeping services keep your future happiness reliable and always stood by ourcould side. WeaffectThis month’s recipe, Simple and Amazing Curry with Seasonal Veggies, is a recent

truly enjoy our relationship with their staff. your kitchen and the rest of your home and standard of living, take theantime creation and may become all-season and-- Don and Mary Smith spotless. We even do windows to read thesestand-by two FREE reports: as it is easily adaptable to include whatever veggies are in season, as well as laundry.

Our yard maintenance crews Before you make any decisions that could affect your future happiness and standard of living, take every “What tothe know anysenior protein needs you are in mood for (or know how to take care of your favorite the time to read these two FREE reports: not!).

I’ve recently been inspired about living in a retirement facility.”to be a rose bushes and keep the grass neatly little more mindful of what I’m eating as “What every senior needs to know about living in a retirement facility.” well as my eating habits. Often the act of mowed.

Our handyman services are “Four critical questions to ask a “Four critical questions to ask a service provider...before you let anyone work in or near your home.” eating can become overlooked as it can provided by specialists in plumbing, service provider . . . into before you easily blend the day as let a whole, with little what we are actually We invite you to call Pristine rightwork, now so that we can sendrepairs you these two FREE reports by mail. electrical painting, and anyone work inattention or nearto your home.” feeding ourselves. I was finding I was eatsafety rail installation. ingto more outPristine of habits, which Call for rateS We invite you call rightI evidently felt the need to bring awareness to. About now so that the wesame cantime, send you asked theseme if I my mom had heard of the Whole30 program. It two FREE reports by mail.

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essentially is a 30-day commitment to not eating grains, dairy, sugar, and legumes.

What’s left? one may ask. Proteins, produce, and healthy nuts and oils. While I’m a believer in moderation of most things, I felt I could improve and was optimistic that 30 days of eating whole foods would do this. So my mom committed first and I thought it would be good for the both of us to give it a go. As I write this, I am on Day

Simple and amazing curry with seasonal veggies Makes 4 healthy-size servings 2 T coconut oil 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced 1 red onion, thinly sliced 2 carrots, chopped into quarter moons 1 tsp sea salt 1 T turmeric powder 1 T good quality red curry paste (taste to see how hot it is and if SUPER hot, use sparingly) Seasonal veggies cut into similar size pieces (I used 2 zucchini, 2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes, and 1 waxy potato for Summer veggies) 2 cups boiling water 8 and feeling pretty darn good. What I’ve found most interesting is that while I don’t eat much in the way of sweets, there tends to still be a lot of sweetness that finds its way into my life. I do feel in 30 days time my tastebuds will have new awareness as well.

Maybe I’ll be even a better taste tester! While it has required a little more planning, I am finding my meals to be a lot more balanced with nutrient-dense, whole foods. That’s gotta be a good thing, right?

Another good consequence of this program has been coming up with new dishes that are focused around good quality proteins, fruits, and vegetables. On a recent shop outing, I found some locally made red curry paste as well as some artisan fish sauce that inspired me for this curry recipe. Fish sauce that doesn’t smell like rotten fish is inspiring in itself! I used up a bunch of cherry tomatoes that were reaching the end of their life, as well as some zucchini, carrots, and onions. I precut all my ingredients, making it go together in a f lash, and making for some tasty leftovers for the week ahead. Give it a go and enjoy the nourishment, and deliciousness, this dish delivers— on many levels!

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2 T good quality fish sauce 1 can coconut cream Juice of 1 lime *Protein of your choice (I’ve used mussels and added them with the coconut milk at the end as they take less than 5 minutes to cook with the lid on. I also have used a pre-roasted chicken which was great as well.)

Cilantro Place a large, heavy duty stock pot (enameled Le Crueset or the like works great) over medium high heat. Add coconut oil.

When melted, add onions, carrots, salt, and cook stirring until transparent. Add curry paste and stir, coating (and cooking) for a minute. Add seasonal veggies, stir for another couple minutes.

Pour boiling water to just cover veggies. Add fish sauce and coconut cream. (*If using a protein that needs to be cooked, add it now). Cover and cook for 10 minutes, or until veggies are just tender and protein is cooked. Add lime juice and remove from heat. Taste for seasoning (salt), adding more if needed. Top with cilantro and serve in large bowls.

Find this recipe and more seasonal inspiration at http://www. seasonalalchemist.com

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HOME/OUTDOOR

slo county art scene robert reynolds: modesty and Mastery

By Gordon Fuglie

W

e love stories about people who earn mastery at one thing, and then adapt to changing circumstances or new insights, and go on to do another thing even better. Country singer Johnny Cash comes to mind. In the 1980s Cash was eclipsed by the changing country music scene.

“Re-discovered” in the next decade by a rock and rap producer, the 61 year-old singer re-focused and recorded the most intense and heartfelt songs of his career (in L.A., not Nashville, by the way).

San Luis Obispo painter Robert Reynolds had a parallel experience.

Despite a rigorous background in commercial art, as well as a mastery of various media and techniques, he heard his inner voice calling him to become a fine artist. His first efforts were in a semi-abstract style that enjoyed a vogue in the 1960s.

Reynolds had success with these works and was juried into art competitions, even winning awards. He describes his paintings from this period as “dancing with line, shapes and color and heavy with impressive technique but, alas, very light on content. My subject matter jumped all over the place, with no evident commitment, and I knew it.” He was making pictures, not art, and this led to a crisis of artistic identity.

By this time he had enrolled at Cal Poly where he studied to earn a teaching credential while serving as the campus staff artist. Reynolds taught his first art courses in the Department of Education. The administration was impressed by his talent and teaching skills and this led to a stint in the Architecture and Environmental Design Department, where he offered instruction in drawing and watercolor. When the Art Department was established, Reynolds was invited to join its founding faculty.

The roles of art professor and artist stirred his artistic quest, and prompted him to return to the basics. “As a longtime disciple of drawing, I decided the way ahead was to focus on two things—closer

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observation of subjects and honing my drawing skills. My journey of perception led me back to nature. A whole new world suddenly opened up, a world that had been lost to me.”

Forest Light – Big Sur

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Shallow Waters

In responding to nature, Reynolds drew inspiration from 19th century British artists John Constable and J. M. W. Turner, whose dramatic portrayal of skies, weather and water revolutionized British landscape painting. In addition, the close, illuminative and highly particular rendering of nature in the work of Pre-Raphaelite painters John Everett Millais and Holman Hunt appealed to Reynolds’ contemplative vision. I think it no coincidence that the San Luis Obispo artist enjoys a kinship with the art critic John Ruskin, a champion of the Pre-Raphaelites in the 1840s (and himself a skilled draftsman of nature studies) who observed: “The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.”

Soulful seeing drove Reynolds’ new approach to drawing and painting, and surfaced his desire to paint the natural subjects that touched him emotionally and spiritually. Honing his artistic perception, he found a deeper beauty in nature. He also learned to avoid clichéd “postcard landscapes.” Such is the currency of most recreational watercolor and plein-air painters who cleave to visual conventions.

By contrast, Reynolds’s watercolors—while indeed technically polished, are disciplined by “the primary academic task of framing the subject in an interesting or novel pictorial arrangement.” Further, he holds the conviction that “a landscape painting is only as strong as its abstract components.” His viewers and collectors know some of these components: diagonally overlapping masses, luminous radiating forms, cropped dramatic views, and compositions that place a contrastive element as a counterpoint prominently in the scene.

“Down to the Valley” is such a work. A view from the Sierra Nevada, it inverts traditional landscape painting. The composition is foregrounded by converging granite massifs through which surges a foamy creek. Counter-intuitively, the artist emphasizes large barren slabs in a restricted palette of tans, browns and white. The forest beyond is secondary; and the distant mountains merely a hazy strip.

On the other hand, “Forest Light – Big Sur” is a lush epiphany.

The watercolor records Reynold’s discovery of a sunlit fern while hiking the coastal forest. Star-like, glowing green, the fern seems a “natural firework” bursting from the gloomy mulch. It calls to mind that joyful inner moment known as a stillpoint, the conjoining of revelation and insight. In this spirit I again cite Ruskin on the giftedness of our world: “It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.”

A man of a cheerful low-key demeanor, Robert Reynolds for decades has inspired SLO County with his thoughtful and beautiful paintings of our varied scenery. I nominate him as our living cultural treasure. (www.robertreynoldsart.com)

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Our Schools

new leadership for a new school year

By Dr. Julian Crocker, County Superintendent of Schools

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our of our ten school districts will have a new superintendent for the 2014-15 school year. This is a 40% change in leadership and certainly represents the largest single-year change in school district superintendents in San Luis Obispo County in recent memory. This is important since leadership does make a big difference in organizations and school districts are clearly no exception.

The leadership of a school district is a shared responsibility between the locally elected Board of Trustees and the Superintendent they employ. This is often referred to as the “Governance Team” for a school district. The Board’s responsibilities are to establish a vision or direction for the district; to provide the resources to implement that direction; to be accountable to the citizens of the district and to be an advocate for the needs of all children and youth. It is the role of the superintendent to lead the employees and the community of the district in the implementation of the Board’s vision and to manage the daily operation of the district. Using a railroad analogy, the Board lays the tracks and the Superintendent drives the train.

Here is a brief introduction to the four new school district superintendents in our county for the 2014-15 school year.

Anne Hubbard Cayucos Elementary School District Ms. Hubbard comes to Cayucos from the Santa Barbara School District where she was principal of Washington Elementary School. Washington is a school of over 600 students in kindergarten through sixth grade and there are approximately 230 students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade in Cayucos. Ms. Hubbard has the dual role of Principal and Superintendent in Cayucos.

Ms Hubbard is no stranger to our county as she served as an Assistant Principal at Lewis Middle School in the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District in 2010-11. She also served as an Assistant Principal of a Middle School in Cupertino. She has 18 years of teaching experience in grades 5 through 8.

Ms. Hubbard earned a BA degree from UC Santa Barbara and an MA degree in Educational Leadership from Cal Poly.

Teresa Taylor Shandon Joint Unified School District Ms. Taylor re-joins the Shandon school district coming from the Taft Union High School District in Kern County where she worked for more than nine years as a teacher of Agricultural Science, Alternative Education and Algebra. She also served as the Agricultural Program Coordinator and Summer School Principal in Taft. Ms. Taylor is no stranger to our county, or to

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Shandon, as she went to school and later taught in Shandon for over eight years. She also taught for five years in the Templeton Unified School District. Shandon’s enrollment is 250 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Ms. Taylor has had a variety of administrative experiences including Summer School Principal, Department Chair, Dean of Students, Adult School Principal, High School Athletic Director and Associated Student Body Advisor. She earned her BS and MA degrees from Cal Poly.

Victoria Schumacher Coast Unified School District The Coast Unified School District serves the communities of Cambria and San Simeon for kindergarten through grade twelve and Cayucos for grades 9-12 (high school).

The district’s enrollment last school year was 740 students. Dr. Schumacher comes to the Coast Unified School District from the Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified School District which has an enrollment of 9700 students in San Bernardino County, where she served as the Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services.

Dr. Schumacher has served as a teacher, an assistant principal, principal and Director of Assessment for school districts in Southern California. She earned her BA and MA degrees from UC Berkeley and her Doctorate degree in Education from UCLA.

Chris Williams Paso Robles Joint Unified School District Mr. Williams comes to the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District, which has an enrollment of 6500 students from kindergarten through grade twelve, from the Central Unified School District in Fresno County, with an enrollment of 15,500 students in kindergarten through grade twelve. Mr. Williams served as a high school Assistant Principal and Principal of a middle school in the Central Unified School District before being appointed as the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources for the District in 2006. Mr. Williams earned a BA degree from California State University, Fresno and an MA degree in Education from National University. He was named Fresno County Administrator of the Year in 2004.

We welcome these four new school district superintendents to San Luis Obispo County for this school year.

The San Luis Obispo Symphony is Painting the Town Red Experience the instrument that inspired the Academy Award winning film “The Red Violin”

OPENING NIGHT

October 4, 2014 · 8pm

CHRISTOPHER COHAN CENTER, SAN LUIS OBISPO

Soloist Elizabeth Pitcairn CONCERT SPONSORS

David Houston, in Loving Memory of Mary Houston Jim & Beverly Smith

For tickets visit slosymphony.org or call 756-4849 SEASON SPONSORS

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Painting the town red! ...slo symphony’s “meet the Red Violin” Concert

By Susan Stewart

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egend has it that an anguished Antonio Stradivari added the blood of his recently deceased wife to the varnish he used to finish what is arguably the world’s finest violin, The Red Violin, in 1720.

The tale, depicted in the 1998 film The Red Violin, accounts for the distinctive red stripe that runs the length of the instrument. It is said that this addition was a final act of homage; a way to keep his beloved wife alive through the exquisite music it made.

On Saturday October 4th, audiences will meet the Red Violin and its current owner, internationally acclaimed violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn, at SLO Symphony’s 54th season-opening concert. Taking the stage at the Performing Arts Center at 8 pm, Pitcairn will be joined by the Symphony to play Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, described as “fiery and enormously difficult.” Pitcairn was just 16 years old when she first performed the piece before the audience at Christie’s Auction House in London in 1990—on her newly acquired red violin.

“The Tchaikovsky Concerto is the first piece I ever played on the Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius,” said Pitcairn. “I also recorded it, so it is a big part of my repertoire. It is a piece I deeply love to play.”

“We are hoping to screen the film [The Red Violin] sometime before the performance to give audiences a sense of the history and the legend that has developed around the instrument since its birth,” said the Symphony’s new Executive Director, Edmund Feingold.

Taking the helm as the Symphony’s newest E.D. just last month, Feingold said the film “… wonderfully portrays the instrument as an orphan passing through the hands of great violinists over 300 years … conveying the truth of music’s role in personal and social life, politics and commerce.”

Feingold comes to the Symphony with more than 20 years of arts management experience. He has been the Executive Director of

Elizabeth Pitcairn with The Red Violin.

Boston Musica Viva, the Illinois Philharmonic, and most recently, the Monterey Symphony. Feingold has a reputation for inspiring passion for the arts and for using inventive methods to do it. For example, last year, Feingold and the Monterey Symphony led the “Play Me I’m Yours” project which placed painted pianos on street corners for all to play.

“We had thousands of people visiting the pianos, impromptu music popping up around the county, and partner organizations working for a common cause during the 17-day project,” said Feingold.

He promises that in the weeks preceding the Red Violin concert, SLO residents can expect to see red violins popping up in unlikely places as he seeks to “paint the town red” to generate excitement.

Impressed by our county’s cohesive can-do attitude, Feingold said he hears stories nearly every day that speak to the profound connection that music makes in people’s lives. Take for example the Youth Symphony graduate now touring the summer festival circuit to improve his craft; or the recent widow who shares how music gave solace to her dying husband; or the pop music fan who is over-the-moon that rock group Yes’s Jon Anderson will be featured at the upcoming Symphony event, Pops By the Sea. “These stories remind me that music is not window dressing,” he said.

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and its owner/player for the first time. Celebrated American violin soloist Elizabeth Pitcairn is originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She began playing the violin at age 5, and eventually earned her degree from USC where she studied with preeminent violin professor Robert Lipsett. Since then she has performed all over the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Europe and Asia.

Ms. Pitcairn is also CEO and Artistic Director of the Lucerne Music Center Festival in New York State; and she teaches at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, California. On tour, she makes time to teach master classes at schools and colleges to aspiring young musicians.

Among her many accolades and achievements is a Swedish Grammy nomination for her 2010 release of “Hymns to the Night.”

“I often let serious young violinists have a chance to play my Stadivarius,” she said, “because even a few moments can change their concept of sound. I feel it’s my life’s responsibility to share this great instrument with the world.”

As Ed Feingold finds his sea legs in his new position with our Symphony, he is lucky to have his own history with The Red Violin. Feingold worked with the violinist, Rachael Barton Pine, who helped create the free-form solo in the Oscar-winning score for the movie. “The score is imminently memorable and as impressive as the story,” he said.

“There is so much history brought together into this one live experience,” he continued. “The key word being LIVE. We breathe life into our cultural history by performing it, as we will that night.”

SLO Symphony’s new Executive Director, Edmund Feingold.

“[The orchestra] is also a community of musicians, of audience, of scholars, businesses, and families. It reflects both life and society.

“I have the good fortune of working with and leading the people who help make that community flourish,” Feingold continued. “That is what gives me those first-date butterflies that motivate me to work every day.”

The air will be thick with first-date butterflies in the PAC auditorium on October 4th when those in the seats will meet both the Red Violin

Nearly 300 years, five countries (from Vienna to Shanghai), and countless owners later, the Red Violin will make its appearance in San Luis Obispo in the gifted hands of Elizabeth Pitcairn. The exquisite music it makes that night will keep Mrs. Antonio Stradivari’s memory alive even as it breathes new life into our own musical and cultural consciousness.

Readers are directed to www.slosymphony.com for concert details, including where and when the film will be screened.

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history

happy birthday slo! now, what’s the date again?

By Joe Carotenuti

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hile many communities announce their founding date on signs at the municipality’s entrance, none exists in this community. So just when should there be a birthday/anniversary celebration for San Luis Obispo? It’s shouldn’t be a mystery as there are several possibilities:

Both photos of SLO were taken in the early 1900s

1. September 1, 1772: On this day, Franciscan Friar Junipero Serra intones the ancient ritual for a Catholic Mass and spiritually dedicates the fifth mission site in honor of San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (St. Louis, Bishop of Tolouse) and Captain Pedro Fages claims secular authority in the name of Charles II, King of Spain. Neither intends to establish a pueblo although the Crown’s very unrealistic plan is to do so within ten years.

2. 1844: the mission settlement is declared a pueblo in the Mexican Department of Californias. Now legally organized as a secular community, the designation was not recognized by the central government in Mexico City. This would become an issue after statehood when the small enclave wanted to be a town.

3. 1849: the California Legislature (hoping for admission into the Union) creates the County of San Luis Obispo and the community of the same name as the County Seat of Justice. They fail to realize that no such community legally exists under American rule.

4. 1856: The now State of California legislates into existence the Town of San Luis Obispo. Unfortunately, there still is no such place…legally.

5. 1868: In October, the local authorities purchase (for $1.25 an acre) the municipal site from the Federal government and establishes legal claim to about 600 acres. The Town is now part of California.

6. 1876: On March 20, the State Legislature confers the title of “City” on the growing municipality. It qualified for the designation having at least 3000 residents.

In any event, given all the choices, sadly today there is no official recognition of any date for California’s fifth oldest settlement.

Nonetheless, in 1872, a centennial celebration (of sorts) was held by our civic ancestors.

Here’s the story.

On July 15, 1872, the then Board of Town Trustees invited representatives of the Society of California Pioneers (founded in 1850) to attend a centennial celebration on Monday, August 19 called San Luis Day. The original resolution presented by Charles H. Johnson had the date of August 16 that was incorrect. This must have been a clerical error as Johnson was quite familiar with the town’s history having lived here from the mid-1850s. He will provide the historical background S E P T E M B E R

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By Sunday, the influx of visitors astonished the editor. He wondered if all the arrivals assumed the small crossroads “could distend itself ad libitum, so as to provide accommodations to all those who sought it.” There were few places to lodge in the community.

The Sunday service in the Mission in English was enhanced by young ladies who had traveled from Los Angeles for the specific celebration. The following day, August 19, another service was provided with the sermon this time in Spanish.

There was no expected procession and the “usual attempts at bull fighting” in the community plaza near Monterey and Court Streets was a “fiasco”… much to the pleasure of the newspaper.

Unfortunately, the expected guests from San Francisco were not present. It seems the steamship owners were unwilling to sail without a certain amount of fare paying passengers and—once under way—were planning to stop in San Diego before docking in Avila. The length of the trip was prohibitive for the Society’s representatives. to much of the early county and community for Myron Angel’s History of San Luis Obispo County (1883). The celebration was to be “conjointly celebrated with the citizens of the Town” and the Catholic Church. Father Peter Sastre, the Mission’s pastor, chose the feast day of St. Louis who died in 1297 as the date to celebrate rather than the mission’s founding date.

Shortly thereafter, Johnson chaired a meeting of locals to plan a festive day for the invited guests and residents including a picnic in the mission’s olive grove and a grand ball.

The newspaper’s editor cajoled all readers to participate in the planning of the “gaieties and festivities.”

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was considered important enough to be published in a 16-page booklet.

While wishing the speech concentrated more on the California missions, the newspaper’s editor was impressed and commented this was the first “lecture since the founding.” The inference is that progressive communities sponsored intellectual pursuits as well as commercial. He failed to mention Johnson’s Fourth of July address just a few weeks previously. It was not Johnson’s last as his personal library seems to have referenced extensive world history for other speeches.

One hundred years later, a grand community party was held in Mission Plaza … but that’s another story. Since there are so many possibilities for a Community Birthday Party, wouldn’t it be a grand idea to continue remembering our founding 242 years ago?!

Contact: jacarotenuti@gmail.com

Nonetheless, Johnson had prepared an “oration” entitled “The Establishment of Missions in California” for the guests. Instead, he delivered the speech on September 3 closer to the “real date” of the Mission’s founding for the benefit of the San Luis Obispo Library Association with an admission fee of fifty cents. Over 7000 words are devoted only slightly to the mission founding but encompass a mini-history of the great movements of mankind from the Egyptians to the Greeks to the Romans to the Iberian empires. The pageant of the past simply complimented the Spanish expedition in 1769 characterized as the “patriarchal age” of California. The speech

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palm street perspective

Wizards in SLO? Maybe—There’s a “Hogwarts” at the “Hot House”

By SLO City Councilman, John Ashbaugh

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s I write this, my wife and I are in Scotland, riding on the famous “Hogwarts” train from Fort William to Mallaig in the Western Highlands. When we were crossing the 17-arch stone viaduct at Glenfinnan that features so prominently in the “Harry Potter” films, I got to thinking about the journey taken by each entering student at Cal Poly as they enter our “Middle Kingdom” of San Luis Obispo. What kind of a future lies ahead for them?

They won’t be waving magic wands nor learning spells from aging scholars of wizardry like Hogwarts Professor Albus Dumbledore, but they are learning the tools that will help them to succeed in the 21st century. And even before they graduate, the City of San Luis Obispo is helping some of the more advanced students engage in the “real world” of developing and managing a business.

We have our own version of “Hogwarts” in SLO, and it’s called the “Hot House,” a joint venture of Cal Poly’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the City of San Luis Obispo, and the local business community. Our Hogwarts (oops, I mean the Hot House) is located in the former offices of our Public Works Department at 959 Morro Street, across from the parking structure at Morro and Palm. This building now belongs to the Copeland Brothers and their partners as part of their “Chinatown” project, but it is temporarily given over to use as a site for business start-ups launched by Cal Poly seniors (and some juniors and recent grads) in a unique collaborative enterprise.

When I first ran for the Council in Fall 2008, the entire nation was falling into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. San Luis Obispo was by no means immune from this catastrophic economic decline. In my campaign that year, I called for the City to make a new commitment to economic development, and I noted the opportunity to create an “incubator” space in the old Public Works office at 959 Morro Street: That space was still fully furnished, plumbed, and wired, and could be easily occupied by eager students and young

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adults willing to work long hours in developing their ideas for new products and services.

An early version of the “Hot House” was launched in 2011 in an office building on South Higuera owned by Madonna Enterprises, and operated for that summer and early fall. By Spring 2012, the “Hot House” concept was ready for its launch at 959 Morro. The City worked out a deal with the Copelands for the building, and provided a $25,000 grant as part of our Economic Development Plan adopted by the Council that year.

Since its first class, the “Hot House” facility has hosted several sessions of students with many different majors, and in various stages of matriculation. The students earn little more than academic credit AND the chance to meet and collaborate with some of the most successful entrepreneurs and business coaches that this community has to offer.

The Hot House is a “hatchery of ideas,” with an accelerated and intensive 3 month program that provides mentors helping students with customer development, market analysis, interviews and networking, and team-building. Last spring, the facility hosted 8 teams with about 40 students working on applications intended to lead to a viable, marketable “product” by the end of summer. Essentially, the Hot House provides a co-working space with community members from various specialties— even an attorney specializing in patents and trademarks. Ultimately, we hope to integrate some of the companies that “make it” as co-founders, nurturing the work of the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Walk into the Hot House, and you’re likely to see a beehive of activity with projects in evidence on the tables or scratched out in concept on whiteboards—or more likely, lighting up the digital screens of the students’ laptops. Teams of students are working over concepts ranging from sustainable agriculture to “green walls.”

You might, for example, meet Shea Brucker who is leading a team to develop “Homeslice,” an “app” designed to enable roommates to coordi-

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nate their daily living tasks and chores in a systematic, organized manner. Shea has already pitched his idea to venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, and has secured $1 million in start-up funding to get his app into widespread use.

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SEPTEMBER CROSSWORD SOLUTIONS ON PAGE 43

Walk down the hall, and you’ll encounter “Z” Living Systems, a collaboration of industrial and mechanical engineers and landscape architects. Chad Kihm could tell you about how they hope to revolutionize urban design by installing living “green walls” in public and private settings throughout the world.

An example is already in place at the Hot House, and a prototype will soon be installed at Playa Vista in Los Angeles.

One difference between Hogwarts and the Hot House: The teams are not pitted against each other in fierce competitions like “quiddich,” but rather linked together in a common cause of teamwork and collaboration, with the serendipity of sharing ideas, talents, and imagination.

Developing the “Hot House” has had a positive and measurable impact on the City’s economy, while also stimulating and supporting the mission of Cal Poly. That institution is the chief economic engine of this community, with an impact of over $1 billion annually overall. The “magic” of Hogwarts is alive and well in the “Hot House,” and Dumbledore would be proud!

STATEPOINT CROSSWORD THEME: BACK TO SCHOOL ACROSS 1. Eat quickly and greedily 6. Store sign, abbr.

9. Life saver 13. Gastric woe 14. Poetic “before” 15. *Geometry tool 16. Mood disorder somewhat opposite of depression 17. Pitching stat 18. Fill with optimism 19. *Not needed for an oral test 21. *Jeff Spicoli’s history teacher 23. Blue feeling 24. *Do it to term papers, pre-word processors 25. Insane 28. Adherent of Sikhism 30. African snake whose bite can be fatal, pl.

35. Lode deposits

37. Change for a five 39. Make a logical connection 40. Plural of velum 41. Customs, values and behaviors acceptable to a social group 43. Astronaut’s insignia 44. “Vide _____” or “see below” 46. *Mrs. Krabappel’s naughty student 47. Big ____ at 7-Eleven 48. *Lunch period activity 50. A secret look 52. Casual attire 53. Sports award 55. Goose egg 57. *Teacher who made “wha wha wha” sound 60. *One for each class?

63. Very, in music 64. ___-Wan 66. Enter a computer 68. Sauvignon _____ 69. National University of Singapore 70. It follows the strophe and antistrophe 71. Electricity pathway

72. “C’___ la vie!”

73. Torn down DOWN 1. *Math class total 2. *Done after school play 3. *High school breakout 4. Secretariat’s controls 5. Brawl 6. Obedience school command 7. *Short for reading, writing and arithmetic 8. Squalid 9. Waikiki dance 10. Distinctive flair 11. Retired, abbr.

12. Iron ___ 15. Heat again 20. “Pulling my leg,” e.g.

22. Dashboard abbr.

24. Health problem remediation 25. *”Back to School” or “Blackboard Jungle,” e.g.

26. “Gladiator” setting

27. Dutch pottery city 29. Door ____ 31. Chinese dynasty (1368-1644) 32. An outstanding example of its kind 33. Bridal path 34. *Hogwarts’ potions professor 36. Delhi wrap 38. Arid 42. Dictation taker 45. Lacking vigor or energy 49. General Services Administration 51. ______ whale 54. Lying facedown 56. Parkinson’s disease drug 57. 1952 Olympics site 58. Boris Godunov, for one 59. Full house, e.g.

60. Pugilist’s weapon 61. Prima donnas’ problems 62. Was a passenger 63. *Early hit from Michael Jackson 65. *Its business is picking up and dropping off 67. Netherlands in the Olympics

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vandenberg’s jewel: the space and missile heritage center

By Joseph T. Page II

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mid the wind-swept dunes along a twenty-two mile stretch of the Central Coast lies the last stronghold of the Cold War. The location is replete with intercontinental ballistic missile silos, steely-eyed men and women affectionately known as “missileers,” space launch gantries towering more than one hundred feet above the ground and large rockets to lift satellites into the heavens. Vandenberg Air Force Base, outside of Lompoc, sounds like the last place on earth you’d find a space museum.

Here at Space Launch Complex-10 (“Slick Ten”), the Space and Missile Heritage Center contains artifacts from Cold War’s earliest days.

Museum director Mr. Donald “Jay” Prichard maintains a brick-andmortar collection on par with national museum programs like the Smithsonian, albeit without the donations or large funding. “The

mock-up command and control console to inert rocket stages - A Mark 21 Re-entry vehicle mock-up from the now-retired Peacekeeper missile - Displays about the Corona satellite program, the world’s first photo reconnaissance (“spy”) satellite - Personal artifacts from Brigadier General William King, the “godfather” of the Corona program - A Corona re-entry vehicle (“film bucket”) Director Prichard maintains another important piece of history at SLC-10: context. While some military and civilian space museums are wrapped up in the glory of the endeavor, SLC-10 gives visitors unique perspective on why the artifacts and their stories are important.

museum runs off the money provided by the 30th Space Wing here at Vandenberg,” Prichard tells museum visitors who wish to donate. “In essence, they’re your tax dollars.”

The two museum buildings at SLC-10 house some unique artifacts: - A full-size launch console from an Atlas ICBM launch control center (complete with built-in ashtrays!)

- A scale model of a Titan II missile complex - Examples of Minuteman missile hardware, from a S E P T E M B E R

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Vandenberg’s tales of derring-do involve regular Joes (albeit ones with engineering degrees) solving problems such as preventing rust from forming on the skin of the Atlas missile. Thirty-nine formulas to displace the water were tried and success was found with formula #40: hence the name of the popular household product WD-40. Another anecdote involving the sensitive Titan missile guidance system had engineers pondering a 28-day cycle of gravitational drift. It wasn’t until tests were conducted on a “bright moonlit night,” that they realized the Earth’s orbital companion was causing almost imperceptible shifts to the gravitational pull. The missile’s guidance system, created in nearby Goleta at the AC Delco factory, tracked it like a champ.

The final spot on the tour is hidden as visitors drive into the parking lot. Walking around the administration building, visitors may spot barbed wire and large cylindrical tanks and start to sense changes in the place’s vibe. A hundred feet southwest of the parking lot, a restored Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) lies inside its launch shelter. Once on nuclear alert in England, this missile was brought back to the U.S. to fulfill tasks as an anti-satellite missile.

Now rescued, restored and retired, the Thor gives visitors a chance to see one of the earliest U.S. space launch vehicles and precursor to the current Delta rocket family. The display is awe-inspiring.

The Space and Missile Heritage Center is worth a visit if you’re in the area and have an interest in space history. The museum is open 9am4pm daily. There are restrooms within the building; however there is no snack bar or gift shop on-site. Travel to the site will require access to Vandenberg AFB, which must be coordinated with 30th Space Wing Public Affairs at (805) 606-3595. For any questions or concerns, please contact museum director Jay Prichard at (805) 605-8300.

Downtown

Around

The Magazine of Downtown San Luis Obispo

Inside:

September 2014

W hat ’s U p Downtown B usiness Spo tlights Mee t our Ne west S ta f fer

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force of students, faculty and staff as well as their ach year our town undergoes a rather dramatic parents and guests, but also in terms of the labor transformation during September. Not only do force that the colleges generate. If you were to we get a change of seasons, we get a change of look at the amount of revenue generated in our pace, as parents get settled in with their children businesses, the percentage that could be traced starting classes again, harvest season arrives and back to Cuesta or Poly would be quite telling of college students move into our neighborhoods. It how a college can drive an economy. That number can be said that Autumn is the season of fullness; would have to include the money that was spent fullness with the bounty from orchards and by alumni who have stayed in the area, current gardens, fullness with our schedules as classes students, parents of students, faculty, staff, and begin and vacations subside and fullness in Dominic Tartaglia, Executive Director guests and visitors of all of the aforementioned our neighborhoods and streets as new students parties. The economic benefit alone is something learn what it means to be a community member. that many business owners would agree makes waiting in Those students bring with them a harvest basket filled traffic near the colleges more tolerable. with benefits as well. Benefits that may sometimes be forgotten in the midst of popular town/gown issues hat being said, students should bring with them benefits of parties, housing and traffic that happen with any beyond financial gain. Along with a student body circumstance where you start mixing different cultures comes the cultural benefit of the arts on and off campus. and demographics together. Since the conversation usually I doubt that I can find a friend or colleague of mine that revolves around the perceived nuisance of student life in has never been to a performance on at least one of our our community and the dialog rarely changes I would like campuses in town in a venue that would not have been to highlight those benefits our student population brings to constructed without the use of student fees or initiatives. our Downtown and surrounding community.

Whether it’s a Forbes Pipe Organ concert at Cal Poly or Festival Mozaic at Cuesta, many world renowned he most obvious benefit that San Luis Obispo receives musicians have performed in our little town along the coast is a massive economic benefit to having two colleges in that otherwise would have been passed up. Beyond the town. Both Cal Poly and Cuesta have a significant impact arts, this past year Cal Poly Athletics was all over the on our Downtown economy in terms of the consumer

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On the Cover: Cal Poly has a definite presence in the heart of Downtown San Luis Obispo with their retail outlet where the public can purchase items to show their Mustang Pride. Photo by Dominic Tartaglia.

September 5

don’ t mis s the last of th concert e sea son!

Concerts

Plaza

in the FREE LIVE MUSIC, Fridays 5 - 8 PM* in Downtown SLO’s Mission Plaza

Big Daddy’s Blues Band presents

r & b, bluesy jazz Sponsor:

San Luis Luggage

The San Luis Obispo Downtown Association would like to

THANK ALL OF OUR 2014 SPONSORS

bike valet sponsor:

brought to you by:

proudly pouring:

2014

Adamski Moroski Madden Cumberland & Green LLP ◆ Cal Poly Downtown ◆ Cornerstone Real Estate ◆ Creeky Tiki Frog & Peach Pub ◆ Grand Central Music Store ◆ Jules D. ◆ Kreuzberg Coffee Company ◆ Law Office of Diane M. Itzenhauser Moondoggies Beach Club ◆ Mother’s Tavern ◆ San Luis Luggage ◆ San Luis Obispo Transit ◆ Wallace Group

For details, contact the San Luis Obispo Downtown Association at (805) 541-0286 or visit www.DowntownSLO.com

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local media and Mustang Fever was rampant due to a local fan base. Locals finally had a local team, or two, that they could rally behind, but where did they watch the game from if they couldn’t get to the stadium? Downtown. You couldn’t walk through Downtown without noticing green and gold in the windows, people wearing their Poly gear or games being played on bar and restaurant TVs. That excitement spreads a noticeable vibe and draws even more people to our Downtown. here’s also a really great benefit to our community that local colleges attract the best and brightest students from across the country. Cuesta College students took numerous honors at SkillsUSA this past year and will soon be representing our town in Brazil for WorldSkills, an international competition for vocational skills. The competition to be a student in San Luis Obispo is intense and a testament to the quality of education that our colleges provide. Last year nearly 41,000 students applied to Cal Poly for 4,000 open seats! If you look at the numbers, Cal Poly has consistently ranked among the top in the nation for engineering, business, agriculture and most recently, first in the nation for architecture programs.

When those students graduate many of them leave, some of them find jobs locally and others start successful businesses here. Both Jamba Juice and iFixit, just outside of Downtown, are popular and wildly successful businesses developed by local alumni. But how many alumni run companies Downtown that are less well known? A lot,

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and the numbers are increasing. Each time one of those businesses starts down here our community grows. Not only because there is a new company but a lot of times those companies use interns from the local student body and give them a first glance into the business world. In SLO a big part of the business world also happens to involve community service and in many different capacities students are encouraged to participate in that same philosophy. Cal Poly’s Learn By Doing concept goes so much deeper than just hands-on class work, but includes hands-on community participation. o instead of looking at students as a nuisance, I say we really should be looking at them as the seeds of the future. We can help to inform them about what it takes to be responsible citizens in the community; in conjunction with the colleges and as residents and business owners, I think we should. Many of the students simply need a bit of guidance and if you really look at why they come to college, it’s because they want to learn and become responsible adults contributing to society. Sure there will always be a few bad seeds and there will be problems with the usual spectrum of parties, noise and traffic but as a whole we are lucky to have a student presence in the Downtown and in all of San Luis Obispo.

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For more information on Downtown Association events, programs and activities, or to sign up for our weekly Deliver-E newsletter, visit www.DowntownSLO.com

D o w n t o w n

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inspiration from the Hollywood Jennifer Herrera, Owner (picture right) Tower of Terror at 560 Higuera Street, Suite D Disney California Adventure, (805) 752-1099 complete with headrushsalonslo@gmail.com striped walls, candelabra f you’re looking for a new Downtown salon with a talented team and a vivacious vibe, Head Rush Salon will sconces and have something for you. Owner Jennifer Herrera takes pride Victorian-style couches and in her ability and drive to serve the needs of anyone who chairs. The happens to walk through the door of her salon, located thrilling ride at 560 Higuera Street, Suite D. From organic hair color also gave Herrera her inspiration for the name of the salon, to color correction to smoothing treatments, Head Rush because of the insane “head rush” she got on the ride. “We Salon hopes to serve its clients with whatever they need in a fun, relaxing atmosphere that’s “not so formal, but still got off and I told my fiancé, that is the definition of a head rush. You hit every level,” Herrera said. This translates to her professional.” work in that she can essentially “hit every level” of styling, reviously a stylist at Hepkat and Renaissance Salon, like taking someone from black hair to platinum in one day! both in Downtown San Luis Obispo, Herrera has et your own head rush with a new cut, color, and/or been a stylist in the area for more than 6 years. When styling seven days a week by appointment or as a the whirlwind opportunity arose for her to open her own walk-in. salon, Herrera rushed towards it, securing her location right past The Creamery. Beginning in April 2014, Herrera By: Emily Seropian and her fiancé spent long nights remodeling the salon with

Head Rush Salon

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New Earth Superfoods

Gunter Ternes, Owner 942 Chorro Street (805) 592-2450 www.NewEarthSuperfoods.com

to share the healing and positive energies these foods can bring to the community.

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hen you visit New Earth Superfoods, you can expect to receive very unique and high quality artisan made foods. Everything in the store is hand crafted and meticulously made to be as healthy and curative as possible. While their main purpose is to serve specially ernes, originally from Germany, started this business in crafted food and drinks, they also aim to educate their Downtown San Luis Obispo because he simply liked the customers on common health misconceptions. The employees believe everything they teach and are extremely area and felt New Earth Superfoods would really flourish dedicated to inventing new recipes and food combinations. here. He has been working and developing these new Stop by Tuesday through Sunday 11 AM to 6 PM and grab a healthy food combinations for years by doing extensive juice or snack and begin your journey to finding a new you! amounts of research. After seeing direct proof of these remedial foods in his friends and himself he now wants By: Kayla Adair

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tart a new you at New Earth Superfoods! This unique health café creates foods that carry the power of healing.

Owner Gunter Ternes and his associate, Rob Alexander, mix food and science in a healthy way crafting innovative food and drinks that are great tasting and have amazing health benefits. New Earth Superfoods is located at 942 Chorro Street where it offers detoxifying food, fresh juices, smoothies, parfaits and desserts all made with ingredients that have not been treated with harmful substances.

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an Luis Obispo Downtown Association welcomes a new staff member. Jill Bilich has joined the team as the new Thursday Night Promotions Coordinator. Bilich graduated from Cal Poly with a bachelors in Business Administration in 2008 and most recently worked as a coordinator for CAPSLO Youth Programs where she wore many hats and led the development of a county-wide resource website for teens, TheSLOdown.org. She loves music, the outdoors, and leading the youth group at Calvary SLO with her husband Nick. She has a strong passion for supporting local businesses and organizations and helping them thrive. She is excited to serve the community in new ways by stepping into this role!

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operation of our beautiful Light Station. You could be a part of this amazing organization by becoming a Lighthouse Board Member.

This fall there will be four seats coming available on the Keepers Board of Directors, and we are now seeking nominations for new Board Members. We are looking for individuals who have a passion for local history, enhancing coastal access, and preserving an important piece of our heritage. If you or someone you know fits this description we would encourage you to consider becoming a part of our family. Nominations are being accepted now and can be sent via email to the Lighthouse Keepers Executive Director Kristi Balzer at kristibalzer@gmail.com. Nominees will be considered and interviewed in September and October, and elected in November to serve a two year term from 2015 – 2017.

phillips 66 awards $16,000 in scholarships billboards removed in slo

The billboard on Santa Barbara Street has finally been removed after 13 years of effort by the City of SLO to eliminate this from our Historic Railroad District. The Railroad Museum has ardently lobbied for its removal, since it obscured any view of the museum from the road and also since its location was a prime spot for a Railroad Museum sign. Two more billboards have been removed from the Johnson Ranch Open Space. Unfortunately, the city had to resort to litigation to actually get the billboards to come down, so removal is the result of a settlement agreement.

local rotarians support big brothers/sisters

Local Rotary groups have shown their support of Big Brothers Big Sisters’ one-to-one mentoring programs. Pismo Beach Rotary donated $758, Morro Bay Rotary gave $250, and San Luis Obispo Daybreak Rotary contributed $750. Anna Boyd-Bucy, the organization’s Executive Director said “The generous support from Rotary will provide for targeted recruiting, screening, training and matching, as well as ongoing support, safety training and supervision for volunteers, children, and families. Every dollar goes directly to serving youth in SLO County.” For more information on volunteering or contributing to Big Brothers Big Sisters, call 7813226, or log onto www.slobigs.org.

lighthouse keepers seeking board member

The Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers is the non-profit organization responsible for the restoration, preservation, and

Emma Wedell, recent grad of Morro Bay High School, and David Garcia, grad of Nipomo High School, were recognized by Phillips 66 Refinery in Santa Maria with a scholarship (two of 65 recipients nationwide). David Garcia is son of Santa Maria Refinery Safety Coordinator Andy Garcia. David was a student athlete, dedicated agriculturalist and FFA leader while at Nipomo High School and plans to study mechanical or agricultural engineering. Emma Wedell was honored for her high academic achievement and dedication to the Central Coast community. She is daughter of former Santa Maria Refinery Mechanical Engineer Jeff Wedell and wife Marianne. She is pictured with her parents, Refinery Manager Jerry Stumbo, and Jeff’s former supervisor, Tomas Zambrano.

Emma will attend Cuesta College this fall and plans to transfer to a four-year university in San Francisco in the future, where she can study psychology and mental health. Please contact Kristen Kopp for any questions you may have at (805) 343-3241 or via email at Kristen.m.kopp@p66.com.

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alan’s draperies 544-9405 alansdrapery@gmail.com 2014

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Fuentes Rotary de tolosa rotarian of the year

The Rotary Club of SLO de Tolosa has named their 2013-2014 Rotarian of the Year. David Fuentes, co-owner/realtor of Cornerstone Real Estate, has recently been recognized as the outstanding Rotarian. Rotary de Tolosa 2013-2014 President Jenifer Rhynes selected Fuentes for his “can do” attitude and extraordinary volunteer efforts on many Rotary projects. Fuentes took on key leadership roles such as Project Manager/Chair for a three day De Groot Nursing Home renovation and Chair of the 4-H Awards BBQ. He also was involved as a RYLA camp counselor, Charitable Giving Committee member and advisor for the Mission Prep Interact Club. Rhynes commends Fuentes for his generosity, willingness to get involved and his capacity to coordinate many noteworthy community service events. Rhynes also announced Cheryl Wakefield, Catering Sales Manager at the Embassy Suites, as New Rotarian of the Year for her volunteerism, commitment and energy to get involved with many Rotary activities.

central coast aquarium fundraiser dinner

The Central Coast Aquarium announces their annual fundraiser called “Catch of the Central Coast” on Saturday, September 6th at 5:30pm.

This year guests will enjoy spectacular ocean views while dining over the water on the newly remodeled Harford Pier at the Port San Luis Harbor in Avila Beach. This limited seating event will include live music and a live and silent auction. Guests will be served an elegant multi coursed Ocean-to-Table sustainable seafood dinner complete with wine pairings and artisan finishes. Catch of the Central Coast is a benefit for the Central Coast Aquarium whose mission is to cultivate a Community of Ocean Stewardship through Education, Engagement and Action. Tickets are available by going to the CCA’s website www. centralcoastaquarium.com. Tickets are $100 per person.

C rossword S O L U T I O N S

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diaper donation

SLO County Womenade is grateful to Jayne Engle Allen and the staff, customers, family, and friends of Engle and Associates Insurance for a successful July diaper drive. The bounty of diapers and wipes will help families throughout the county. Womenade is a 501 (c)(3) that receives referrals from local agencies, schools, doctors, and dentists, and donates time, money, and items to meet their clients’ essential needs. www.slowomenade.com. Thanks so much for your support for Womenade! Photo: Left, Jayne Engle Allen; right, Sandy Richardson, Womenade president

33rd annual morro bay harbor festival

The 33rd Annual Morro Bay Harbor Festival, held at the water’s edge at the working harbor and which draws nearly 20,000 visitors each year, will be held on Saturday and Sunday, October 4th and 5th. This year’s Festival will be doubly outstanding with the City of Morro Bay continuing its year-long celebration of 50 years as an incorporated City. The Festival promises to be outstanding and profitable to local charities. It’s also heartwarming that its annual celebration of a working fishing harbor is also a yearly fundraiser for nearly 30 local, non-profit organizations. The Festival will feature many of the popular events visitors love—including the Oyster Eating Contest, Kids Cove, Maritime exhibits, and shopping at a wide variety of art and crafts booths—much of it created by local artisans. Additionally, there will be the popular delicious barbecued albacore kabobs, a wide variety of other festival food treats, local wine and beer and more. The Festival will also feature several outstanding bands. Patrons of this year’s Harbor Festival can save $2 per admission ticket by purchasing them in advance on the Festival’s website for $10.00 per adult, $5.00 for children ages 6-12. Admission for children 5 and under is free. For more information call (805) 772-1155 or by email: info@mbhf.com.

rotary club of slo’s 14th annual homes tour

Guests will have an exclusive look into five beautiful and interesting homes as the Rotary Club of SLO presents the 14th Annual “Homes of Distinction” Tour, Sunday, September 21 from 11am to 5pm.

Each home has a unique ambiance where architecture, décor and landscaping tell the stories of their lives. All proceeds fund scholarships for our local students. Tickets to tour the five homes are $25 per person. Refreshments & light bites will be available on the tour. Tickets are available for purchase at the SLO, Arroyo Grande and Atascadero Chambers of Commerce. You can purchase tickets online at www.slorotary.org, or purchase tickets at the door of any of the homes. To purchase tickets by phone, or for additional information, please call (805) 546-8806 or email Wilda@charter.net.

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THE BULLETIN BOARD

Tolosa children’s dental center in slo

Through a formal agreement with the SLO Noor Foundation, Tolosa Children’s Dental Center (TCDC) will utilize the Noor Dental Clinic in the City of SLO to provide pediatric dental services one day a week. Using the same business model as its Paso Robles location, TCDC will accept Denti-Cal insurance and provide a sliding fee scale for uninsured patients at this new location. New patient appointments for Tolosa Children’s Dental Center-SLO can be made for children age 0-12 years living in Cayucos, Los Osos, Morro Bay, and SLO by calling (805) 592-2445.

wifflefest event raises money for charity

For the fourth year in a row, friends and family gathered for a good cause at The Philips Ranch in SLO to enjoy a day full of Wiffle ball, food, and fun. The annual Wiffle Ball tournament was organized as a private charity event by The Sandlot Group of SLO. Originally established in 2011 as an excuse to reunite friends and have a good time, the participants and organizers of WIFFLE®FEST quickly realized that they had an opportunity to do good while having fun.

Thanks to private donations and corporate sponsorships, this year’s event was able to raise $15,000 for the local non-profit that supports local youth sports and activities in the community.

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PG&E helps out Cuesta College and Make a Wish

Cuesta College was presented an energy incentive check in the amount of $30,479 from PG&E for a recent lighting retrofit project that took place on the San Luis Obispo Campus. L-R: Cuesta College Board of Trustees President Pat Mullen, Cuesta College Director of Facilities Services, Planning and Capital Projects Terry Reece, PG&E Senior Customer Relationship Manager Tom Lorish and Cuesta College Superintendent/President Gil Stork. Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) employees from Diablo Canyon Power Plant also helped support Make-A-Wish recently by raising $16,000 at the 17th annual Nuclear Challenge Golf Tournament held at Cypress Ridge Golf Club . More than 200 PG&E employees and volunteers took part in the tournament to benefit the Make-A-Wish foundation’s Tri-Counties chapter. Since the tournament’s inception in 1997, PG&E employees have raised more than $250,000 for the chapter. Eliana, 10, lives with leukemia. For her wish, Eliana requested to visit New York City and see a Broadway show. During her visit, she was able to see a performance of Evita and then go back stage to meet the actors in person. If you want to refer a child to Make-A-Wish, call 1-888-899-9474 [WISH]. For more information on these or other ways to help, visit www.tri-counties.wish. org. Photo from Left to Right: Danya Nunley, Eliana Nunley, Shanna Wasson Taylor, chief executive officer for Make-A-Wish Tri-Counties, PG&E organizers Heather Lewis, Doug Wise and Bill De Prater.

THE BULLETIN BOARD central coast native named svp for sesloc

Kelli Beck, a South County native, has returned to the Central Coast to serve as senior vice president of marketing and service management for SESLOC Federal Credit Union.

In her new position she oversees all aspects of marketing and member services for the $632 million credit union. Beck grew up in Arroyo Grande and graduated from Arroyo Grande High School. After receiving a degree from San Diego State University, she remained in Southern California and began her financial services career as a teller.

Prior to joining SESLOC, Beck had advanced to vice president of marketing at North Island Credit Union in San Diego, a position she held for nine years. She guided North Island’s marketing team, public relations, community partnerships, and online strategies. Beck, who said returning to the Central Coast had been a longtime goal, lives in South County with her family.

She is happy to be able to raise her teenaged son in the same community where she grew up.

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free senior health care screening

Screening for adults and seniors is available throughout San Luis Obispo County. Free services include: screening for high blood pressure, weight and pulse. Finger prick screening tests for: high cholesterol, anemia and blood sugar. Counseling and referrals as needed. Please call 544-2484 ext. 1 for dates, times and locations.

Best selling author comes to Cuesta College

Best-selling author and writing coach Anne Perry will join author Victoria Zackheim on stage at the Cuesta College Performing Arts Center for a discussion entitled Put Your Heart on the Page—learning to silence that inner voice that censors what we think or do. The event will take place on Friday, September 19th at 6pm in the Cuesta College Performing Arts Center. Ms. Perry is the author of 87 books, with over 26 million copies in print. She was named one of the Times of London’s 100 Masters of Crime Writing. A book signing will follow the presentations.

Tickets are available at Volumes of Pleasure, Los Osos; San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce and online at www.slolibraryfoundation.org

SLO chamber welcomes new Marketing director

The SLO Chamber of Commerce has hired Melissa Godsey as director of marketing to lead its communications and marketing efforts and continue strengthening its engagement with the local business community, enhance tourism promotion of the region and broaden awareness of the business opportunities in San Luis Obispo County.

Godsey comes to the Chamber with a strong track record in digital media and communications and a background in marketing and public relations, having worked for Apple, Ford Motor Company, iFixit and Rosetta Marketing Group.

rendezvous at the country club for casa

Delight your senses at CASA’s 12th annual Rendezvous at the SLO Country Club on September 20th from 5-10pm. Longtime CASA supporter and Board member Tom Dobyns will host this evening of casual elegance. Don’t miss out on fabulous prize packages and our famously outrageous cake auction. All proceeds benefit CASA’s work with abused and neglected children in San Luis Obispo County. Tickets are $100 per person. Call 541-6542 for more information or visit slocasa.org to make reservations.

Deadline is September 10th.

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COMMUNITY

eye on business

you just never know

By Maggie Cox, Barnett Cox & Associates

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he “Miracle on the Hudson” U.S. Airways plane crash in 2009 was remarkable for many reasons. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberg calmly and heroically crash landed a 150-passenger airbus during rush hour in the heart of a heavily populated, major metropolitan area. There were no fatalities. Photos and video illustrated the story with dramatic visuals that showed passengers and crew members standing on airplane wings awaiting rescue boats as the incident garnered worldwide attention.

The crash also stands as a case study for two important business points: the need for disaster planning and the need to be acutely aware of how technology has changed the way news travels. And with the pace of business picking up, now seems like a good time to think about the principles at play.

U.S. Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River at 3:27 p.m.

Imagine what must have ensued at U.S. Airways and with first responders, as crash reports were being received, rescue crews deployed, injured passengers transported and other passenger whereabouts confirmed, all while frantic family calls and incident details poured in. Ninety minutes after the crash, U.S Airways was ready to offer a public statement. At 5:07 p.m. a news conference was held, with US Airways CEO Doug Parker at the podium.

Impressive that the company CEO was on deck to offer information and answer questions. And for a big corporation like U.S. Airways, responding on a major disaster within 90 minutes of occurrence was likely considered fast. However, in an era of cell phones and “citizen journalists,” a 90 minute wait for a public statement was just too long. The story had instantly unfolded on its own. Witnesses on land and the passengers

themselves took to their phones to share information. Within 35 minutes of the crash one of the survivors was being interviewed live by CNN’s Wolff Blitzer. The story catapulted through the world.

Five and a half years later and real time information has become standard operating procedure. There is no longer any time to gather and assess and prepare. Everything moves at the speed of “right now,” and as a communications professional who works in this arena, I can tell you that being calm and articulate and responsive in the face of emergency is a daunting challenge. Add time pressure and technology and it’s nearly overwhelming.

It is also difficult to believe something tragic or devastating can happen to our individual businesses or organizations. We’re not U.S. Airways, or even PG&E or Cal Poly or Sierra Vista. We expect them to have crisis communication plans and the ability to execute them. But the truth is that a disaster can happen to any of us at any time, and how we manage through it will have a direct and lasting impact on our operations—both internal and external.

Consider the company that had an employee hauled away in handcuffs on a molestation charge while other staff looked on. Could the office manager share information about the charges? What if media showed up? Another firm had a tragic employee death just before Christmas.

Work fell through the cracks as staff members struggled with grief.

How to manage? The spinach industry in the Salinas Valley was rocked by an e coli outbreak that took millions of dollars to address and repair.

More than one company has grappled with employee embezzlement or lawsuits that threaten their businesses. Add the ability for the crisis to go viral today via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms, and suddenly being blindsided by a problem becomes a catastrophe.

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The most important action to take is that of being prepared. It doesn’t matter if you’re a sole proprietor or a large organization. Every company needs a plan. Jot down details of an action plan for outreaching immediately to employees, customers, media and others in the event of a problem. Be ready with a set of key messages that frame your company and can be supplemented with incident specific content.

Determine who speaks for your company, have emergency contact information in one easy place (many disasters happen at night) and make sure you have (and rely on) good legal counsel.

Speed of response is essential, but so is quality of response. Don’t let actions taken in the middle of a crisis be kneejerk—and regrettable.

Think about calm Captain Sullenberg and create a plan that gives you peace of mind.

And hopefully you’ll never need it.

Thank You...

to ALL of our volunteers, guests and sponsors who made the 2014 Wilshire Hospice Hoedown a success!

PLATINUM Steve and Barbara Hearst GOLD Robert and Deborah Hoefker Select Data

IN KIND San Luis Print & Copy Brassica Nursery Cambria Community Health District Harvey’s Honey Huts Spencer’s Markets San Luis Sourdough Babe Farms Hearst Ranch Winery An Angel’s Kiss Jewelry Ancient Peaks Winery Arroyo Robles Winery Avila Beach Golf Resort Baileyana Winery Bill Gaines Audio Castoro Cellars Cattaneo Brothers Central Coast Shutterbooth

SILVER Jeff and Andi Portney Crum & Forster Compass Health, Inc. Rabobank Laura Coats and Thom Schulz Tevis Insurance Solutions, LLC Union Bank Farm Credit West Alvin Hicks

BRONZE Ira and Marsha Alpert Western Elite Insurance Solutions Foley & Lardner Jim and Kristi Jenkins Livermore Associates, Inc. Patricia McNamara Ed and Evelyn Page Joan Sargen Westwinds Business Park Anderson Commercial Real Estate Ultra Stereo Labs, Inc. Kuehl-Nicolay Funeral Home

Chamisal Vineyards Charles and Linda O’Sullivan Costume Capers Crystal Springs Water Doc Burnstein’s Ice Cream Lab Edna Valley Vineyards Firestone Walker Brewing Company Glacier Ice Company Got You Covered Hearst Castle Hearst Corporation Herman Story Wines Hope Family Wines J. Lohr Vineyard & Winery Laetitia Vineyard & Winery Lahaina’s Seafood Restaurant La Quinta Inn & Suites

Miller Event Security Mission Country Disposal Mitchella Vineyard & Winery Monte Mills & The Lucky Horseshoe Band Laurie Nolan Opolo Vineyards Pomar Junction Vineyard & Winery Rotary Club of Nipomo San Antonio Winery Silverado Stages SLO County Sheriff’s Aux. Volunteer Spectrum Color Images Summerwood Winery Templeton Feed & Grain Ventura Auctioneer Services Wines for Humanity Zenaida Cellars

www.wilshirehcs.org Wilshire Hospice is an agency of Wilshire Health & Community Services, Inc. a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization.

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS Since 2005, we’ve proven that doing the right thing means doing things right. From our commitment to superior customer service to offering you the latest banking products, we’re ready to help you succeed. Come in today and see why we’ve become San Luis Obispo’s bank.

“Built on a Foundation of Success” EQUAL HOUSING

LENDER

Member FDIC

237 Higuera St. San Luis Obispo | 543-6500 | www.founderscommunitybank.com | 863 Marsh St. San Luis Obispo