Heroes of Marin 2016

Lifetime Achievement: Michael Pritchard

By David Templeton

“I don’t laugh because I’m happy,” says Michael Pritchard, recipient of this year’s Heroes of Marin Lifetime Achievement Award. “I’m happy,” he says, “because I laugh.”

Pritchard, for the record, is actually laughing as he says this, wrapping up a story, this late February morning, in which he describes his day so far—a day that the rest of us would not find the least bit funny.

“I drove all the way down to Mountain View, for a gig at a middle school,” he says, “and when I got there they told me the gig is tomorrow, not today. So I wasted the trip. What could I do? I turned around and drove all the way home.”

And that’s when Pritchard takes his sad story and turns it inside out.

“It turned out to be a great thing,” he says, “because I have this really nice car—someone actually bought me a car because of all the driving I do in my work—so for one thing, it was a pleasure driving home. And then, once I was back home, since I had the day open, I could give the car to my kid for the rest of the day, to go look at wedding sites in Mendocino.

“The timing was impeccably good,” he confirms. “Except for my wife yelling at me for being an idiot.”

Pritchard starts laughing again.

Raised in Missouri, Pritchard, 66, gained a degree in social science before being drafted into the Army. He served as a medic in Vietnam, and immediately after returning home, started working with returning vets with serious PTSD. In the ’70s, while working in hospitals, he simultaneously worked toward becoming a probation officer for the state of California and took tentative steps into the world of stand-up comedy.

“I had recently gotten into recovery, and I got into comedy as something to do to occupy my attention,” he says. “I worked at Whole City Zoo and other clubs, appearing alongside people like Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and Dana Carvey. They were just the sweetest people. Even Bobby Slayton. He has a reputation of being acerbic and caustic, but behind that mask was always a sweet, sweet guy.”

As his comedy star rose, Pritchard somehow continued his work with troubled kids, occasionally feeling the pull between two very different worlds. As an illustration of the strangely bifurcated life Pritchard was living, in 1980 he was named Probation Officer of the Year. Then he won first place in the San Francisco Comedy Competition.

“That was all such a weird time,” he recalls. “I found myself winning the SF Comedy Competition, and next thing I knew I was going on Johnny Carson, and doing really well. Then I was there on the set of Taxi, the number one show at the time, playing a gay disco dancer in an episode that went on to win eight Emmy Awards. Suddenly, my comedy career just exploded.”

Pritchard opened for some of the biggest acts in the country, and even voiced a fuzzy Ewok named Chuka-Trok in the TV movie The Ewok Adventure. And then NBC offered him a contract for $100,000 to develop comedy projects for television.

“Suddenly, I found myself trapped with that $100,000,” he admits. “My mother, old school Irish, was not impressed. She told me, ‘Don’t you dare quit a steady job, Mister. With a job, you get dental.’ I looked around and thought, ‘I’m looking at some pretty sad stuff.’ Hollywood is a place where people spend all their time looking for people’s weaknesses. I really wasn’t comfortable with that.”

Pritchard eventually dropped out of active stand-up comedy as a profession, recommitting himself to working with kids. Even so, he has found a way to combine the two skillsets. Now a sought-after motivational speaker, Pritchard uses his award-winning humor to teach about bullying, addiction, conflict resolution, stress and diversity. He’s found creative ways to draw attention to the issues that he is most concerned about, including creating a number of documentaries and PBS television programs. In the ’80s, he made a film for teenagers called Condom Sense, about safe sex.

“I played a character named Condo the Magnificent, and I let the late, great Jane Dornacker pull a giant condom over me,” he says, clearly still delighted at the ingenious comedy of the image. “This was at the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Did that video save any lives? I think it probably did.”

His 2000 series Saving Our Schools from Hate and Violence was made in response to the Columbine school shootings. In 2011, he helped create Special Affects, a documentary film project producing a regular series of films telling the stories of “special needs” children.

“I grew up in a time when all Down syndrome kids were called idiots, kids with cerebral palsy were called spazzes and everyone else was retarded,” Pritchard says. “The world has changed for the better, fortunately—but unfortunately, it hasn’t changed enough.”

Though strongly motivated by his own faith, Pritchard—who currently works with hospice groups in Marin and speaks at local schools and beyond—makes a point of avoiding debates about religion and politics.

“If I’m arguing with you about politics or religion or anything else, then I’m not doing my job,” he says. “If I’m busy arguing with you, then I’m not taking care of the wounded.

“And that, ‘taking care of the wounded,’” says Pritchard, no longer laughing, suddenly dead serious, “that is my job. For that matter, it’s everyone’s job. And if I do mine, I’ll help people remember that we’re in this together, and it’s up to all of us to make this world a better, kinder, more forgiving world. Do I think that’s possible? Of course I do—because it is. And guess what? Creating a kinder world is addictive. It is. I’m hooked on it. I’m addicted. I can’t not do this.”

Heroes of Marin 2016

Role Model: Harold Grant

By Dani Burlison

As the Bay Area housing crisis shows no signs of retreating and more and more people are finding themselves homeless in the North Bay, Community Action Marin’s Harold Grant—the recipient of this year’s Heroes of Marin Role Model award—spends his time engaging with homeless, mentally ill and substance-addicted people in downtown San Rafael.

“We either get them in treatment, get them to the hospital—we do anything we can to help people as much as they need it,” says Grant, the agency’s CARE Team II peer counselor and supervisor. “Sometimes my clients call me when they just want someone to listen to them.”

CARE Team II consists of Grant and a colleague and is currently funded through Marin County Probation Department’s Community Corrections Partnership. The services they offer are varied, but mainly consist of finding support for those living on the streets through referrals to, and collaborations with, other agencies including Adult Protective Services, Marin Health and Human Services’ Public Guardian program, St. Vincent de Paul, the Novato Human Needs Center, Canal Alliance, local law enforcement and more.

Grant says that his days are anything but typical. On any given day, he might be responding to phone calls from business owners concerned about people sleeping in their doorways or helping to connect homeless people with temporary shelter, mental health services and substance abuse programs. Recently, he helped a pregnant woman get off the streets and into a program in San Francisco, where she and her newborn baby have shelter, counseling and support to get them through the next year and back on their feet. Grant even helped plan a client’s memorial service when he died. Because of the wide range of needs within the homeless population, Grant never knows what each day will bring him.

“Everything varies and we just go along,” he says. “Whatever comes up is what we do.”

A native of Los Angeles, Grant made his way north to Marin County nearly 20 years ago and soon found himself living on the streets and self-medicating his mental health issues with alcohol. According to a colleague, at one point Grant described himself as “hopeless” and never believed that he could be a productive member of society. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and struggled with alcoholism for a number of years.

Then suddenly something changed.

“I was out there drinking and homeless myself so I said to myself, ‘I’m going to devise ways to not be homeless and make some changes that are more positive,’” Grant says.

He then came into contact with the very agency he works for today—Community Action Marin—and decided to take a peer counseling class that they were offering. He went on to complete a certificate program, found work washing dishes at St.Vincent de Paul and eventually landed a position as a peer counselor with the Enterprise Resource Center, where he worked with clients for nearly five years. He attended more training and began working with the CARE Team II, where he has been a supervisor since 2008.

It has been a long, rewarding and sometimes challenging journey for Grant.

“Some of the system is broken so we have to negotiate around things that aren’t working and we have to come up with innovative ideas so we can help people,” he says. “That’s one of the biggest challenges I have. We’re pretty successful but there are times we fail, too.”

Yet Grant, through his own substance abuse, mental and physical health struggles (he successfully battled throat cancer), has never faltered in his desire to help those who need it the most. He is dedicated, compassionate and hardworking when it comes to serving his clients.

“When I was homeless there was no such thing as a CARE Team and now I’m happy to be a part of it,” Grant says. “It is so important because sometimes people don’t have anyone else and all they have is me or my colleague, and sometimes we are the only way they can get what they need.

“It is very important that we’re here; people tell us that all of the time,” he continues. “A lot of times, their parents don’t even want anything to do with them and it’s really a sad thing. So I tell people, ‘Let’s work together so you can get out of this situation.’ I know we can’t help everybody, but those we do help, it is really rewarding.”

As housing prices skyrocket and services seem to become less and less accessible, Grant does everything he can to close the gap between people on the streets and the potential for turning their lives around. Marin County is so lucky to have him.

“Everybody is important,” he says of the rewarding work that he does. “Everyone deserves the right to get help.”

Heroes of Marin 2016

Innovation: Nicole Hitchcock

By David Templeton

A diagnosis of cancer is always a shock, but as the Marin-based nonprofit Hairdressers with Heart has seen over and over again, the worst part often isn’t the news that a person will be battling a life-threatening disease. It’s the eventual loss of hair that comes with chemotherapy that can shake some women to the core.

Nicole Hitchcock, co-owner of NH2 Salon in Novato and the co-founder of Hairdressers with Heart, is the recipient of this year’s Heroes of Marin Innovation award. Hitchcock and her co-workers match women in need with hairdressers who can help them feel good about themselves at a time when they are facing the loss of much more than just their hair.

“The catalyst of that program was the death of my sister,” Hitchcock says. “Brandy had cancer, and she lost her hair during chemo. I saw, through witnessing her progress, that that was incredibly disturbing to her, the loss of her hair. I thought that it was very interesting, out of everything she was going through—with an infant to take care of, battling this extremely life-threatening illness—that the thing that got to her the most, emotionally, was losing her hair.”

At the time, Hitchcock had been a hairdresser for nearly two decades, but till then she’d never so fully understood how the loss of some people’s hair, at an already emotionally vulnerable moment, could be every bit as crippling and terrifying as the diagnosis itself.

“In that moment I realized, ‘Oh my gosh. I can be of service to women going through this difficult thing,” Hitchcock recalls. “I understood that there was so much that a hairdresser could do to really and truly help, in a powerful way, in that situation. So that’s how my sister became the first person to be helped by Hairdressers with Heart—and we hadn’t even officially become Hairdressers with Heart yet.”

Working with her NH2 Salon business partner Nina Husen (both Husen and Hitchcock have ‘NH’ as initials), Hitchcock developed a very simple natural plan of action. Once chemotherapy had started and Brandy’s hair had begun thinning, her head was gently and lovingly shaved, and Brandy was quickly provided with a wig.

“She instantly felt better,” Hitchcock says. “It was like, ‘Wow. That’s pretty basic.’ She was still sick. There was nothing we could do about that, obviously. But the idea that we could make her look well was really important to her, that she could at least have enough control that people she met wouldn’t have to know she was sick.”

Through this experience, Hitchcock and Husen quickly put together a system for helping other women who were going through a similarly devastating passage. And as they continued to quietly do this kind of work in Marin, Hitchcock soon acknowledged that the need they were serving was not limited to just Marin. Women across the country and around the world were in need of similar services.

“We had something we could offer women with cancer,” Hitchcock says, “but in the hairdressing industry as a whole, there was nothing like that in place. There were no nonprofits that support hairdressers to be of service to their own clients when they experience hair loss due to cancer. There was no platform. We knew that hairdressers were dealing with it in their own way, but like us, they were making it up as they went along.”

Thus inspired, Hitchcock and Husen mapped out a very concrete outline, addressing the issues of boundaries and confidentiality, the process of conducting the initial head-shaving and the process of fitting that client with a wig.

“But the biggest part of Hairdressers with Heart,” Hitchcock says, “in terms of the value this work has to the person going through cancer, is afterwards. My sister, unfortunately, did not get to experience this, because she ended up passing away. But once treatment is over and hair starts growing in again, many women discover that that’s just as traumatic. Everyone has experienced a bad hair day. It can be a tremendous nuisance to grow hair back in again once it’s fallen out. It’s a constant bad hair day for months. Women often just don’t know what to do, or how to handle [it], and they worry that, after surviving this terrible disease, they might never feel beautiful again.”

Hairdressers with Heart, now with thousands of “Style Heroes” helping women all across the U.S., uses a very carefully thought-out program in which volunteers sign up to become “sisters” to women in need of a little beauty therapy and friendly support.

“Our ‘Style Heroes’ are hairdressers who choose, not just to give free services to their own existing clients,” Hitchcock says, “but to individuals in need right there in their community. After they’ve completed chemo and their hair comes back, the women come in once a month. It’s a little bit of haircutting, and a lot of emotional support. Women have a lot of questions, from what hair products are most appropriate to use post-chemo to what is the normal progress of hair growing back in. Our ‘Style Heroes’ are trained in how to answer all of those questions.”

That support is given for one year post-chemotherapy.

“It’s very rewarding,” Hitchcock says, “to watch someone who’s been touched by cancer as they go through this process. As the co-founder of this program, it’s incredible to realize how many women Hairdressers with Heart have helped over the years.”

Acknowledging that this life-changing nonprofit was born out of a remarkable loss, Hitchcock says she knows that Brandy, had she survived, would have been an enthusiastic “Style Hero” herself.

“She’d have loved this work,” Hitchcock says. “We all love this work. It’s the least we can do.”

For information on Hairdressers with Heart, including how to refer a program recipient and how to become a “Style Hero,” visit hairdresserswithheart.org.

Heroes of Marin 2016

Environmental Stewardship: Deanne Clough

By Nikki Silverstein

Deanne Clough built a name for herself in the construction industry in Marin—not a small accomplishment in a field where men comprise 90 percent of the labor force. For 23 years, she worked as a building contractor and partner in Clough Construction, a deck and fence company located in San Rafael. On a typical day, she ran seven crews and channeled her energy into production. She was content. Until she wasn’t.

During the economic downturn in 2011, Clough was reviewing a lumber invoice. The bill was within the usual $50,000 to $60,000 monthly budget, yet she suddenly felt nauseous.

“It wasn’t the money,” she says. “It hit me hard that I was contributing to and involved in killing trees. I decided that I couldn’t be a contractor anymore under those conditions.”

Her feelings were warranted. Worldwide, old growth forests are being decimated by clearcutting, the method of felling and removing all trees from an area of the forest. Virtually nothing is left behind, which has detrimental results to the environment, including the loss of animal habitats; drought and flood cycles; and the release of carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses.

The issue overwhelmed Clough; she was depressed and couldn’t move forward. Fortunately, her static state didn’t last long. She took a course from the Women’s Initiative and wrote a new business plan to align her company’s values with her personal values.

With sustainability as her new mantra, she discussed the plan with her business partner, Scott Clough, and he jumped onboard immediately. The first step for Deanne was to examine her company’s material sourcing. Before then, she didn’t pay attention to where the lumber came from or how it was harvested. That soon changed when Clough Construction’s new showroom was built in San Rafael. All materials were carefully considered prior to purchase and all were environmentally sustainable.

Deanne discovered resources close to home, such as the Mendocino Redwood Company and Humboldt Redwood Company, which collectively consist of 440,000 acres of redwood and Douglas-fir forestlands. She was on the first tour that the companies offered to consumers. Their commitment to high standards and independent certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) provided a sense of relief to Deanne and the belief that the industry was ripe for change.

She contacted the lumber vendors and contractors she worked with and expected them to buy into the sustainability model. They weren’t very interested. A second wave of disappointment struck, along with the realization that change would need to begin in the marketplace, with the end consumers.

“There’s a lack of education,” Deanne concluded. “We haven’t been talking about the severity of the problems associated with producing paper and lumber.”

Deanne started the conversation with anyone who would listen. She bought FSC-certified lumber in bulk, so that she could offer it to customers at the same price as lumber from clear-cut forests. Nevermind that she had to store it in a warehouse. Every presentation she made to a customer included a pitch for FSC-certified materials.

“We have this resource of sustainably harvested redwoods in our backyard,” Deanne explained. “If we’re not engaged in purchasing responsibly forested products, we are contributing to clear-cutting globally.”

Next, she took her message to Marin schools by giving presentations about responsible forestry.  The students were open to learning. She found them to be passionate about caring for the planet, which drove her to expand her work with young people.

Clough Construction reallocated their advertising budget and donated the funds to local high schools. The company reclaimed wood from structures they replaced and gave it to schools to use in their woodshop classes. Initially, Deanne spent 10 hours a week educating students, but that increased quickly to 30 hours after she began working with two youth programs, the Global Student Embassy (GSE) and the Marin School of Environmental Leadership (MarinSEL) at Terra Linda High School.

It’s been five years since Deanne’s epiphany about her role as a contractor and the decision to uproot her company’s approach to lumber use. Clough Construction is a Certified Green Business for Marin County, and their list of awards and accolades continues to grow. Congressman Jared Huffman presented the company with the North Bay Sustainable Business Award. Because of Deanne’s efforts, Clough Construction earned the Forest Stewardship Council Leadership Award in the Uncommon Partnership category for ongoing education and commitment to sustainability. Pacific Sun readers have repeatedly cast their Best of Marin ballots for Clough Construction, naming them the Best Deck and Fence Contractor in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Some in the construction industry still call Deanne naïve. To them, she says that change will happen. It already is happening. During the month of April, Clough Construction’s two interns have the lofty goal of presenting the positive environmental effect of buying FSC-certified products to 1,000 people in Marin. Don’t be surprised if you’re soon speaking with a high school intern about sustainability and looking for the FSC logo on the bottom of a tissue box. That conversation started with Deanne Clough.