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www.<strong>Palo</strong><strong>Alto</strong>Online.com<br />

<strong>Palo</strong><br />

<strong>Alto</strong><br />

Vol. XXXII, Number 31 • May 6, <strong>2011</strong> ■ 50¢<br />

Inside<br />

Summer<br />

Class Guide<br />

Page 37<br />

Honoring<br />

lives <strong>of</strong><br />

engagement<br />

and service<br />

<strong>Avenidas</strong> takes note <strong>of</strong> seniors with<br />

<strong>Lifetimes</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Achievement</strong> Awards<br />

PAGE 16<br />

Spectrum 14 Movies 26 Camp Connection 30 Home & Real Estate 41 Classifieds 59 Puzzles 60<br />

■ News Council questions binding arbitration Page 3<br />

■ Arts Old does NOT mean slow Page 22<br />

■ Sports Gunn grad goes OT for golf win Page 32


Cover Story<br />

<strong>Avenidas</strong><br />

acknowledges<br />

seniors with<br />

<strong>2011</strong> Lifetime<br />

<strong>of</strong> <strong>Achievement</strong><br />

Awards<br />

<strong>Avenidas</strong> acknowledges<br />

seniors with <strong>2011</strong> <strong>Lifetimes</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>Achievement</strong> Awards<br />

Engagement,<br />

ingenuity<br />

and service<br />

Each year, <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> nonpr<strong>of</strong>it <strong>Avenidas</strong> honors senior<br />

citizens age 65 and older who’ve made significant<br />

contributions to the community, pr<strong>of</strong>essionally<br />

and through volunteer service.<br />

This year, the honorees are former Mayor Jim<br />

Burch <strong>of</strong> <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong>, career-adaptation expert Betsy<br />

Collard <strong>of</strong> Mountain View, environmental and education<br />

volunteer Jan Fenwick <strong>of</strong> Los <strong>Alto</strong>s Hills,<br />

Foothill College Celebrity Speaker Series Director<br />

Dick Henning <strong>of</strong> Mountain View, League <strong>of</strong> Women<br />

Voters leader Veronica Tincher <strong>of</strong> <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> and<br />

senior-housing advocates Bill and the late Carolyn<br />

Reller <strong>of</strong> <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong>.<br />

The honorees will be celebrated at a public reception<br />

Sunday, May 15, from 3 to 5 p.m. at a garden<br />

party at a local home. The event is sponsored by<br />

<strong>Avenidas</strong>, <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly and <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Online.<br />

Tickets can be purchased for $75 by contacting<br />

<strong>Avenidas</strong> at 650-289-5445 or online at www.avenidas.org.<br />

Proceeds from the reception benefit senior<br />

programs at <strong>Avenidas</strong>. ■<br />

photographs by Veronica Weber<br />

by Karla Kane<br />

BE T S Y CO L L A R D<br />

HIGH-TECH CAREER PIONEER<br />

Growing up, Betsy Collard moved 19 times and went to 21 different<br />

schools. Adaptability was important.<br />

Throughout her years <strong>of</strong> service, Collard<br />

has worked tirelessly to help others adapt to<br />

changes in the ever-evolving world <strong>of</strong> Silicon<br />

Valley, in addition to her roles as community<br />

volunteer and educational administrator.<br />

Collard moved to California from New<br />

York during high school, attended Scripps<br />

College in southern California and then went<br />

to grad school (studying counseling) at Stanford<br />

University, which subsequently hired her<br />

as assistant dean <strong>of</strong> women. She was working<br />

as acting dean <strong>of</strong> students when, in 1965, a<br />

new University <strong>of</strong> California campus, set in<br />

the coastal redwood forests <strong>of</strong> Santa Cruz,<br />

opened.<br />

“I was the token woman,” she said <strong>of</strong> being<br />

<strong>of</strong>fered the position <strong>of</strong> associate director<br />

<strong>of</strong> student affairs. “It was an incredible time,<br />

being part <strong>of</strong> something brand new, with wonderful<br />

pr<strong>of</strong>essors. It was exhilarating.”<br />

But two years later she was moving on<br />

again, getting married and moving to Mountain<br />

View. In 1967 she took a job with the<br />

State <strong>of</strong> California, working as a career counselor<br />

in <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong>.<br />

The electronics industry (as the developing<br />

field <strong>of</strong> computer technology was then<br />

known) was new. Companies needed workers<br />

and part <strong>of</strong> Collard’s job was to help career<br />

seekers gain the skills and networking they<br />

needed to match the opportunities opening<br />

up in Silicon Valley.<br />

“I was interested in helping people, not<br />

computers,” she said. It just so happened that<br />

she was in the right place at the right time —<br />

and had the right kind <strong>of</strong> flexible thinking<br />

— to work successfully with emerging tech<br />

companies and the people who sought jobs<br />

with them.<br />

“I learned a lot,” she said. “I worked with<br />

people from high-school dropouts to Stanford<br />

PhDs. With people who were having to<br />

change careers and with ones who needed<br />

training,” she said. She helped usher some<br />

who were skilled at abstract thinking, such as<br />

graduates with music degrees, into the field<br />

<strong>of</strong> computers.<br />

In 1979 Collard moved on again, this time<br />

to the Resource Center for Women (later<br />

renamed Career Action Center), which was<br />

originally set up by a group <strong>of</strong> Stanford-educated<br />

women to help other women re-enter<br />

the workforce.<br />

Collard worked with tech companies including<br />

Sun Microsystems, HP and AT&T to<br />

develop guidelines. She eventually published<br />

“The High-Tech Career Book” to help introduce<br />

newcomers to the corporate world.<br />

As companies turned toward outsourcing<br />

in the 1980s and ‘90s, Collard also coined<br />

the phrase “career self-reliance” to describe<br />

the responsibility individuals need to take in<br />

their careers, as corporations could no longer<br />

be counted on to promise long-term employment.<br />

Though the concept first was criticized<br />

for the way it shifted responsibility from corporation<br />

to worker, the idea is now prevalent.<br />

“Now it is commonly accepted, but when<br />

we introduced it, it was viewed as revolutionary<br />

and widely adopted across the country,”<br />

she said.<br />

Collard retired after 20 years with the Career<br />

Action Center when her husband died.<br />

But in 1999, her alma mater came knocking<br />

once again.<br />

Collard became Stanford’s director <strong>of</strong><br />

alumni-volunteer relations, helping to recruit<br />

volunteers out <strong>of</strong> Stanford’s thousands <strong>of</strong> successful<br />

alumni and bring them into service<br />

roles for the school.<br />

Collard, now 71, <strong>of</strong>ficially retired four<br />

years ago.<br />

She keeps busy, volunteering for the Community<br />

School <strong>of</strong> Music and Arts in Mountain<br />

View, where she interviews students and<br />

writes pr<strong>of</strong>iles for the school’s website.<br />

After serving on many boards and committees<br />

(including the Mountain View School<br />

Board, the <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> chapter <strong>of</strong> the American<br />

Red Cross, the Mountain View Human Relations<br />

Commission and the Day Worker Center<br />

<strong>of</strong> Mountain View), “It’s nice to do direct<br />

service and not sit in a meeting,” she said.<br />

Despite an honorary doctorate from Golden<br />

Gate University and several lifetime-achievement<br />

awards, Collard named her son (a San<br />

Francisco doctor) and her three grandchildren<br />

as her proudest achievements. And, still in<br />

(continued on page 18)<br />

Page 16 • May 6, <strong>2011</strong> • <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly


Cover Story<br />

Di c k He n n i n g<br />

Bringing luminaries to the locals<br />

by Chris Kenrick<br />

Bil l an d Ca r o l y n<br />

Rel l er<br />

Senior-housing advocates and<br />

entrepreneurs<br />

In 2007, three years into Carolyn Reller’s battle with a brain tumor,<br />

she and her husband, Bill, were approached to be honored<br />

with the <strong>Avenidas</strong> <strong>Lifetimes</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Achievement</strong> award.<br />

As board president <strong>of</strong> <strong>Avenidas</strong> decades<br />

earlier, Carolyn Reller had been among the<br />

creators <strong>of</strong> the award — and firmly disagreed<br />

later when the qualifying age was<br />

dropped from 70 to 65.<br />

“She was a person <strong>of</strong> a lot <strong>of</strong> things, and<br />

one <strong>of</strong> them was principle, sometimes expressed<br />

as stubbornness,” Bill Reller recalled<br />

<strong>of</strong> his wife, who died a year ago at<br />

68.<br />

“When they approached us for the award<br />

in 2007, I said, ‘You know, Carolyn, this<br />

might be our last chance.’<br />

“The handwriting was on the wall,” he<br />

said, referring to her terminal diagnosis. “It<br />

was a hard thing to say to her.<br />

“But she said no, she was not yet 70 — it<br />

didn’t make any difference.”<br />

This year, when Bill Reller again was approached<br />

for the award, <strong>Avenidas</strong> agreed<br />

that his wife, posthumously, could be honored<br />

along with him.<br />

The award presentation is May 15. Carolyn<br />

Reller would have turned 70 in June.<br />

“She still would have turned it down —<br />

I’m sure <strong>of</strong> it,” he said.<br />

Born and educated in the Midwest, Bill<br />

Reller had stumbled upon <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> as a<br />

Gray Line Bus Tour passenger during a<br />

brief stopover as he prepared to ship out for<br />

a U.S. Army stint in Korea.<br />

The short bus tour was all it took.<br />

Thirteen months later, Reller was back<br />

as a student at Stanford Business School —<br />

and has never left.<br />

Upon graduation he turned down an East-<br />

Coast corporate job to strike out in <strong>Palo</strong><br />

<strong>Alto</strong> real estate and recalls that “life wasn’t<br />

easy, business wise.”<br />

He remembers meeting with downtown<br />

landlords who seemed powerful to him at<br />

the time, wondering what it would feel like<br />

to have lived in <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> for five whole<br />

years.<br />

“I thought if anybody had been here five<br />

years, they must be really established and<br />

really know the community,” he said.<br />

Reller borrowed a down payment from<br />

his mother to buy his first house — priced<br />

at $11,000 on <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Avenue. It turned<br />

out to be a honeymoon cottage when he<br />

married Carolyn in 1963.<br />

By 1982 — three children and two houses<br />

later — the Rellers landed in a gracious<br />

center-hall colonial on a huge Crescent Park<br />

lot.<br />

Carolyn ran the household while Bill developed<br />

condominium projects in <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong><br />

(continued on next page)<br />

by Karla Kane<br />

As the founder <strong>of</strong> Foothill College’s Celebrity Forum Speaker<br />

Series, Dick Henning has hobnobbed with everyone from<br />

movie legend Cary Grant to the late Indian Prime Minister<br />

Indira Gandhi. But it’s the education he had received growing up in<br />

Taft, Calif., a rustic yet wealthy oil town west <strong>of</strong> Bakersfield, that<br />

served as early inspiration for his own long career <strong>of</strong> educational<br />

and community service.<br />

It “formed the foundation <strong>of</strong> where I am<br />

today,” Henning said. “I appreciate it more<br />

and more.”<br />

Henning worked summers in the Taftarea<br />

oil fields before earning a “teeny”<br />

boxing scholarship to San Jose State University.<br />

He eventually completed two master’s<br />

degrees and a doctorate in education<br />

administration.<br />

After working seven years as a high<br />

school English and speech teacher in<br />

Sunnyvale, Henning said he “jumped” at<br />

the chance in 1967 to apply for the job <strong>of</strong><br />

Foothill College’s director <strong>of</strong> student services.<br />

At the time, the college was struggling<br />

with dwindling interest in its student-services<br />

card. Job seeker Henning proposed a<br />

bold idea: To make the card more valuable,<br />

he suggested creating a series <strong>of</strong> compelling<br />

cultural events open to card holders.<br />

The $20 card would have a more than $400<br />

value. It was a big goal, and one that Henning<br />

figured he would not get the chance<br />

to deliver on.<br />

“There were more than 100 applicants.<br />

I knew I wasn’t going to get the job,” he<br />

laughed.<br />

To his surprise, “I got a call the next day<br />

that says, ‘You’re hired.’”<br />

Henning made good on his idea, and the<br />

Celebrity Forum was born. Luminaries<br />

such as archaeologist Louis Leakey and<br />

broadcaster Alistair Cooke were among<br />

the first to take the stage.<br />

And though Los <strong>Alto</strong>s Hills may not be<br />

known as a hipster haven, during Henning’s<br />

early tenure many seminal rock bands also<br />

visited Foothill College.<br />

Acts including The Grateful Dead,<br />

Janis Joplin and The Fifth Dimension performed.<br />

“The Doobie Brothers were a nice group.<br />

It was an incredible job,” Henning said.<br />

But it wasn’t all peace, love and feeling<br />

groovy.<br />

“People forget, it was rough times,” Henning<br />

said <strong>of</strong> the turbulent years between<br />

1968 and 1970, which saw student demonstrations<br />

and a campus-wide shutdown<br />

in 1970. But Henning remained with the<br />

college (he retired in 1997) and his beloved<br />

forum, which outgrew its space at the college<br />

and now takes place at the Flint Center<br />

in Cupertino. The wildly successful series,<br />

which features seven speakers a year, is<br />

now self-supported by ticket sales (admission<br />

costs $290-390 per year). It routinely<br />

sells out.<br />

“The series is now in its 43rd year. I don’t<br />

see it weakening; it’s a real service, a free<br />

exchange <strong>of</strong> active ideas. I think it’s here to<br />

stay,” he said.<br />

Henning is particularly proud to have<br />

had Cary Grant as a speaker in 1978, as the<br />

shy actor had never done a public-speaking<br />

event <strong>of</strong> its kind before. Henning’s also<br />

brought every president from Gerald Ford<br />

to Bill Clinton to the series.<br />

One speaker he would love to get that he<br />

hasn’t yet? Nelson Mandela.<br />

Henning has also served on the boards for<br />

(continued on next page)<br />

<strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly • May 6, <strong>2011</strong> • Page 17


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Collard<br />

(continued from page 16)<br />

touch with the high-tech, Collard is<br />

no old-fashioned grandma.<br />

“I do have an iPhone, an iPad and<br />

a laptop and am an avid user,” she<br />

said.<br />

She’s looking forward to a trip to<br />

Tanzania at the end <strong>of</strong> the month,<br />

where she will be involved with<br />

opening a women’s and children’s<br />

clinic, and to her 50th college reunion.<br />

After that, Collard remains<br />

open to the possibilities.<br />

“Being tied down is something I<br />

do not want to be. It’s hard when you<br />

retire, the lack <strong>of</strong> structure, but once<br />

you get used to it it’s a lot <strong>of</strong> fun.” ■<br />

Reller<br />

(continued from previous page)<br />

and dealt in real estate investments<br />

— including a Christmas tree farm<br />

— elsewhere.<br />

Both took on serious volunteer<br />

and nonpr<strong>of</strong>it board commitments<br />

— Bill with the Peninsula Open<br />

Space Trust, the <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Board <strong>of</strong><br />

Realtors, the <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Community<br />

Foundation and the YMCA; and<br />

Carolyn with the Junior League, the<br />

PTA, Stanford University Hospital<br />

and the Children’s Health Council.<br />

“We just never really thought<br />

about alternatives (to <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong>),”<br />

Reller said.<br />

“Carolyn was raised in Burlingame<br />

— her parents were right<br />

here and her brother in San Mateo<br />

— and she didn’t want to go anywhere.<br />

I didn’t either.<br />

“And after awhile you become<br />

sort <strong>of</strong> provincial — I wouldn’t<br />

even have wanted to move to Menlo<br />

Park.”<br />

Outside <strong>of</strong> family, the couple’s<br />

biggest project — and Carolyn Reller’s<br />

legacy — has been the senior<br />

housing complex <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Commons.<br />

The pair originally conceived <strong>of</strong><br />

the development because they were<br />

seeking nearby housing for their<br />

own mothers, who were approaching<br />

80 at the time. Neither <strong>of</strong> the<br />

mothers lived long enough to move<br />

in.<br />

The Reller family built and has<br />

operated the 121-unit facility on El<br />

Camino Way since 1990.<br />

<strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Commons took two<br />

years to fill, Reller said.<br />

“It was a struggle.”<br />

But the need has grown since.<br />

The facility recently won city approval<br />

for a new, 44-unit addition<br />

to the complex, aimed at “younger”<br />

seniors, whom Reller described as<br />

people in their 70s.<br />

<strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Commons was Reller’s<br />

last big project. These days, he enjoys<br />

traveling the world.<br />

And he still occupies the house<br />

he and Carolyn shared for 29 years.<br />

During a recent interview, the living<br />

and dining rooms were full <strong>of</strong><br />

floral arrangements left over from a<br />

fundraiser Reller had just hosted for<br />

Pathways Hospice, an organization<br />

that provided care for Carolyn in her<br />

final years.<br />

He has nine grandchildren, three<br />

from each <strong>of</strong> his children.<br />

“Since I’m alone now, I’ve really<br />

come to appreciate the people my<br />

children have become — their families,<br />

the people they married, are all<br />

just super people.<br />

“I feel so extremely fortunate for<br />

that. They are all caring people — a<br />

great reflection <strong>of</strong> their mother.” ■<br />

Henning<br />

(continued from previous page)<br />

United Way <strong>of</strong> Santa Clara County,<br />

Los <strong>Alto</strong>s Sister Cities and the Los<br />

<strong>Alto</strong>s Chamber <strong>of</strong> Commerce. He’s<br />

done years <strong>of</strong> volunteer work with<br />

the Rotary Club <strong>of</strong> Los <strong>Alto</strong>s, with<br />

which he has delivered wheelchairs<br />

in five countries and cleaned up<br />

beaches, among other activities.<br />

With Rotary, there are “tangible<br />

results. You could see how grateful<br />

someone was to get a wheelchair. It<br />

is so rewarding.”<br />

An achievement for which Henning<br />

takes pride was bringing the<br />

first woman into the club, in 1978.<br />

“What a difference women have<br />

made,” he said.<br />

Henning lives in Mountain View,<br />

near the Los <strong>Alto</strong>s border (in 1996 he<br />

was named “Los Altan <strong>of</strong> the Year”<br />

for his community contributions)<br />

with his wife, Paulette. Between<br />

them he and Paulette have three<br />

grown children and five grandkids.<br />

The Hennings also currently share<br />

their home with a cat, Tucka.<br />

“It’s my wife’s favorite thing in all<br />

the world,” he said. “I have to admit,<br />

it’s a pretty good cat.”<br />

Though he’s now 76, Henning<br />

has no plans to stop his community<br />

work.<br />

“You’ve got to stay active, mind<br />

and body. Plus my wife loves it when<br />

I leave the house,” he joked.<br />

“It’s so interesting, so much fun,”<br />

he said <strong>of</strong> his continuing involvement<br />

with the speaker series.<br />

“They can wheel me out in a chair<br />

as long as I can still talk.” ■<br />

Help us rescue<br />

lives in Japan.<br />

Go to<br />

www.rescue.org/altweeklies<br />

A fundraising effort by the Association <strong>of</strong><br />

Alternative Newsweeklies and the <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly<br />

Page 18 • May 6, <strong>2011</strong> • <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly


Cover Story<br />

Ve r o n i c a Ti n c h e r<br />

From war-torn Europe to U.S. civic<br />

engagement<br />

by Zohra Ashpari<br />

The eclectic decor <strong>of</strong> Veronica Tincher’s retirement<br />

residence in <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> reflects the diversity <strong>of</strong> her<br />

life experiences — and <strong>of</strong> her life rooted in the<br />

Midpeninsula.<br />

Among the exotic bric-a-brac and<br />

European paintings, a pair <strong>of</strong> prominent<br />

watercolors grace the eastern<br />

wall <strong>of</strong> the living room. Impressionistic<br />

in style, they show scenes <strong>of</strong><br />

the garden <strong>of</strong> her childhood home<br />

in Los <strong>Alto</strong>s.<br />

“I loved my mother’s garden as<br />

a child — I would run around and<br />

pick the fruit <strong>of</strong>f the cherry and<br />

peach trees,” Tincher said.<br />

The watercolors were done by<br />

a Hungarian friend <strong>of</strong> the family.<br />

Tincher was born <strong>of</strong> Hungarian<br />

parents who had moved to Koenigsberg,<br />

the capital <strong>of</strong> East Prussia, a<br />

small region east <strong>of</strong> Germany.<br />

“The artist and my father were<br />

in the Austro-Hungarian army together<br />

during World War I,” Tincher<br />

said.<br />

Through the sponsorship <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Rockefeller and Jewish Community<br />

foundations, Tincher’s family<br />

came to the states in 1934, living in<br />

St. Louis, Mo. In 1938, the family<br />

moved to Los <strong>Alto</strong>s after her father,<br />

formerly a pr<strong>of</strong>essor at the University<br />

<strong>of</strong> Koenigsberg, was invited to<br />

teach at Stanford University.<br />

“We were lucky to leave East<br />

Prussia when we did — and it was<br />

only some years later when the Jews<br />

were rounded up. I was in Los <strong>Alto</strong>s<br />

at the time and had become really<br />

Americanized. I was only a child.<br />

I didn’t start thinking about what<br />

had happened until later, when I<br />

was university,” she said.<br />

It was after her first year at Stanford,<br />

during a six-month stay in<br />

Europe, that she underwent a lifechanging<br />

experience.<br />

“In 1948 I went to Hungary to see<br />

the family that had still survived. I<br />

went to see what happened to the<br />

people after the war.”<br />

She dis<strong>cover</strong>ed that one <strong>of</strong> her uncles<br />

had been killed in a concentration<br />

camp, and another, along with<br />

his wife and daughter, had survived<br />

somehow.<br />

“Hungary had been under siege<br />

for three months, and there wasn’t<br />

a building that didn’t have shell<br />

marks. Some people didn’t have<br />

shoes or even clothing. There was<br />

no water or heating,” she recalled.<br />

These encounters helped mold<br />

Tincher’s world view and, upon returning<br />

to the U.S., she felt a strong<br />

desire to actively engage with the<br />

issues around her.<br />

“I was grateful for the opportunities<br />

that I have had in the U.S., and<br />

my time in Hungary made me want<br />

to reach out to the people around<br />

me.”<br />

After graduating from Stanford,<br />

she got married and settled in<br />

southern California with her husband.<br />

When their three children<br />

were in elementary school, Tincher,<br />

who also worked in research and<br />

administration at the University <strong>of</strong><br />

Southern California, had more time<br />

to take an active role in politics.<br />

‘In 1948 I went to<br />

Hungary to see the<br />

family that had still<br />

survived. I went to<br />

see what happened<br />

to the people after<br />

the war.’<br />

“Wives played bridge or were interested<br />

in fashion shows, but those<br />

things didn’t appeal to me,” Tincher<br />

said. She was most interested in<br />

educating herself on national issues<br />

and in 1959 joined the League <strong>of</strong><br />

Women Voters in Long Beach. The<br />

League, established in 1920 after<br />

women got the vote, focuses on advocacy,<br />

outreach and voter education.<br />

“Just a few years ago the League<br />

commemorated my 50 years <strong>of</strong><br />

involvement with them,” she said,<br />

proudly. In addition to regular membership,<br />

Tincher has served on her<br />

local board and as president during<br />

the 1960s. After moving to <strong>Palo</strong><br />

<strong>Alto</strong> in 1995, she joined the local<br />

branch, with which she is still active,<br />

and was president from 2004-<br />

06. She’s also chaired the Santa<br />

Clara County Mental Health Board<br />

and volunteered with Legal Aide,<br />

AARP Tax Aide, Keddem Congregation<br />

and the <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Jewish<br />

Community Center.<br />

Tincher said her proudest achievement<br />

was when she coordinated a<br />

campaign for a much-needed library<br />

in Long Beach.<br />

“The building was old, falling<br />

apart and inefficient,” she said noting<br />

that she had to convince City<br />

Hall to serve as the financing mechanism.<br />

“The campaign involved not only<br />

organizing the League, but also the<br />

Chamber <strong>of</strong> Commerce, PTA, the<br />

school board and members <strong>of</strong> the<br />

community,” she said.<br />

“Finally when all was set, I<br />

pitched it to the City Council. It was<br />

accepted. Had I not done that, we<br />

wouldn’t have had a new library. It<br />

was very satisfying.” n<br />

About the <strong>cover</strong>:<br />

The <strong>2011</strong> <strong>Lifetimes</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>Achievement</strong> honorees are<br />

(from left, back row) Dick<br />

Henning, Bill Reller, Betsy<br />

Collard and Jan Fenwick;<br />

(from left, front row) Veronica<br />

Tincher and Jim Burch.<br />

Photograph by Veronica<br />

Weber.<br />

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<strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly • May 6, <strong>2011</strong> • Page 19


Cover Story<br />

JA N FE N W I C K<br />

A LIFELONG TEACHER AND LEARNER<br />

by Zohra Ashpari<br />

As a child, Jan Fenwick loved the sunshine and the<br />

outdoors. She would roam the woods behind her<br />

home in rural Dayton, Ohio, climbing trees and<br />

even conversing with imaginary friends.<br />

Nowadays, her favorite pastime still<br />

involves a close connection to nature.<br />

She enjoys taking children on hikes in<br />

the pastures <strong>of</strong> Stanford or on learning<br />

expeditions to the salt marshes.<br />

She’s done so for nearly 35 years for<br />

Environmental Volunteers, a local<br />

nonpr<strong>of</strong>it that gives children hands-on<br />

environmental education.<br />

“I used to be a teacher, and I love<br />

the fact that I continue learning with<br />

kids,” she said.<br />

“Kids are excited and appreciative<br />

<strong>of</strong> the subjects we <strong>cover</strong>, and it’s our<br />

hope that through this, they will become<br />

stewards.”<br />

When Fenwick was growing up,<br />

her parents were heavily involved<br />

with the community. “My father was<br />

a judge, and he was very giving and<br />

had all kinds <strong>of</strong> civic involvements.<br />

My mother was a psychologist, and<br />

she volunteered all her life,” she said.<br />

Fenwick would go on to follow her<br />

parents’ example.<br />

After attending Middlebury College<br />

in Vermont, Fenwick continued at<br />

Stanford University to get her teaching<br />

degree. It was at Stanford that she met<br />

her husband, Bob Fenwick, who was a<br />

PhD student in electrical engineering.<br />

“It’s a funny <strong>story</strong> — we met at a<br />

potluck at a minister’s home who was<br />

hosting a ‘graduate dinner.’ I was attracted<br />

to him because he asked some<br />

really challenging questions <strong>of</strong> the<br />

speaker,” Fenwick said.<br />

She married Bob in 1960 and lived<br />

for three years in student housing at<br />

Stanford. Shortly thereafter, they<br />

bought a house in <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong>. She<br />

taught fourth and fifth grades for four<br />

years before retiring to start a family.<br />

She has two sons and a daughter.<br />

Fenwick’s first community involvement<br />

was with the League <strong>of</strong> Women<br />

Voters. Then in 1976, after her children<br />

were in grade school, she began working<br />

with Environmental Volunteers.<br />

More recently, she has been involved<br />

with the Environmental Volunteers<br />

management group helping to oversee<br />

the renovation <strong>of</strong> the Eco Center,<br />

their new headquarters, the former<br />

Sea Scout Building in the <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong><br />

Baylands.<br />

“It’s a great building to use as a<br />

classroom and a learning center for<br />

our public programs,” she said.<br />

Fenwick is also deeply involved<br />

with Foothill College. She’s currently<br />

a member <strong>of</strong> the Foothill Commission,<br />

which raises funds to benefit student<br />

causes and student life. The commission<br />

has raised as much as $100,000<br />

for scholarships in the past few years,<br />

Fenwick noted.<br />

“This college is important for the<br />

Silicon Valley because it <strong>of</strong>fers an inexpensive<br />

way to train for a four-year<br />

institution,” she said.<br />

Fenwick is also a member <strong>of</strong> the<br />

board for the Community School <strong>of</strong><br />

Music and Arts in Mountain View.<br />

The school <strong>of</strong>fers arts education to<br />

grades K-6 in Mountain View, East<br />

<strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> and San Jose schools.<br />

“We provide qualified instructors<br />

who visit schools which otherwise<br />

wouldn’t have had the funds. We bring<br />

them the arts,” she said.<br />

Fenwick has hosted many events in<br />

her Los <strong>Alto</strong>s Hills home <strong>of</strong> 24 years<br />

to fundraise for the school and other<br />

organizations, including Planned Parenthood.<br />

This year, Fenwick is board<br />

president <strong>of</strong> the Planned Parenthood<br />

Advocates in the Mar Monte region.<br />

“Our group’s aims are to elect prochoice<br />

legislators and to educate the<br />

public <strong>of</strong> legislators’ stance on abortion<br />

issues,” she said.<br />

“We also do fundraising for those<br />

legislators who support us.<br />

“Women should be allowed to do<br />

what they choose; how could you legislate<br />

a woman’s body?”<br />

Fenwick, never one to demur from a<br />

challenge, finds it satisfying to be part<br />

<strong>of</strong> the movement striving for female<br />

autonomy. Volunteer work is also satisfying<br />

because it improves quality <strong>of</strong><br />

life, including her own, she said.<br />

“I get as much out <strong>of</strong> it as I put<br />

in.”■<br />

Page 20 • May 6, <strong>2011</strong> • <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly


y Sarah Trauben<br />

Cover Story<br />

Jim Bu r c h<br />

Global vision, local action<br />

When Jim Burch considers the pursuits that<br />

earned him a <strong>Lifetimes</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Achievement</strong> award,<br />

his attitude is characteristically humble.<br />

“If I had a lifetime <strong>of</strong> achievement,<br />

it’s because <strong>of</strong> her,” he<br />

said, gesturing to his wife since<br />

1950, Wileta. He credits his community,<br />

not personal actions, for<br />

the bulk <strong>of</strong> his achievements.<br />

Born in Evanston, Ill., to a<br />

World War I veteran and a religious<br />

pacifist, Burch grew up<br />

in the shadow <strong>of</strong> war, which,<br />

along with the dangers <strong>of</strong> nuclear<br />

power, was to become his greatest<br />

concern later in life. Burch<br />

was drafted into the military in<br />

1944, serving in a South Pacific<br />

unit that didn’t see combat. In<br />

the devastating aftermath <strong>of</strong> two<br />

atomic bombings, Burch’s unit<br />

climbed up Wakayama Beach in<br />

Japan to participate in occupying<br />

the country. He toured the<br />

streets <strong>of</strong> Osaka and Hiroshima<br />

and found them to be strikingly<br />

similar.<br />

“Block after block after block<br />

was just rubble. Hiroshima didn’t<br />

look too different, and it didn’t<br />

register as terrible as it was,” he<br />

said.<br />

Having had enough <strong>of</strong> war,<br />

Burch convinced an army radio<br />

station to hire him. At age 19, he<br />

became director <strong>of</strong> the army radio<br />

station in Osaka.<br />

After a stint in Hollywood’s radio<br />

business writing for the likes<br />

<strong>of</strong> Gene Autry, Burch made partner<br />

at an advertising agency in<br />

Arizona and met his wife Wileta,<br />

a teller at the firm’s one major<br />

account: First Federal Savings.<br />

He proposed on the second date,<br />

and the two married within six<br />

months. They have two children.<br />

In 1951, he moved his young<br />

family to northern California and<br />

began a 23-year career with the<br />

San Francisco-based advertising<br />

agency BBDO, where he created<br />

award-winning advertisements<br />

for corporations such as PG&E,<br />

General Electric, Pacific Telephone<br />

and Standard Oil.<br />

Burch took early retirement<br />

and began his second career as<br />

a volunteer activist in 1974 after<br />

getting involved with the Sequoia<br />

Seminar. The consciousnessraising<br />

group combined Christian<br />

teachings with science and<br />

counseled members to take responsibility<br />

for their role in the<br />

“interconnected, interdependent<br />

universe,” he said.<br />

He also became president <strong>of</strong> a<br />

related <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> nonpr<strong>of</strong>it, Creative<br />

Initiative, which focused<br />

on anti-war education. A talk<br />

hosted by the group caused him<br />

to change his position on former<br />

client General Electric’s nuclearpower<br />

programs. He established<br />

Project Survival, a statewide<br />

volunteer organization on behalf<br />

<strong>of</strong> the Nuclear Safeguards Initiative<br />

Proposition 15, which would<br />

have set strict limits on output at<br />

existing plants and required legislative<br />

approval prior to the construction<br />

<strong>of</strong> additional plants.<br />

Creative Initiative garnered<br />

national attention when three<br />

participants simultaneously quit<br />

their jobs as GE nuclear program<br />

engineers and took public stands<br />

against nuclear power. “They said<br />

an advertising man was going to<br />

support them,” Burch recalled.<br />

The initiative was defeated in<br />

June 1976, but no new plants<br />

have been constructed since.<br />

Creative Initiative changed its<br />

name to Foundation for a Global<br />

Community in 1990. Burch produced<br />

a series <strong>of</strong> nature documentaries<br />

for the foundation that<br />

were featured on PBS. He served<br />

as a trustee until it liquidated its<br />

assets last December, donating<br />

them to various peace and sustainability<br />

projects internationally.<br />

In 1999, Burch was elected<br />

to the <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> City Council.<br />

Though the job required a local<br />

focus, he brought his sense<br />

<strong>of</strong> global interconnectedness to<br />

city government.<br />

“It’s one world; it’s one Earth;<br />

it’s one planet; it’s one ecosystem.<br />

We’re either all going to make it<br />

or nobody’s going to make it,” he<br />

said when elected mayor at age<br />

78 in 2005, the oldest mayor in<br />

city hi<strong>story</strong>.<br />

“There are a number <strong>of</strong> things<br />

that are great about <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> that<br />

are an inheritance,” he said. “I <strong>of</strong>fer<br />

the perspective <strong>of</strong> not getting<br />

caught up in the everyday pushing<br />

and shoving, not just solving<br />

the immediate problems.”<br />

Burch’s most recent civic work<br />

includes a successful campaign<br />

to decorate the <strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> shuttle<br />

with photos <strong>of</strong> local residents<br />

and humorous sayings to boost<br />

awareness <strong>of</strong> the free service. He<br />

also said he’d like to write down<br />

personal stories <strong>of</strong> the serendipitous<br />

turns in his life for the benefit<br />

<strong>of</strong> his grandchildren.<br />

“They really like how I proposed<br />

on the second date,” he<br />

said with a smile. “What a privilege<br />

it’s been to live this life.<br />

What would have happened if I<br />

hadn’t gone to Phoenix and met<br />

Wileta?” n<br />

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An Open and Affirming Congregation <strong>of</strong> the United Church <strong>of</strong> Christ<br />

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Sunday, May 8, 10:00 am<br />

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<strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly • May 6, <strong>2011</strong> • Page 21

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