2011 Lifetimes of Achievement cover story (Palo Alto ... - Avenidas
2011 Lifetimes of Achievement cover story (Palo Alto ... - Avenidas
2011 Lifetimes of Achievement cover story (Palo Alto ... - Avenidas
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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
Cover Story<br />
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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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Gle Spring Musical May 6-8 at 7:00pm<br />
An Open and Affirming Congregation <strong>of</strong> the United Church <strong>of</strong> Christ<br />
Stanford Memorial Church<br />
University Public Worship<br />
Sunday, May 8, 10:00 am<br />
“Amo ut intelligum<br />
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Rev. Joanne Sanders<br />
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<strong>Palo</strong> <strong>Alto</strong> Weekly • May 6, <strong>2011</strong> • Page 21