Interesting People
Change Maker
Marie Copher knows how difficult it is to change careers. She left her longtime job as a social worker to start a coaching business. And she did it at the height of the pandemic.
“I had already been thinking about wanting to make a change for myself—doing the work I was doing didn’t seem to be fulfilling me as much as it used to,” says Copher, who spent more than 20 years as a social worker and counselor in nonprofit, hospice and government agencies.
“The pandemic removed the veil—not just for me, but for the world. We were going through our day-to-day lives without even thinking about what we were doing. We were on automatic. Then suddenly there was so much going on in the world affecting everyone.
Task Masters
Replacing a light bulb doesn’t seem like a big deal. But to someone who lives alone and can’t climb a ladder, this simple household task can be impossible.
Enter Blue Collar Concierge. This innovative business founded by husband-and-wife team Ben and Molly Doolittle offers clients a weekly appointment with a handyman to do those small tasks often neglected by an elder or busy homeowner.
“Ben and I both had aging parents,” says Molly, a teacher who grew up in the Bay Area. “We’d go visit Ben’s mom in Petaluma and we’d be walking out the door when she’d say, ‘Can you just do these couple of things?’ She needed someone for her ‘honey-do list.’ We realized there was this niche of people living alone in homes that need tasks taken care of—not big handyman projects, but smaller things like fixing a gate latch.”
Decades Of Service
When you enjoy the shade of hundreds of native oak trees in 13 parks maintained by the Carmichael Recreation and Park District, thank Jerry Eppler.
When you meander down the quarter-mile path to the Jensen Botanical Garden at Sutter-Jensen Community Park, thank Jerry Eppler.
Movie Magic
The room is claustrophobic. You can almost smell the tang of sweat and adrenaline. A face appears onscreen, uncomfortably close, marred by a wound. The camera reels as punches are thrown. You don’t know whether to look away or watch through your fingers.
Spencer Tsang was able to capture this intense scene on film because he lived it. He and his friends would meet behind a Taco Bell near John F. Kennedy High School to fight. It wasn’t until Tsang was in college and won a grant to make “Fight Night,” a short film based on this time in his life, that he realized he could make a living exploring his own experiences through art.
Keep On Walking
After 43 successful years in the intense, contentious world of law, Richard Turner abruptly pivoted into a soul-soothing sphere of artful photography, global travel and poetry.
Following graduation from Stanford, he became a young deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice, serving as Gov. Ronald Reagan’s personal lawyer. His duties ranged from keeping his boss abreast of current matters to addressing government legalities, and even to quelling riots.
Later when Turner announced his decision to move on to private practice, the governor offered him a judgeship in hopes of keeping him. “I declined. I felt I was too young,” Turner says. Everyone predicted his starvation.
Beneath The Surface
Everyone in California knows water is a hot topic. Water rights, drought, agriculture, climate change—California’s past and future are inextricably linked to H2O.
Retired water attorney Craig Wilson tapped into the state’s water drama for his debut novel “Kesterson: An Environmental Thriller,” based on the real-life case he handled in the 1980s involving Merced County’s Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge.
In the 1970s, Central Valley farmers were having trouble draining excess water from their land. Experts thought migratory birds in the nearby wildlife refuge could benefit from more water, so farms were allowed to divert drainage into the area.
