Sara Miller McCune

Sara Miller McCune

Sara Miller McCune downplays the summing up: hugely successful publishing mogul, supreme business strategist, major player in philanthropy, prodigiously intellectual thinker. She scoffs, offhandedly remarking there are many such in town. Right! But few would accept an award from a certain newspaper, rising to the podium to declare a desire to own that infamous paper by the following year. The scandalized emcee asked her backstage if she understood she’d been rude and impertinent. “Of course,” she replied. “And you’ll be the first person I’ll fire.” It’s become part of Santa Barbara legend. Not that it could diminish the aura of her enormous gift to The Granada, or the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind at UCSB, named after her publishing house, or the pledge for the new Media Arts Building at SBCC, etc, etc.  It simply adds to her mystique.

The magazines in her office reveal everything from Fast Company to The Economist, The Africa Report, Wired, and 805 Living stacked neatly. The paintings are good, notably a couple of Hank Pitchers. An adorable little white dog trots in ahead of her, accompanies her everywhere.  Her taste in bedside reading runs to mysteries, she admits, but for business she’s extensively informed about what’s current. Asked if all that erudition puts people off, she says she just hangs with smart people. The niche of Sage Publications is primarily academic journals and textbooks — huge. Monumentally profitable, it spawned McCune Foundation. She also founded another non-profit, The Miller McCune Center for Research, Media, & Public Policy; it recently launched a magazine in print and online, Miller McCune, describing actual and potential solutions to society’s problems, based on research made accessible to intelligent non-experts. It’s different than unloading opinions and theory; research is expensive. But that’s where public policy needs to find its way, she feels, and Sara’s been planning this venture for years. It’s a bold move for a woman who’s got nothing to prove to anyone.

She began Sage Publications at just 23, funded with small savings and half the proceeds from a used air conditioner, from her former boss at Macillan and mentor, George McCune, whom she later married. She emphatically says that if she’d wanted to write, she would have written. If she’d wanted to stay in England where she worked, she’d still be there. But her first job after college was in publishing, and she fell in love with the business. Her one-room office at Sage Publications was in New York at the edge of the toy district. Her first publication, Urban Affairs Quarterly, was founded by her former political science professor, a woman still on the board of the McCune Foundation today. Sara acquired distressed publications that were in debt, became skilled launching new titles, as well as at mergers and acquisitions. Today SAGE has over 800 employees and is headquartered in Thousand Oaks with offices in London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington, D.C.

Sara was widowed in 1990, and moved to Santa Barbara in 1993. She’s at home here, or in London, New Delhi or New York. Oprah’s not the only woman to sponsor a school for girls in Africa. Sara’s involved in so many philanthropic endeavors, her foundations employ full staffs. A long-standing tradition of tzdekah in her family, that lovely Jewish custom of dropping coins into a metal box for charity, has blossomed into a massive enterprise of its own. The woman just doesn’t think small!

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St. Cecilia Society

The St. Cecilia Society has no listing in the phone book and everything they do is under the radar and very anonymous. There’s only one annual tea, and you must be invited. It’s mostly women. But it’s the oldest charity in Santa Barbara, dating back to 1891, dedicated to magically paying hospital bills for those in dire circumstances, without the recipient’s awareness that even a dialogue has happened. And the job of investigating whom the recipients should be is a quiet, genteel affair that takes place between knowing hospital administrators, social workers, and the St. Cecilia board. The name notwithstanding, this is an entirely secular charity, funding diagnostic testing, emergency room treatment, medications, mental health care, ambulance fees, dental care, hearing aids, wheelchairs and other devices in addition to hospital stays. One case investigator had a direct experience as a recipient 20 years prior to becoming a board member, when one of her children was born with numerous birth defects including a cleft palette. At the time she and her husband were low wage earners, and when they tried to work out a payment schedule upon leaving St. Francis hospital they learned the bill had been paid. There was no way to write a thank you letter, since recipients are generally not told who or what has taken care of their problem, though in her case she did find out. A couple of decades later came an invitation for tea, and the woman eagerly signed on and has been on the board since. St. Cecilia’s mission is to expend funds, not to be in the banking business. So all is spent. There’s no endowment, though there have been a few bequests. Bills are negotiated and discounts obtained.  It’s a question of personally contacting institutions and providers and asking personally for assistance. No emails, no form letters. All very old school, all very personal, and all quite fairy godmotherish.
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Matt Sanchez

“Never let your schooling interfere with your education,” Matt Sanchez tells a laughing crowd, a room full of adversaries, gang members from all over the South Coast. One says Matt is chill, respectful, that everyone gets along with him, and it sounds like state diplomacy. Sanchez leads a snowboarding retreat for these enemies, of all things, called Hoods in the Woods. “I love my guys. And I love that they love me,” he says. The guys are standing around, some in borrowed jackets, ready to board a bus for a different situation. They bunk with guys they don’t know. Everybody falls down in the snow and everybody helps somebody get back up. A tough surveys the still beauty, the white landscape all around and declares this must be heaven. The hope is that some little tidbit sticks in their mind about their future. There is help out there, Matt wants them to be aware. He knows. He was one of them once. To see him today, a respectable family man with impeccably groomed black hair, there’s no sign he was ever a gang leader, a heroin addict, a felon. He can talk with these kids from a place of deep understanding. He was smoking weed in grade school. At 18, his brother was killed in front of him, a gun accident at home. Emotions were buried. Pain dissolved in narcotics.  Sanchez realizes that statistically, a lot of guys won’t make it. But the plan is to reach some and teach them to save lives, not take them. To make better choices, particularly in a retaliatory moment:  where will it stop? he asks them. In 2001 Sanchez received the California Peace Prize.  His organization, All for One, has been helped by numerous grants and donations. Yet every day is a personal struggle to stay sober. He knows what that life cost him, and doesn’t want others to suffer. Sanchez owns a barbershop in Montecito, which he bought from his father. If the place were in a movie, it might seem too coincidental that gang kids pop in to talk with him, and some of the highest-profile men in town wait patiently. In fact, many have been quite influential and financially supportive. Long ago he needed to take time off work to speak in high schools. Word got around of his gift of gab, that gang members trusted him. More teachers asked for a visit. He partnered with the Boys and Girls Clubs. He hosted his first football BBQ, a cross-gang event with other mentors and collaborators from gangs. Activities outside of the urban experience seemed to generate the right ambience for mutual support. All they needed to bring was themselves and a good attitude. If they excelled, they could return the following year as a mentor.  The Mammoth snow retreat was a huge success. They ate together, built snowmen together, learned each other’s names. Weapons were checked in for the weekend, to be returned. They learned CPR. Learned that every day, “everybody’s gotta make choices.” It’s a big deal, when a gang member hopes to come back the following year for the next generation of toughs. Or hopes for anything at all, actually.
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Audrey O’Brien Griffin

Audrey O’Brien Griffin loves horses. Tell her you ride them; she’ll light up like the North Star on a midnight cattle run. Tell her you own one; well…you’re in for a real treat. As you kick off your boots and settle into one of the comfy white couches at the Santa Ynez Valley ranch she calls home, you’ll learn something else about this stunning woman, (who by the way, still rides, ropes and reigns at 73!) Her no fear, “bring it on” attitude towards life has made her a living legend, which is why in 2008 she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. “I’ve been so blessed,” Audrey says, her hands gracefully sweeping over the collection of family photos and tributes to her accomplishments that line her shelves and cover the walls. “My parents gave me unconditional love which set me off on this journey that even now, as I look back, I am amazed at everything I got to do.” She goes on to explain that her parents never indulged her with her own horse, but that early on recognized her passion for riding. “My father would bring me to the Sunset Ranch in Culver City where I met my life-long friend, Sis Smith.” It was Sis who taught Audrey everything she wanted to know about horses; the two of them spending every minute riding, jumping, hurdling and yes, standing up on their horses while jumping barrels at full gallop. This daring stunt riding skill earned Audrey, at 19, a spot on the Flying Valkyries and she toured the United States performing in hundreds of shows. Eventually, she joined up with the American Wild West Show and for six weeks performed in Belgium at the 1958 World’s Fair. Returning home, Audrey took on a new challenge; this one, she says, glowing with pride, her most important and the most fulfilling. “I became a full-time mom to five girls, Melinda, Maureen, Molly, Megan and Maggie and giving those girls that same unconditional love my parents gave me, became my soul focus.” With her girls grown now, Audrey has rekindled her love for the ranching community, still team ropes, team pens and ropes at the committee calf branding at the Fiesta Rodeo in Santa Barbara at Earl Warren Show grounds every year August. For even though there’s no denying that Audrey O’Brien Griffin loves horses; there’s something else this talented, vivacious courageous woman loves even more. Life.
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Dawn Schroeder

She saved my life. Words you might hear in reference to doctors, paramedics, firemen or even Highway Patrol. But an athletic trainer, even one with Olympic credentials? Meet Dawn Schroeder, founder and director of Momentum 4 Life; a program she started in 2003 to help individuals challenge themselves as they train for marathons, triathlons, 5K’s 10K’s and more. Her M4L members range from young children to seniors, mother-daughter teams to married couples, and her most loyal fans; those facing what seem to be insurmountable challenges such as Christine Feldman, a local mother of two. Christine turned to Dawn for hope when she found out her breast cancer had come back for the second time. “I had just come out of the doctor’s office,” Christine says, “when I looked up on a bulletin board and saw a flyer advertising scholarships for cancer patients to join M4L. I was absolutely devastated but I called Dawn up and she came right along side me, giving me the courage to fight back by showing me how tough I really am. Thanks to her, I feel like I can handle anything. She gave me back my life.” Dawn’s secret in bringing out such passionate praise from her members is in her training model, which is based on the concept that people do their best when training as a team. “The connection with other people is what makes someone finish their goal”, says Dawn, who herself has been in competitive sports most of her life. “I learned early on, from my years on the San Marcos swim team, and then later when I went from UCSB to the Olympic Trials in 1984 and 1988, a team helps you learn life’s most important lessons.” Add fun, positive energy and the commitment to give back to your community and you’ve got a fool-proof formula, one that continually helps M4L grow in numbers every year. Of course it helps that Dawn’s vision has drawn in a first rate team of trainers. There’s her husband, Richard, a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist who specializes in perfecting swimming technique. Greg Wilson, the Head Coach of the UCSB Men and Women’s swim team, who year after year, invites Dawn back to her alma mater to give a pep talk to his swimmers. Hawaii Ironman finisher, Marcella Young who organizes the youth program for M4L, Dayna Jordan, a trainer and massage therapist, who’s been with M4L for ten years, Marcie Kjoller who heads up the M4L Kid’s Tri Camp each year, Anthony Garibay, the long distance running coach and Perry Lieber who brings his expertise in nutrition counseling to complete the package Dawn delivers to M4L members. “We all want the same thing for our members,” says Dawn. “Whether it’s getting them to face their fear of swimming in the ocean during a triathlon or empowering someone to finish a race, no matter how long it takes. My team and I want to be there; cheering them on and wrapping them in big hugs as they come over the finish line.” Dawn also believes in community service for M4L. Since the very beginning, she has reached out to others; urging her members to support local charities with donations in time, effort and financial assistance. The Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Story Teller, The Dream Foundation, The Cancer Center of Santa Barbara, Direct Relief International and dozens more, have all been the recipient of M4L’s generous fundraising with their annual Divas at the Double Tree event attracting hundreds of people all coming together for a good cause. “I am a better person because of Dawn”, says Fran Lewbel, who not only trains with M4L, but graciously sponsors aspiring athletes through the M4L scholarship fund each year. “She’s a leader, a mentor, a friend and a coach”. Kind words for a one of a kind woman.