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2008 Inductees

Barbara Millican Montgomery

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Video Interview.

Barbara Millican Montgomery, a resident of Oakland and a tireless community activist for more than 40 years, is a founding member and former President of the Acorn Housing Tenants Association, representing the interests of residents in the Acorn Housing Development in West Oakland. Barbara was among a small group of resident activists who stood up for residents of the Acorn project, an effort that led to a significant rehabilitation of the development that has helped it regain its reputation as a model for urban housing complexes nationwide. She achieved these and other accomplishments while raising six children as a single mother, working many years as a nurse and earning degrees in psychology and business management.

Peggy Peabody

CULTURE & ARTS

Video Interview.

Peggy Peabody of Hayward has been artistic director of the Ballet Petit for 29 years, inspiring and motivating hundreds of East Bay dancers to achieve their dreams. Peggy formed Ballet Petit in Hayward while still a student at Moreau Catholic High School and has devoted her life to sharing the artistry and inspiration of classical ballet with others. For years, she has arranged performances by students at local convalescent homes and in Oakland's annual Holiday Parade. She is a generous benefactor of the Oakland Ballet, and her dancers perform each year in the Oakland Ballet's production of the Nutcracker. Many of her students have gone on to outstanding ballet careers, working with such esteemed companies as the American Ballet Theater and Royal Ballet of London.

Helen Daniel

EDUCATION

Video Interview.

For 32 years Helen Daniel has been the backbone of the English program at Livermore High School, while also leading efforts to establish a cutting-edge computer education program and specialized instruction to non-English-speaking students. She has reached beyond customary classroom duties by leading efforts to keep the campus safe for all students - including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth - and being a valuable resource to her colleagues as a Mentor Teacher. Her impact is illustrated by enduring relationships she has with many former students, including one who could not speak English when he arrived in her classroom but is now a gifted computer scientist with a degree from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Cal State Hayward.

Carla Perez

ENVIRONMENT

Video Interview.

Carla Perez of Oakland has combined unique skills as a community organizer and passion for the environment to become a leader in the fight for environmental and social justice. Carla is Northern California Program Director for Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), an East Bay organization that focuses on environmental health and justice. She is a driving force of CBE's work in urban communities where low-income residents are routinely bombarded by industrial pollution and she sees that health problems caused by such pollution are made worse by poverty, inadequate housing, poor schools, insufficient health care and other problems. Her work at CBE has led to environmental victories such as the adoption of new monitoring and rules at oil refineries that have resulted in less pollution from these industrial plants.

Jane C. Garcia

HEALTH

Video Interview.

Jane C. Garcia, Chief Executive Officer of La Clinica de La Raza in Oakland, has long been a leader in the movement for more community based health services. Jane, who began with La Clinica as an intern in 1978, has brought a keen sense of organization to help steer La Clinica through turbulent difficult times marked by intense competition for funding and a constant struggle to maintain quality services. Under her leadership, La Clinica has grown from a one-county operation with a budget under $3 million into a leading health care force in Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties. The number of its clinic sites has grown from three to 23 and its operating budget in 2006 was more than $52 million, with more than 45,000 patients served.

Hon. Peggy Fulton Hora, Judge of the Superior Court, Retired

JUSTICE

Video Interview.

A judge in Alameda County for more than two decades, the Hon. Peggy Fulton Hora helped reshape the County courts to be more responsive to emerging problems such as substance abuse. As a lawyer and judge, she was known for an unyielding devotion to fairness. She once helped a woman defendant who was to appear before a jury in her jail clothes. Judge Hora retired to her chambers, took off her own dress, put her judge's robe back on and gave her dress to the woman to wear in court. Judge Hora retired in 2006, but not before she helped to found the Alameda County Drug Treatment Court, a ground-breaking program that seeks to address substance abuse issues that are a factor in many court cases.

Pam Hullinger

SCIENCE

Video Interview.

As a youngster growing up five blocks away from the Santa Anita Race Track, Pam Hullinger dreamed of being a veterinarian. That dream led Pam to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where as the lab's Chief Veterinary Officer she is a national leader in efforts to prevent the introduction and spread of foreign animal diseases. Pam's expertise brought her to the front lines of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Great Britain in 2001. She also played an important role in working to contain equine West Nile disease in California. At the Livermore lab, Pam has been closely involved in the development of a rapid test to detect foot-and-mouth and six other livestock diseases, which could save large numbers of animals and significantly reduce costs to U.S. agriculture.