Peter E. Haas Public Service Award Recipients
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Martha A. Ryan — 2024
Martha A. Ryan M.P.H. ’89 (2024, Community/Social Service) is a visionary leader who has dedicated her life to serving others and built a remarkable legacy based on this principle. A former nurse practitioner, she is the founder and former executive director of the Homeless Prenatal Program, a nationally recognized family resource center in San Francisco that empowers homeless and low-income families — particularly mothers motivated by pregnancy and parenthood — to find within themselves the strength and confidence they need to transform their lives. She started her professional life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, later returning there to work as a nurse in refugee camps in Uganda and Somalia. Her other awards include alumna of the year at Berkeley’s School of Public Health, a CNN Hero Award, and the James Irvine Leadership Award.
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Clyde W. Oden, Jr. — 2023
Rev. Dr. Clyde W. Oden, Jr. ’66, Optometry, ’67 M.Opt., ’68, O.D., ’69 M.P.H. (2023, Community Service) is a community leader, retired African Methodist Episcopal Church pastor, and retired health care executive who has dedicated decades to serving the underserved and those who most need help. After studying optometry and public health at Berkeley, Oden found his life’s calling in advancing holistic physical and spiritual health in the communities of South Los Angeles. Whether leading the Watts Health Foundation or ministering to congregations, Oden has been motivated by a passion to make society fairer and just by creating a culture of care. In response to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 in communities of color, in 2022 he unretired to become Assistant Director of AC Care Alliance, an organization that provides lay navigational services and support to persons with advanced illnesses and their caregivers in California.
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William Rogers — 2022
William Rogers ’91, Rhetoric (2022, Social Service) is an insightful community leader and compassionate administrator who has greatly strengthened the Bay Area’s capacity to serve the needs of its citizens over a seventeen-year career in service. His work for the City of Berkeley’s departments of public health and parks and recreation has deepened and enhanced resources for Berkeley’s elders, for at-risk youth, for those struggling with HIV and economic hardship, and for those who simply want to enjoy the city’s public spaces. He currently serves as the president and CEO of Goodwill of the San Francisco Bay and on the boards of organizations focused on smoothing the path to higher education and ensuring that members of the LGTBQ community are seen, heard, and met.
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David Y. Lei — 2019
David Y. Lei ’74 (2019, Community) is an accomplished entrepreneur with a longstanding commitment to Bay Area community organizations. He has helped lead numerous organizations, including the Chinese Performing Arts Foundation; Chinatown Community Development Center; Center for Asian American Media; San Francisco Chinese New Year & Parade Festival; the Asian Art Museum; San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival; Chinese American Community Foundation; Lawrence Hall of Science; Berkeley China Initiative; and the Bancroft Library.
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Jeff Bleich — 2018
Jeff Bleich J.D. ’89 (2018, Social Service) has devoted countless hours without compensation to serving indigent clients and nonprofit organizations. He helped lead a team that invalidated the anti-immigrant measure Proposition 187, defended detainees’ rights before the U.S. Supreme Court, represented homeless and foster youth, helped overturn restrictions on gay and lesbian individuals in the military, assisted in prosecuting war crime in the former Yugoslavia, defended common-sense gun laws, and successfully represented victims of gender-based violence in the California Supreme Court.
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Angela Glover Blackwell — 2017
Angela Glover Blackwell J.D. ’77 (2017, Community) started PolicyLink in 1999 with the mission of advancing economic and social equity. Under her leadership, PolicyLink has championed the use of public policy to improve access and opportunity for low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, and infrastructure. Previously, she was senior vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, founder of the Oakland Urban Strategies Council, and a partner at Public Advocates, a nationally known law firm. She is a frequent commentator for top news organizations including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN.
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Robert “Bob” Tanem — 2015
Robert “Bob” Tanem ’53 (2015, Community) retired from his career as a commercial nursery owner and founded the gardening program at Homeward Bound of Marin, a homeless shelter and service center in Novato, California. Tanem transformed a parking lot into an organic garden, which provides produce for shelter residents and donated 400 pounds of food to a local charity in its first year. More recently the center expanded the program by turning a courtyard into an edible landscape, and the garden supports Homeward Bound’s culinary academy and catering program.
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James A. Kowalski, Jr. — 2014
James A. Kowalski, Jr. ’86 (2014, Community) is a preeminent civil trial attorney who has advanced legal rights for the most vulnerable members of the community, ranging from adults and children who have suffered from a violent crime to those who have been victims of predatory lending and collection practices. He is the executive director of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and is widely credited as being among the first attorneys in the country to uncover the mortgage servicing tactic known as “robo-signing.” He has been recognized with numerous awards for his work to advance civil justice.
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David E. Smith — 2013
David E. Smith ’60, M.D. (2013, Health Care) is a pioneer in the field of addiction medicine and founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics. A product of the golden era of California’s public education system, Smith affirms that experience led directly to his belief that “health care is a right, not a privilege.” His conviction that drug addiction is a treatable medical disease shifted the medical community’s perception of the problem.
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Patricia A. Kinaga — 2011
Patricia A. Kinaga M.C.P. ’77 (2011, Community) combines her work as a civil litigator with volunteer advocacy and creativity to give a voice to Asian Americans with unmet needs. She produced About Love, one of the first U.S. films about domestic violence, and cofounded a safe house for women and children. She directed Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, the first documentary to confront the late diagnoses of breast cancer — and uncounted losses — among Asian women. She also cofounded the only U.S. nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of Asians with physical and mental disabilities.
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Joseph Myers — 2010
Joseph Myers ’72, J.D. ’75 (2010, Community), a Pomo Indian of Northern California, is the executive director and founder of the National Indian Justice Center (NIJC), a nonprofit based in Santa Rosa, California. A graduate of Berkeley’s School of Law at Boalt Hall and a lecturer in Native American Studies at Berkeley for the past 20 years, Myers has been nationally recognized as a significant contributor to the improvement of justice and the quality of life in Indian country.
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Judge Harry Pregerson — 2009
Judge Harry Pregerson J.D. ’50 (2009, Community) has dedicated much of his life to helping underserved members of our society. He structured a consent decree that created thousands of affordable housing units for those displaced by the I-105 Century Freeway in Los Angeles. The Century Housing program also created training and employment programs for women and minorities, and established childcare centers. In recognition of his service, the I-105/110 freeway interchange was officially named after him.
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Frederick L. Moore — 2008
Frederick L. Moore ’96 (2008, Education) has helped carve a path to careers in the sciences for hundreds of students. While finishing his Ph.D. at UCSF, he made it his mission to expand access for others, cofounding the nonprofit Building Diversity in Science, which provides mentoring and resources to underrepresented minority students at Bay Area colleges and universities. More recently, he launched the Scientific Empowerment Movement, a statewide initiative that uses sports and entertainment to inspire urban high school students to pursue careers in science, medicine, and technology.
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Washington Burns — 2007
Washington Burns B.S. ’52, B.A. ’57 (2007, Community) has spent a decade working to improve the lives of low-income residents in West Oakland. As executive director of the Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, Dr. Burns oversees a wealth of community-based health, arts, and education programs including an immunization clinic, a computer lab, as well as music, theater, and reading workshops for youth. The center is home to programs like Another Road to Safety, which works with families to prevent child abuse and neglect, and to keep children out of the foster care system.
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Jody Lewen — 2006
Jody Lewen Ph.D. ’02 (2006, Education) is the director of the Patten University extension site at San Quentin State Prison. Unlike any other at a California penitentiary, this program enables prisoners to earn an associate of arts degree in liberal arts. Ms. Lewen faces numerous obstacles in maintaining the program. Yet many instructors, all of whom are volunteers, return repeatedly, and students are empowered to redefine their lives. To date, nearly 70 students have graduated.
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Chia-Chia Chien — 2005
Chia-Chia Chien M.P.H. ’74 (2005, Community) has an unyielding commitment to public health and public service. She has worked beyond her profession to help promote awareness for mental health concerns of Asian Americans, an under-served community in this area. After retiring, she has continued with her passion to serve the mentally ill. In 2001, Ms. Chien founded the Chinese Mental Health Network, a philanthropic organization that already has actively supported work to enhance mental health in the Chinese community.
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Barbara C. Staggers — 2004
Barbara C. Staggers ’76, M.P.H. ’80 (2004, Health Care) is a board-certified pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist who serves as a determined advocate for children. A leader in adolescent medicine and a national authority on high-risk health behaviors of youth, urban and minority youth, youth violence, and health care issues of multicultural societies, she has worked at the grassroots level to help disadvantaged minority youth in the East Bay. She founded Oakland’s first school-based clinic for teens at Oakland’s Fremont High School, providing youth with sex education and birth control, in addition to treating minor health problems.
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Corinne S. Jan — 2003
Corinne S. Jan ’76 (2003, Community) is a passionate and dedicated community activist who has devoted her life to providing access to essential services — from health to legal services — to seniors and minority groups in the Bay Area, with an emphasis on the Asian community. In addition, she provides non-English speaking communities increased access to legal services through the East Bay’s Legal Language Access Project and Neighborhood Law Corps.
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Armando de la Libertad — 2002
Armando de la Libertad ’93 (2002, Education) serves the needs of low-income Latino students in Southern California through a grassroots commitment to education. As chair of the volunteer-driven Orange County Hispanic Education Endowment Fund (HEEF), Mr. de la Libertad established a permanent $1 million, community-based endowment for merit-based scholarships targeting students of low-income families. Today Mr. de la Libertad is a banking professional devoted to individual and community empowerment through education.
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Joanna Lennon — 2001
Joanna Lennon ’70, M.S. ’81 (2001, Community) worked at the grassroots level to provide the resources for East Bay youth and young adults to improve their lives through community service and public education reform. She is the founder and executive director of the East Bay Conservation Corps (EBCC), a nonprofit organization located in Oakland, California, dedicated to pioneering programs that promote the civic engagement of children and youth within the context of improving public education and strengthening the larger community.
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Amy L. Lemley — 2000
Amy L. Lemley M.P.P. ’98 (2000, Community) helped establish the First Place Fund for Youth, a nonprofit organization that assists foster youth — in part by offering micro-loans for start-up housing costs — in their transition from foster homes to independence and adulthood. She also spearheaded the development of the Alameda County Foster Youth Alliance, a comprehensive network of community resources for foster youth who have recently “aged out” of foster care. High percentages of participants in these programs find employment and earn a high school diploma or GED equivalent.
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Dwight Steele — 1999
Dwight Steele ’35, J.D. ’39 (1999, Environment) served for decades as a volunteer for grassroots environmental causes. He led successful coalitions to stop the filling of San Francisco Bay; helped establish the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC); worked with the League to Save Lake Tahoe, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and the Tahoe Transportation and Water Quality Coalition; and helped organize the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, which has education programs at Lake Tahoe and Russia’s Lake Baikal.