Teddy and Bear—and Scooch
We’ve added another member to our GBA Kennel Club—Scooch! Old friends of GBA know that our two canine colleagues, Teddy and Bear, were left in our driveway in 2006 during the holiday season and became a part of the team at our new offices.
Now, they have a playmate. 
Little Scooch was brought into the family by Jayne and she creates some lively interaction with the older dogs. When they decide to play, all work must momentarily stop. Teddy and Bear are teaching Scooch some of their favorite tricks—like nudging our hands off the keyboard when it’s time to go home at the end of the day. We wonder if Gary taught them that as a way of avoiding paying overtime.
We’re happy to add Scooch to the GBA team because she adds a touch of the feminine to the gentleman’s club (the bitch) and she brings out the puppy in all of us.
GBA Presents at National Conferences
In October 2009, GBA presented “An Comparison of Primary Care Providers and Behavioralists Perceptions of Integration” at the at the American Public Health Association Annual Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In November 2008, GBA presented “An Outcome Study of Seven Primary Care Clinics Providing Integrated Behavioral Health Care” at the Collaborative Family Health Care Association Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado.
In October 2008, GBA presented “A Study of Integration Between Mental Health and Primary Care in Community Clinics and Health Centers” at the American Public Health Association Annual Conference in San Diego, California.
In the fall of 2007, GBA presented “Preliminary Findings from Statewide Assessment of Integrative Behavioral Health in Primary Care Settings” at the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association Annual Conference in Asheville, North Carolina.
In the spring of 2007, GBA presented “Program Evaluation: Don’t Begin a Program Without It” at the Annual Institute of the National Network of Social Work Managers in Chicago, Illinois.
GBA Does Meth
In 2007 and 2008, with a grant from The California Endowment, the Butte County Public Health Department engaged GBA to conduct a community-wide needs assessment in collaboration with the Butte County Methamphetamine Strike Force (BCMSF), multiple public and private organizations, and leaders and stakeholders. In the Pacific Region of the U.S., which includes Butte County, 94.3 percent of law enforcement officials identified methamphetamine as the greatest drug-related threat in their jurisdictions (National Drug Intelligence Center, 2007). Multiple sources were used to understand methamphetamine problem. A combination of primary and secondary data were acquired across a wide spectrum of community interests. Strong response rates in several instances produced robust data sets for analysis. GBA presented findings to the BCMSF and helped to craft the more than 50 recommendations that are contained in the plan. The Communities Mobilizing Against Methamphetamine Addiction Prevention Plan, can be viewed at http://www.2stopmeth.org/brochures/MethFinalReportHighRes.pdf
GBA Assists with Economic Stimulus
Gary Bess Associates helped several of its clients acquire an infusion of economic stimulus funding in early 2009. Working within short deadlines put out by the Obama administration through its ambitious American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to expedite economic growth, GBA helped procure more than $7 million in economic stimulus funding in February for several clients under the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Increased Demand for Services initiative.
GBA Facilitates CSULA Retreat
In March 2009, Gary and Susan facilitated a retreat for the faculty of the College of Health and Human Services at California State University, Los Angeles. The goal of the retreat was to help the faculty, which included members of the Departments of Nursing, Social Work, Criminal Justice, and Communication Disorders among others, to revise their strategic plan for the coming five years.
Jim and Melody conducted a pre-retreat survey of faculty attitudes and prepared a presentation of the results, which served as a provocative starting point for the retreat. Dr. Bea Yorker, Dean of the College, presided over the proceedings, which resulted in stimulating discussion and debate as well as creative envisioning by the faculty.
With the feedback from the retreat in hand, Gary and Susan redrafted the strategic plan and will facilitate a process of collaborative revision, by means of a blog and other technological wizardry, among all interested HHS faculty over the coming months.
GBA visits Community Health Centers
In late 2008, Gary, Jim, and Melody as part of a Tides Center Initiative on Integrated Behavioral Health completed site visits to thirteen community health centers throughout California.
GBA Grows
In April 2007, Gary Bess Associates moved from its little office on Wayland Road in Paradise to a larger space on Elliott Road, closer to downtown and a little farther away from the Bess family farm. The most attractive feature of the new office is its space—everyone has a little more elbow room and there’s a full kitchen to accommodate everyone’s mealtime needs as well as a big table for meetings.
However, within a year GBA’s staff had another growth spurt. Coincidentally, the house next door to the Elliott Road office was up for sale and had been on the market for a while, so Gary gamely decided GBA needed a compound and put in an offer.
Within a few months, the house was renovated to meet our needs, painted to match our other office, and readied for the evaluation team to move in. We created a parking lot between the two offices and suddenly, GBA had a compound! It amazed us all to look out and see all our cars parked together between the two offices, realizing that just a few short years ago, GBA was just Gary and Jim.
With our logo on the sign outside and our five grant writers, three-person evaluation team, office manager, intern and between two and five dogs, GBA is a growing enterprise, ready to serve!
Teddy and Bear
Longtime friends of Gary Bess Associates will recall that our two “puppies,” Teddy and Bear, were adopted by GBA after being left in our driveway in 2006 at the end of Hanukkah, just before Christmas. After a vain attempt to find their owners and a short period of begging by the staff, Gary decided to keep the pups, who moved with us to our new offices and have been our daily companions ever since.
The news is the puppies have grown! Who would have guessed that those cute little furballs would turn into the mighty beasts that now wander through out the workday, alternately campaigning for treats, napping, and rough-housing with each other, giving us all a break from our work to laugh at them?
There’s no secret about who they hold the most affection for; Gary still picks them up and holds them in his lap, even though the are nearly as big as he is—and they love it. But everyone at GBA gets the benefit of their sloppy kisses and gentle nudges. And they seem to know exactly when it’s time every day for everyone to stop typing and come away from the computer to play.
It’s not too much to say that GBA wouldn’t be as friendly a place as it is without Teddy and Bear. Just ask the FedEx guy.