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I used to think I was a trendsetter. Turns out I was only an early adopter. In my 20’s I felt that I was at the forefront of social movements and pop trends. I was the first white kid to room with an African American in my college in 1965. I was an early feminist and among the first to document “neo-feminism” in the film Cindy: Shadows, which debuted on May 15, 1969. My pivotal years were 1968 and 1969. Only asthma – and my mother’s persuasion of a doctor to certify it – kept me from dying in Viet Nam in 1968 (and believe me this unathletic, asthmatic, wide-eyed kid would have been fodder). I was greatly affected by ‘60’s assassinations, especially that of Bobby Kennedy; in fact, I was driving with Charlie Reum through Utah, headed permanently west in my ’67 Mustang toward Los Angeles on June 6, 1968, the day Bobby was assassinated in Los Angeles. Mine was a multi-racial marriage on the Ides of March, 1969 – I had my own Yoko – which would have been illegal in 16 states only two years earlier, and in California and Nevada ten years earlier.

The California Prison Healthcare Receivership (CPHR) was established by Federal Court order in 2005 to restore minimum constitutional levels of healthcare within the California prison system.  A portion of the Receiver's charge was to bring California's correctional health care system in-line with existing laws, regulations, and court orders require the construction of health care facilities to serve the physically ill, the frail, and those suffering from a mental illness. The number of needed beds, approximately 10,000 in total, and their distribution between physical and mental illness and male and female patients, was determined only after careful analysis and coordination with the State and is documented in the Receiver's periodic reports to the Court.
In order to establish a cost-effective, integrated clinical delivery system, the Receiver assembled a team of experienced correctional and clinical professionals. He also retained, through a formal competitive bidding process, a major program management team—a joint venture between URS and Bovis Lend Lease (URS/BLL)—to ensure the necessary health care facilities are properly planned, designed, constructed, and occupied in as expeditiously and fiscally responsible manner as possible. URS/BLL, in turn, hired planners, architects, engineers, and support personnel necessary to move the project forward.