jason shueh 2011 portfolio

clipsA PORTFOLIO BY JASON SHUEH

REBIRTH IN A RECESSIONformer san quentin inmate adrian garcia escapes his image to land an unlikely job

HELP FOR HAITI truckee natives cut teeth at ground zero

A PLAN IN SUDAN preparing to secede

KIDS, HORSES...HOPE disabled therapy goes equine

{contents}

23

16

19 12FEATURES12 • KIDS, HORSES...HOPEA Nevada horse ranch works miracles in disabled therapies

16 • REBIRTH IN A RECESSIONPenitentiary inmate Adrian Garcia escapes odds to findan unlikely job of service

19 • A PLAN IN SUDANCalifornia police chief rallies Sudanese leaders against corruption in support of South Sudan’s independence

23 • GRASSROOTS HELP FOR HAITITruckee locals bring humanitarian aid for Haitians at ground zero

DEPARTMENTS03 • HANDSHAKESMeet Jason Shueh

04 • VITALSEasy access to RESUME, references, digi-tal skills and job data

08 • MAGAZINE MIXPithy clips from Bike, a mountain bike magazine, and the Bay Area’s Diablo Magazine

26 • LAST WORDSA thank you and contact info

02 • [email protected] • (530) 563-8207 • clips

{handshakes}


PHONE CALLS. DEADLINES. E-MAILS. Interviewing that endless batch of interns. Life is busy enough — so let’s keep it simple.

In the following pages you’ll find an easily accessible, quick to reference, portfolio without the hustle and hubbub. All magazine and newspaper articles have been redesigned, all pertinent data inserted, for your reading convenience — original prints at your request.

As a San Francisco Bay Area native with a drive to chronicle the counter intuitive and an interest to unearth meaningful content, I’ve compiled highlightsfrom my best pieces. My clips begin at Orange County’s Bike Magazine, where I spearheaded the publication’s first trail guide, then jumps to my work developing Diablo Magazine’s print and online fitness sections, to my present-day collection of 1,500-2,000 word feature stories at Sierra Nevada Media Group, a chain of newspapers encircling the Lake Tahoe basin.

Topic matter includes an ex-con’s drive to escape his past, miracles in equine based therapies, US grass-root humanitarian efforts in Haiti, and a story about a police chief and his support of Southern Sudan as

they work to become an independent nation. Extending beyond the written word my editorial

experience goes past basic InDesign layout, digital photography or packaging budgets. I understand that the newsroom is not only an outlet for expression but a vehicle for a broader community, a template for an exchange of ideas.I understand representing a magazine or newspaper is more about representing a community than it is about the fine print. Editorial has always been about people, communities and providing that fragile link between them.

I believe a vital key to this and to publishing’s continued presence is the online community. I hope to help develop innovative ideas in social networking, online content and using my past experience in live web coverage, to expand reader-ship. Should I be given the opportunity to work at your company or publication my focus will be building community through innovative ideas and top quality content.

Simply said, I’m a driven writer who‘s searching for a new challenge.

AT FIRST GLANCE WITH WRITER JASON SHUEH

J

{vitals}


All the facts and none of the fluff: Resume, references and job data — at your finger tips

VITALS

{vitals}

JASON SHUEH: THE RESUMESkills

Web site management with SaxoTech’s Publicus web software, Cover-it-Live’s live online chat program and the nAssociated Press’ AP ExchangeDynamic editorial: Writing, copy editing, layout, investigatory/research/technical writingn

Grabbing digital photography and photo editingn

Social media familiarity: Facebook, twitter, etc.,n

Advanced Adobe Creative Suite experience: Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat Pro and Photoshopn

Bilingual in Spanish: speaking, reading, writingn

Professional ExperienceSierra Sun Newspaper, Truckee, CA. Nov. 2009-Present

Covered breaking local news of all types with a specialty in in-depth 1,000 - 2,000 word features boosting Web traffic nas high as 8,500 hits in a day for a single story (a newspaper record).Broke complex hard news dealing with courts, development, state and local legislation as well as financial content n

Managed Sierrasun.com Web site with local, regional and national news using programs such as Saxotech’s nPublicus, Cover-it-Live and content from AP Exchange.Coupled writing with photography depicting local emergencies, sports, local life shots, profiles and illustrative nphotography supplying art content on demand.Acted as a positive spokesperson for the newspaper facilitating positive community dialogue in often tense political nclimates

Diablo Magazine Freelance Writer, Walnut Creek, CA. Jan. 2009-Dec. 2009Personally created and developed n Diablo Magazine’s new online fitness section Diablo Fit increasing our publications Web site trafficWrote weekly articles and shot photos for Diablo Fit, n Diablo Arts Magazine and our Best of Editor Picks section on the Web site

Clark Fork Valley Press Newspaper Reporter, Plains, MT. May-Dec. 2008Wrote columns, tackled controversial court cases, wrote community feature profiles, covered stories that ranged from nsports, to government, to human interestConducted investigative reporting on community wells and water supplies that led to the E.P.A. testing for town narsenic concentrationsEdited copy, shot photography and generated layout pages for late-night and early-morning deadlines n

Planned weekly article ideas while diligently meeting with community members for story leadsn

BYU-Idaho Scroll Reporter, Rexburg, ID. Sept. 2005-April 2008Worked as a reporter in the sports and entertainment sections in the BYU-Idaho n Scroll, the university newspaper. Tasks included writing, editing copy and InDesign layout work for various pages and commercial design jobs.

Bike Magazine Intern, San Juan Capistrano, Ca. Sept.-Dec. 2007Supervised and contributed copy to Bike Magazine’s national trail guide, 50 Incredible Trails: A State by State Guide nto Riding in America as well as race and industry event coverageWrote columns and articles for the bikemag.com websiten

EducationBrigham Young universitY-idaho Ba April 2008rexBurg, idaho; Bachelor of arts degree in communication


{vitals}


THE REFERENCES

Professional data

Diablo MagazineSusan Safipour: Diablo Magazine Editor and ChiefCALL: (925) 943-1199, WRITE: [email protected]

Clark Fork Valley Press newspaperAaric Bryan: Former editor of Montana’s Clark Fork Valley Press and currently a sports reporter for the Montana Valley JournalCALL: (406) 676-8989, WRITE: [email protected]

Bike MagazineKip Mikler: Former Bike managing editor and currently a media consultant for Giant BicyclesCALL: (949) 371-9476, WRITE: [email protected]

Brigham Young University - IdahoLee Warnick: Journalism and communications facultyCALL: (208)496-3712, WRITE: [email protected]

• Professional Experience: 4 years• Current Company: Sierra Nevada Media Group• Coverage: Lake Tahoe & Truckee, Calif.• Newspapers: Sierra Sun, Tahoe Daily Tribune,

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza• Writing Style Specialty: Features, Technical writing• Topic Specialties: Education & Government

• Computer Software: NewsEdit Pro, Adobe CreativeSuite, Microsoft Office, Mac OS

• Website Software: SaxoTech’s Publicus, Cover-it-Live• Camera Familiarity: Canon/Canon EOS-1• Previous Publications: Diablo Magazine,

Bike Magazine, Clark Fork Valley Press.• Languages: English & Spanish

{Vitals}


ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 4 DESIGN PREMIUM

MEDIA: Over the years I’ve gained valuable skills working in a variety of digital media programs. Whether your company needs layout design work, digital photography or social media management, I would be able to assist. In addition to these skills I also have familiarity with NewsEdit Pro, an editorial management program, and SaxoTech’s Publicus, a website management program.

MEDIA & SOFTWARE

{magazine mix}


Articles and clips from the East Bay’s Diablo Magazine and Bike, a mountain bike magazine

MAGAZINE MIX

NTERING NAPA’S SWEETIE PIE COFFEE SHOP IS NANCY ALLEN. SHE’S DRESSED IN HER CYCLING ATTIRE. SILVER BIKE SHOES CLACK AS SHE WALKS THROUGH THE DOORWAY. BLACK LYCRA COVERS HER LEGS, WHILE A PINK AND WHITE JERSEY POKES THROUGH THE ARMHOLES OF HER NEON GREEN WINDBREAKEr. FOR ALLEN, AGE 52, IT’S JUST ANOTHER DAY ON THE BIKE. AN AVID CYCLIST, ALLEN HAS ACCRUED A NOTABLE SET OF MILESTONES IN THE SPORT. SHE’S RIDDEN 100-MILE BIKE TOURS THROUGH THE NAPA AND SONOMA VALLEYS, TRAVELED NEW ZEALAND FOR THREE WEEKS BY BIKE, AND HAS

PLANNED CYCLING TRIPS AROUND WINE COUNTRY, SANTA CRUZ, BIG SUR, THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS AND BANFF, CANADA. YOU’D NEVER GUESS SHE STARTED RIDING ONLY FIVE YEARS AGO, AT AGE 47.

Diablo Fit:

But if you ask her, the Pleasanton native doesn’t consider her cycling adventures anything out of the

ordinary; rather, she sees them as a matter of course. They’re natural results in her progression as a cyclist.

“As a lifelong athlete and an outdoor nut I’ve been game to learn many sports,” Allen says.

And over the years, her athleticism has expressed itself in the form of windsailing, skiing, tennis, golf and even surfing, just to name a few.

Yet, she says that while the sports she’s participated in have always been entertaining, they’ve nevercaptivated her in the way cycling has.

“The most unique thing about cycling is that this is the only sport I know of where you can get a great combination of exercise, adventure, exploration, camaraderie—and can leave from your front door,” Allen says.

She began riding in 2004 when friends at work started encouraging her with stories of their own riding exploits. Those mental seedlings sprouted into action when Allen found herself coasting along Napa and Sonoma’s rich country back roads with the same friends in tow. At that moment, she says, she knew cycling was for her and set the goal to ride her first 100-mile tour the following year.

“I could not believe how long I had lived in the Bay Area but had never seen what lies beyond the streets we drive on. I had no idea that such beautiful areas such as Pope Valley, Coleman Valley, or Mt. Veeder existed until I found them on a bike.”

This was no overnight transition, however. Allen understands that the process of riding well is far from an innate skill and emphasizes that endurance takes time, pointing to herself as no exception to the rule.

Ean east bay woman takes cycling to new heights

It’s never too late to find something new

{magazine mix}


Diablo Magazine

When she first started, Allen says she can remember all of the daunting climbs that strained her unsuspecting muscles and pushed her to grow.

“I wanted to give up,” She confesses with a smile, but adds that she remembers herself mentally chanting that one must go up to go down. “The more I rode, the more I got hooked,” she says.

As her drive propelled her deeper into cycling’s unique culture, she eventually found herself riding with the Golden Gate Cyclists, a Bay Area cycling club that caters to all levels and abilities—the club’s accommodating atmosphere toward all types of riders was one of the biggest things that drew her to join up.

“Women are not generally as strong as men or as focused on speed and may be challenged to keep up with men they meet,” She explains. Allen points out that the Golden Gate Cyclists offered her the chance to ride with a balanced demographic of riders and to expand upon her skills and techniques.

Looking back, Allen is always amazed at how many wonderful memories cycling has given her. More than

anything though, she says it’s empowering to see how far she’s come and the new confidence she has gained.

“The more you practice and keep at it, the more you can enjoy the sport: It is about endurance, both physical and mental,” she says. “I can ride anywhere and stick it out rain or shine.”

Today, Allen and her partner Jim (who’s also a fellow cyclist) enjoy traveling through the Napa Valley on their road bikes as they visit wineries,bakeries, art galleries and coffee shops. They both like to set goals for themselves and are constantly looking for the next big adventure by bike.

“Jim and I almost always build a destination into our bike ride,” Allen says. St. Supery Vineyards and Winery in the Napa Valley and the Bouchon bakery in Yountville are some of the couple’s favorite ride destinations.

“It’s a relaxing, almost meditative way, to spend time and explore together while getting great exercise.”

{magazine mix}


Bay Area resident and Napa Valley cyclist Nancy Allen, right, started cycling at age 42 and has since ridden 100-mile jouney across the globe. Above, Allen’s haunting grounds, the scenic Napa Valley.

J

{magazine mix}


This is one of many pieces belonging to Bike Magazine’s inaugural trail guide issue. Titled “The 50 states, 50 trails trail guide,” the issue highlighted one of each state’smost popular, or wonderfully undiscovered trails. Since this issue Bike has launched btrails.com, an online and ongoing digital trail guide.

KIDS & HORSES … and HOPE

incline village non-profit helps kids — and adults — with horse therapy at minden ranch

{feature}


BENEATH HELMET AND GLASSES JIM JUENEMAN IS WINCING. THE MUSCLES IN HIS LEGS ARE CONTRACTED AND STRETCHING. HIS LEFT FOOT WEDGED INTO THE CUFF OF A STIRRUP, HIS RIGHT HAND GRAPPLING THE HORN OF A SADDLE. JUENEMAN PULLS WITH THE FORE-ARM AROUND THE SADDLE’S POMMEL, BODY BENT, AS TWO WOMEN IN GREEN T-SHIRTS HOIST HIM UPWARD ONTO A SPECKLED WHITE ARABIAN SHOW HORSE.

By Jason Shueh

{feature}


Sitting inside the Double “W” Ranch Alexis Roman Hill, Kids & Horses executive director and Jim Jueneman smile together before the day’s work and horse ride.

This feature article was originally designed as a special insert, part of the Sierra Sun’s effort to support the local non-profit. The media sponsorship of the group has since helped the organization to increase volunteers, donations and ultimately increase the number of disabled children it can enroll at the camp.

Jueneman, 48, gasps in the hot air, adjusts his posture, smiles. It’s a Monday and he is at Kids &

Horses, an Incline Village based 501 (c)3 non-profit formed in 1999 and offering horsemanship therapy for adults and children with disabilities such as blindness, paralysis, autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and other impairments.

Jueneman, a Carson City resident, has been visiting the center for the past 10 years to help with his balance and coordination. Born with cerebral palsy, Jueneman walks with a limp and says the therapy helps him with his bad days — days when he doesn’t want to get out of bed, days when his legs are pained, days when his cat has hidden itself outside his apartment making him search behind the nearby 7-Eleven.

“There’ll be days when I wake up and my legs don’t want to work, and I just want to stay in bed,” Jueneman said. “I don’t know if you have days like that but I do.” Because of his disability, Jueneman

said each morning it takes him 40 minutes to put on each shoe. The camp and its instructors, he said, are another reason for him to put them on.

THE PLANNER AND THE PLAN

The Double “W” Ranch, the home of the horse camp, rests against a ripple of low bluffs in

an open stretch of desert in Minden, Nev. Beyond the ranch, the Carson Valley pitches itself in a flat spread of dry earth and gray sage, an arid sprawl between the Carson Range and U.S. Highway 50’s rolling arc into the Sierra Nevada. The ranch is tucked behind suburban homes. It is bordered in white picket fences with corrals and riding areas, stables and sheds, all hidden within a 10-acre plot. The ranch even boasts its own garden with a variety of climate-defying vegetables, green and lush, and taken care of by Jésus, the groundskeeper living onsite.

Inside the camp’s offices,

Judy Holt, an equine manager and instructor, looks upward at a framed photo of a large man wearing a cowboy hat, glasses and a furrowed gray beard. She points out the man is Sam Waldman, a former longtime Incline Village resident and the camp’s founder.

“Sam had the grand plan,” Holt said.

Waldman died in 2000, a year after he founded the non-profit. But his vision is being realized by his wife Lorri and his children who have continued to support the camp’s development under the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association, an internationally recognized organization promoting equine-assisted activities and therapies. Within Nevada, the camp is one of the two camps that are NARHA Premier Accredited Centers.

Holt said the center is run mainly by volunteer support and has dedicated six horses for its winter through summer programs.

{feature}


Alexis Roman Hill, executive director of Kids & Horses, said the camp provides disabled resources unavailable in most places in the state. And in Jueneman’s case, Hill said it is one of the few programs out there.

Though available for adults, Hill said the center deals mostly with children suffering from disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy, rickets and Down syndrome.

The program provides children, no matter their disability, the opportunity to build confidence through achievement on the horse. In recent years she said the program has become so popular the waiting list for enrollment has jumped to a three-year wait — most participants recommended to enroll by their physician.

BETWEEN FAITH AND SCIENCE

Miracles. Camp co-founder Lorri Waldman says she has seen four at the camp,

children who were told by doctors they would never use legs, limbs or feet — walking, shedding braces and restraints, freely moving, unassisted and self-propelled.

Waldman said hippo-therapy, the therapeutic effect of a horses movement, has in some cases been able to make strides where other therapies have not.

Whether this progress is the result of the horses movement against the human body — as Waldman says some studies have suggested — she does not know but said her belief in the program is a result of raw observation.

Waldman said she has heard autistic children utter their first words at the camp, seen children with muscle disabilities become more mobile and listened to countless testimonials from parents praising the program for its empowering results in the their children.

“I think the biggest part for me is that I get such satisfaction seeing

how much it does for the children,” Waldman said.

Larry Harper, a professor of human development at the University of California, Davis, said though he is not specifically involved with the camp, it could be providing children an opportunity for safe exploration they can’t get elsewhere, both in their own abilities and how they can interact with their environment.

“It seems one of the tasks of growing up is to discover what you can accomplish by yourself,” Harper said. “These kids have some sense of what they can do with their bodies but may not be on par with their peers and may be able to discover something new there.”

Harper said being able to control events appears to be a fundamental need for all people, a need he described as “a sense of yes” the belief a person has the he or she can make something happen.

“For most kids, what I can do, what I can make happen , is something they want to find out,” Harper said.

Camp staff lead a child with Down syndrome around their outdoor corral speaking with the child to encourage his responsiveness.

He explained, studies have shown that even after one or two days after birth a baby will experiment with its hand to see if it will move. The camp, he said, and other similar learning environments are far from controlled, but they are environments that allow children free exploration and confidence building through self-discovery.

A BELIEVER

Wendi Fauria sits at a table among rows of saddles, halters, horse shoes and

stirrups. Fauria is distant and gazing, caught away in a tumult of emotion. She is rewinding time, going back eight years to the day she describes as the worst day of her of life.

“I was devastated,” Fauria said. “You have all these hopes and dreams for your child and then when you find out the prognosis that it’s a lifelong altering disability, you go through all of the stages of grief: Anger, denial, depression…”

Fauria, a Gardnerville resident, and her husband Garritt are the

parents of an 8-year-old boy named Dave. Fauria said she remembered when her son was first diagnosed with autism.

“He was 11 months old when I thought there was something wrong but I wasn’t quite sure what is was,” Fauria said. “But then I saw a special on NBC’s Dateline and I said to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s what he has!’”

Dave was officially diagnosed when he was 15 months old. Since, Fauria and Garritt have been assisting their son with a variety of autism therapies from Applied Behavioral Analysis, a behavioral education therapy, to supplementation, a dietary therapy assisting with autism.

Fauria said when Dave was first diagnosed, her family went to an autism conference and a doctor said the process of learning the diagnosis is similar to going through the actual stages of grief when someone dies — except with autism, instead of the last stage of acceptance, there is hope.

“There are so many different therapies that can help them

improve so you never know what their ultimate prognosis is going to end up being,” she said.

Fauria said Kids & Horses is a part of that hope, and it has made a dramatic impact in her son’s development. She said when he first began attending the camp five years ago, at the age of three, Dave wasn’t speaking and was not responsive to questions.

“He’s night and day now compared to how he was back then. He’s made tons of improvements but still has a long way to go,” she said.

As her son grows, Fauria said her family has a type of gratitude and a pride for Dave that can only be measured in small and simple moments, moments easily overlooked.

“Because of everything he has gone through and where he came from, every little step we celebrate,” she said. “We celebrate every little milestone, each small accomplishment, things other parents can take for granted.”

{feature}


OlaBay Quarter Horse

17 years old

VioletGray Arabian Mare

29 years old

SargeChestnut Gelding

28 years old

ComancheAppaloosa Gelding

13 years old

J

{feature}


HOW ONE LAKE TAHOE

RESIDENT FOUGHT AGAINST

ECONOMIC ODDS, AND HIS

TEENAGE CRIMINAL

HISTORY, TO FIND A JOB

SERVING OTHERS.

REBIRTH IN A

RECESSION

KINGS BEACH, Calif. — The laughing. He’ll never forget it. The judge sitting atop the stand, her black robe jostling, gray hair shaking, NECK BENT, face contorted, laughing into his penitentiary report like it was an off-color joke. He was afraid, THOUGHT ABOUT THE POTENTIAL PRISON SENTENCING — TWO TO FIVE YEARS IN SAN QUENTIN STATE PENITENTIARY — COULDN’T BE HAPPENING. HE WAS JUST 18.

BY JASON SHUEH

Adrian Garcia said he remembers looking across the courtroom.

Everyone was staring. His lawyer, the district attorney, the court reporter, his sister, the police officers. And the old judge was still laughing. Had she cracked?

“You’re all probably wonder-ing why I’m laughing,” he re-members her saying, then saw her smile: A slow stretching smile making its way across the judeges wrinkled face — ripples in tow.

Garcia said she told him that in 30 years as a superior court judge, she’d been able to of-fer only one other person the opportunity she was about to give Garcia — to waive a sentence for 120 days of good behavior at San Quentin. In those three decades, she said Garcia was the only one who did. She was ecstatic.

Now 22, Garcia said the offer changed his life.

“Thank God I didn’t go back to doing what I did,” he said. “Now, I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay area and Carson City, Garcia had been involved in gangs, living day-to-day, working small jobs, construction mostly. On his own at a young age, Garcia said the bills had begun to mount, his phone bill, rent, utilities, car insurance, credit cards, food.

It made him desperate, and he turned toward a friend’s offer of easy money. Garcia remembers selling dope for the first time: $500 in an hour. His second time selling sent him to prison. He’djust turned 18, not a minor anymore.

Garcia paid his 120 days in San Quentin, made good on the judge’s offer.

Once paroled, Garcia said he was determined to make an honest living, to overcome the

weight of a felony pulling hard against him.

“All I wanted was a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance,” Garcia said. “I didn’t want people looking at me like I was a criminal anymore.”

Garcia began hunting con-struction jobs, temporary work, jobs with family. He worked where he could, struggled and kept struggling until one day a job emerged in the most unlikely of ways.

FINDING THE JOB

Garcia moved to the Tahoe basin in July 2008, living in an apartment

on the west shore. He began searching for jobs, and worked when he could find it — doing construction, landscaping, rock work, body work, hauling debris with his uncle. And it was here when a social worker he knew

{feature}


Adrian Garcia, right, escaped a life of crime and up to five years in prison at San Quentin State Penitentiary to serve his community.

told him about the North Tahoe Family Resource Center in Kings Beach.

Garcia said he didn’t know how he wanted to do it, but he wanted to give back, and in some way, make a change.

Emilio Vaca, the family resource center’s executive di-rector, said he remembers their first conversations well.

“He came to our office at first to volunteer and just seeing his passion and what he wants with life, we let him begin volunteer-ing,” said Vaca.

Not easy, not made lightly, Vaca admitted it was a decision that was weighed and re-weighed in his mind — liabilities, risks, outcomes, community reaction. In the end, Vaca said it came down to living up to the family resource center’s purpose, walk-ing the walk and reaching out.

“I think I looked past his background and saw him as an individual who at a young age made mistakes but deserved something more,” Vaca said.

And so in December of 2009

out Garcia went, filing paper-work, handing out pamphlets, phone calls, e-mails, volunteer driving, cooking, cleaning. He did it all. Three months went by, hundreds of service hours tallied — none of it required. Garcia ex-pected no job, and no prospects were given. He served while the recession rampaged, state un-employment 9, 10, 11, 12 percent — rising.

Then in the winter, a bliz-zard. And Garcia out with a clip-board, walking up Coon Street, Deer, Beaver and Fox. All for signatures, support for Kings Beach’s first affordable housing project, the Kings Beach Afford-able Housing Now campaign.

Vaca recalls it. Garcia dressed in a parka, beanie and boots. His beard and ponytail tucked into a hood, cold and freezing, knock-ing doors, taking names.

“He’s pretty much a commu-nity guy. His heart’s in the right place and I could never take that away from him,” Vaca said.

And so in the month of February Vaca made an offer. Garcia accepted. He would be the family resource center’s first pro-moter, a representative for the center to act as an outreach spe-cialist for the community. Despite a recession, hard luck and hard times, Garcia had gotten a job.

A NEW IMAGE

Sitting across a wooden table at the family resource center, Garcia is wearing a

T-shirt and ball cap, leaning his elbows onto the table and talk-ing about second chances. Garcia

said he wonders if his past will forever overshadow his present.He said there are many who see him only for the marks on his record. He says he doesn’t know if or when he’ll ever be able to escape it.

And if he can’t, he’s not wor-ried about it. Garcia said it’s not about himself anymore. He’s about helping others. Others, like the youth he works with, youth on probation, kids doing required community service, teaching them to avoid some of the pitfalls, to instead think of themselves, their family, a future.

{feature}


“Just because you’ve gone through this situation in your life doesn’t mean you have to live it everyday,” Vaca said. “Did he mess up? Yeah he did. Did he do his time? Yeah he did. Now he’s giving back.”

Thinking about the road ahead, Garcia said he hopes to continue working in the community, later, maybe to work for another non-profit agency.

“I’m doing what I like and Iike being who I am now,” Gar-cia said.

Someday, he said he hopes he’ll be seen for what he does, and not what he’s done, to show a life of work and service, to be seen as someone of worth, greet-ing all with a smile. Confident. Happy. Laughing.

“I’M DOING WHAT I LIKE AND LIKE BEING WHO I AM NOW” — adrian garcia

Garcia, left, places a poster warning residents of bears. Part of his many jobs at the North Tahoe Family Resource Center in Kings Beach.

J

{feature}


A PLAN IN SUDANBY JASON SHUEH

Truckee Police Chief Nick Sensley heads up anti-corruption workshop

in South Sudan as succession nears

{feature}


Dressed in a blue suit coat and blue tie Nick Sensley, center, stands with Government of South Sudan law enforcement before a leadership workshop.

TRUCKEE, Calif. — The photograph couldn’t be more revealing.Under a bright, hot sun, standing amid a dirt

plot bordered by low white buildings and a smattering of verdant trees, brush and jeeps, stands Truckee Po-lice Chief Nick Sensley. He is accompanied by South-ern Sudan police forces dressed in uniform, emblem-adorned berets on their heads. They are smiling and look toward Sensley who is dressed in a blue suit coat and gray pants. The photograph depicts Sensley, 48, shaking hands with a young man in a brown cap and military styled uniform. Like others in his group, the man’s expression is jubilant, happy, a broad smile spreading across his face.

Sitting in his Truckee office last week Sensley said the optimism expressed in the photo is endemic to the Southern Sudanese people as they work toward a peaceful succession from the predominantly Arab and Muslim dominated Northern Sudan on Jan. 9, 2011.

As Sudan’s project director for Pointman Leader-ship Institute Global, a nonprofit leadership develop-ment institute, Sensley led an international team to Juba, in South Sudan in early November as the start of a long term national anti-corruption development program.

The trip was made at the request of the Sudanese Ambassador Akec K. A. Khoc after Sensley gave a PLI seminar in May to the Pennsylvania State Police where three Sudanese police generals and one colonel had been in attendance.

The African nation has received international news coverage for the bloody civil war among its current government, the unified Republic of Sudan; the Jan-jaweed, a group of Arab tribal militias; and the many rebel forces that are a mix of African ethnicities. Most notably, Sudan received world attention in 2003 for its conflict in Darfur, when the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement

took up arms against the government, accusing it of oppressing and committing genocide against black Af-ricans in favor of Arabs.

The Darfur conflict set in motion a civil war that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 2.5 million people internally or externally since 2003.

Despite national news coverage depicting bleak-ness and a sense of futility, Sensley said hope is far from counter intuitive for the soon-to-be fledgling nation. Holding up an article and pointing to a pho-tograph from the New York Times, Sensley said na-tional media coverage falls short of depicting the true Sudan.

“What these types of pictures don’t show is the sense of hope and enthusiasm and energy of the people for this change,” Sensley said. “For this nation that has had at least three, maybe four major peace agreements in the last 40 years — and each one issuing in a return to violence — I think there’s a sense that this time we might just make it without the accompaniment of vio-lence.”

However in order to maintain the momentum and firmly establish South Sudan as a progressive new na-tion, he said great sacrifices need to be made by its leaders, including a commitment against corruption.

THE PATH OF SACRIFICE AND ENDURANCE

Displaying another photograph, Sensley shows a picture of a small white room with fluorescent lighting and long rows of stretched tables. A

microphone speaker sticks out of a crowd of uniformed men, tightly packed, note books and bottled waters in hand. It is a photograph of one of the many workshops Sensley conducted with more than 120 leaders from Southern Sudan’s civil agencies.

Sensley said the workshops were dedicated toward assessment of South Sudan’s law enforcement and a focus on its anti-corruption efforts.

“We try to encourage leaders to really combat cor-ruption because corruption in developing and tran-sitioning nations, in particularly Africa, directly cor-relates with poverty and ultimately with a variety of human rights abuses,” Sensley said.

To combat corruption, Sensley said PLI — which has helped develop police forces in 57 nations and worked with more than 60,000 leaders world wide — requires nations accept they are vulnerable to corrup-tion and then identify commitments needed to over-come it.

Sensley said he stressed the principals of sacrifice and endurance to Sudan’s leadership, because they

{feature}


Truckee Police Chief Nick Sensley stands and greets law enforcement leaders from multiple agencies in Southern Sudan. Sensley made the trip to South Sudan in behalf of Pointman Leadership Institute Global, a worldwide leadership development agency helping law enforcement officials in developing nations.

Juba Sudan, above, is estimated by some to be the future capital city of Sudan should the referendum vote allow the south to succeed from the north on Jan. 9, 2011.

will be the pioneers of the new nation, and pioneers are required to make sacrifices for future generations.

The comment was not made lightly.“These are people that when you tell them they

need to accept sacrifice and endurance, they know it in the hardest of terms, they really do,” Sensley said.

Understanding the great divide between his Amer-ican upbringing and the harsh realities in Sudan, Sen-sley said he didn’t pretend to fully understand the struggles of the Sudanese people and leaders or claim to have all of the answers for their nation.

Instead, Sensley said he told leaders who might have a feeling of “That’s easy for you to say” that he couldn’t help where he was born or what he was born into and neither could they; however, he said it was important for them to see him for what he was, some-one who was the beneficiary of someone else’s sacri-fice and endurance, a sacrifice and endurance Sensley hoped Sudan’s leaders will make for their children and their children’s children.

“We don’t go into to this with ‘Here we come to your rescue. We’re coming to tell you what you need to do and how you need to do it’ we come here from a sharing perspective,” Sensley said.

A HARD ROAD

In 2005 Sensley said a transformative peace agree-ment was signed between the current government and South Sudan that established a peace between

South Sudan and set the groundwork for the region to be an independent nation.

On Jan. 9 the people of Southern Sudan are to vote formerly in a referendum to decide the country’s inde-pendence.

Sensley described the 2005 agreement as pivotal for the Southern Sudanese people, halting the blood-shed and uniting ethnicities in support of South Su-dan’s religious and cultural freedom.

Yet, disputes between the north and south are far from resolved. Remaining issues of confrontation in-volve setting official boundary lines between the soon-to-be two nations. Another combustible dispute is over Sudan’s rich oil resources that are predominantly located in the south, with revenues still to be divided.

Outbreaks of violence between rebel and Janja-weed militias still occur. In May 2008, northern forc-es stormed the border town of Abyei and burned the area to the ground, killing at least 89 and displacing 90,000. The attack was ignited by a dispute between the south’s army after both sides failed to withdraw from the area as agreed under the 2005 peace agree-ment.

To complicate the equation Sudan’s current presi-dent, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes enacted during the Darfur conflict.

Both the Obama administration and the Bush ad-ministration have worked throughout the nations’ conflict to work toward peace.

When South Sudan becomes a new nation in Janu-ary, Sensley said he has been invited back to meet with South Sudan’s still-to-be-finalized president and cur-rent ministers.

{feature}


More than 120 of the Government of South Sudan’s law enforcement leader-ship attended Sens-ley’s anti-coruption and skill develop-ment workshops.

J

Grassroots help for Haiti{feature}


Amid homelessness, hunger, and sheer desperation, life or death can be a simple matter of luck and logistics. It’s something Sam Bloch knows well. The Truckee resident and founder of Grassroots United, a Haiti relief organization, has been working with Haitian officials to coordinate aid since Jan. 27 — two weeks after the massive earthquake struck.

TAHOE - TRUCKEE RESIDENTS COORDINATE RELIEF

A man suffers from cholera symptoms at a local hospital in Limbe village, near Cap Haitien, Haiti.Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press*

BY JASON SHUEH

With a home base in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Bloch said he and his team have flown 10,000 doses of antibiotics and more than 1,000

pounds of medical supplies into the country. This, in addition to doctors and other medical personnel.

“It's a massive logistical nightmare over here,” Bloch said.

While supplies are constantly coming in, he said relief organizations — including the United Nations — are struggling to distribute food and medications fast enough. In Jacmel, a city just 25 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, he said aid is just beginning to trickle in since the Jan. 12 earthquake, which has killed more than 200,000 people, according to recent counts.

Bloch said he remembered one woman who gave birth to twins only to watch one of her children die for lack of a breast pump located in a supply cache in a town not far away.

“Here the entire infrastructure of the entire country has fallen to ground,” he explained. “So our

main objective here is to fly supplies as well as doctors in.”

To accomplish this, Bloch and his mother, Sharon Velez, a physician's assistant in Pasadena, Calif., are setting up field clinics around rubble and ruined buildings. In one day Bloch said they treated more than 400 people with more still waiting to be helped.

With such great demand for aid, conditions often near riot levels, Bloch said. To calm tensions, Bloch said part of the help he offers is to assign crowd management to members in the crowd.

“The best thing I've found to work is to empower the people — get them to control themselves,” he said.

LIFE IN HAITI

Living conditions are a hit-and-miss affair. Bloch said at night there is the echo of gunfire, all traffic stops and people sleep in the streets.

In contrast, the day he said is filled with military helicopters flying overhead, supply trucks

{feature}


Truckee resident Sam Bloch, in a recent photo in Jacmel, Haiti, where he has coordinated aid and relief efforts in the earthquake-devastated country.

Brenda Zimmerman/Courtesy Photo

lumbering across dusty roads and the constant gathering of crowds searching for food or medical attention.

Unlike the earthquakes in Peru in 2007 where Bloch served as operation director for the non-profit Burners Without Borders or the tsunami in Thailand in 2005 where he served as project manager for the Tsunami Volunteer Center, Haiti, he said, is a completely different animal because of the nation's lack of infra-structure and almost non-existent emergency relief programs.

“Personally, the main thing I've been working on is not to tax their current resources,” he said.

As meals go, Bloch said he and his staff are subsisting on military standard Meals Ready to Eat, and all of his belongings are carried in a light backpack.

Sleep, he described, is sporadic.

A HOME BASE

More than 700 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince lies Hangar 58. It's Grassroots United's informal base of operations at Fort

Lauderdale International Airport. Here medical sup-plies are stacked on shelves, pallets and anywhere empty floor space can be found.

Kings Beach resident Brenda Zimmerman has been navigating the hangar's small maze of boxes for about two weeks since operations began. As Logistics and Operations Manager, Zimmerman said she is in charge of coordinating shipment and passenger transport on

their donated Cessna T210 airplane.“I can't tell you how many people call each day

asking for a ride on our plane; but right now, we only have space for medical personnel,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman said even she hasn't made the trip in order to allow more room for supplies such as antibiotics and medical staff.

“Right now we're trying to mobilize as many supplies as we can,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman is working late nights and long days for this effort but said she wouldn't trade the experience for anything and thanked pilot Mike Budincich, one of the organization's main sponsors, for making it all possible.

“It's one of the most powerful experiences in my life.” Zimmerman said. “I'm here until they send me home.”

And, according to Bloch, that might be awhile.

NO END IN SIGHT

Bloch said he sees these first efforts of Grassroots United as preliminary measures to spearhead a much larger operation.

Once there is a measure of stability in the country he looks to expand the volunteer program and set up a base of operations where volunteers can be contracted out for free to help build orphanages and housing.

Already he's talked with Haiti's administrator of health and its administrator of agriculture in the Jacmel region to get things started.

“This is all being done with no red tape, just phone calls and networking,” he said of the process.

Though food and medical attention remain paramount, Bloch said the next challenge will be weather, as the rain season is coming and the thousands of homeless gathered in the streets will suffer with sickness.

Whatever comes, Bloch said he knows the process will continue long after the public has forgotten or moved on to other issues.

“It might take a few months to a few years, but that's what we're going to be doing,” Bloch said.

{feature}


Grassroots United’s 60-foot geodesic dome, pictured in construction, is now a fully functioning medical suply depot — the first free medical surplus depot in Haiti.

Sam Bloch, left, with Mike Budincich, a primary sponsor of Grassroots United inside Budincich’s Cessna.

*

{last words}


T hank you for taking the

time to review

my portfolio. All clips

inside are available in

their original magazine

and newspaper print

form if desired. If you

have any questions feel

free to give me a call.

Best,

Jason Shueh

C O N T A C T I N F OEMAIL: [email protected]: (530) 563-8207MAIL: PO Box 1794, Tahoe City, Calif. 96145

WEBSITES: sierrasun.comtahoebonanza.comtahoedailytribune.com

Looking toward Lake Tahoe’s Incline Beach

CLIPSA PORTFOLIO BY JASON SHUEH

REBIRTH IN A RECESSION former san quentin inmate adrian garcia escapes his image to land an unlikely job

HELP FOR HAITI truckee natives cut

teeth at ground zero

A PLAN IN SUDAN preparing to succeed

KIDS, HORSES...HOPEdisabled therapy goes equine

jason shueh 2011 portfolio

Documents

online community

mountain bike magazine

online content

magazine mixpithy clips

past experience

orange countys bike

innovative ideas

broader community