BRC Advisors and Partners

 

Advisory Group

The BRC Advisory Group includes a number of dynamic Californians with disabilities who provide guidance and constructive review of BRC enterprises. Sharing their life experiences and connecting with community networks to survey peers and service providers, our advisors strengthen the authenticity of BRC’s work. To advance both personal professionalism and BRC innovation, advisory group members are pursuing leadership goals that add to their community networks as well as lend to BRC’s continued originality and social relevance.

The BRC Advisory Group will expand to include representation from a range of community constituencies and clientele – families, small businesses, nonprofit corporations and financial institutions. They too will contribute to BRC’s mission, ascertainment of community needs and aspirations, and future ambition of establishing a micro-financing consortium to assist people with and without disabilities to pursue dreams of developing a small business.

Because employment is vital to self sufficiency of all persons, the Advisory Group will evolve to provide guidance and clarity that ensures BRC is current and effective in its consulting and product development. Job opportunities remain remote to most people with disabilities and financial services needed for self-employment and micro-enterprise is typically unavailable to low income individuals. By joining the word wide movement whose object is to provide low income households access to appropriate financial services, BRC with leadership from its Advisory Group seeks to establish micro-lending services to assist more people with few opportunities or resources. With the BRC team, the Advisory Group will lead the way to contribute to the inclusion and self-determination of persons with diverse abilities.

 

Sam Durbin

is a member of the California Department of Developmental Disabilities Consumer Advisory Committee. As an outspoken advocate for people with disabilities, he provides BRC straight forward input about what is significant in the lives of people with disabilities and assists with product field tests and surveys. Sam is a public speaker and trainer with BRC team members in leadership and emergency preparedness. He is also the published author of “You’re Not the Boss of Me” and subject of a documentary about his life.

 

Robert Taylor

is a member of the California Department of Developmental Disabilities Consumer Advisory Committee and participates in community advocacy activities in southern California. He is a healthcare advocate working to ensure people with disabilities have information about obtaining healthcare, being healthier and living longer. Robert is a public speaker and certified trainer in DDS emergency preparedness materials “Feeling Safe, Being Safe.” Robert is also a co-presenter with BRC team members teaching business people about “Managing Money” using the Leadership Through Personal Change tools. By surveying community members, Robert brings BRC new project ideas and information about social conditions in his community.

 

Eugenia Jones

is a member of the California Department of Developmental Disabilities and Eastern Los Angeles Regional Center Consumer Advisory Committees. She is a vibrant and outspoken advocate believing in the possibilities for people who live active lives in their communities. An expert at developing networks and partnerships that bring people with disabilities into everyday life, Eugenia’s interest is in healthy eating and is pursuing a career as a professional caterer. She is a certified trainer in DDS emergency preparedness materials “Feeling Safe, Being Safe.”

 

Michelle Gordon

is a member of the California Department of Developmental Disabilities Consumer Advisory Committee. She is active in her community, a participant in her local People First group and advisory committee to a regional peer advocacy project. Michelle has practiced public speaking and conducted numerous presentations at statewide conferences on the importance of informed decision-making and straight forward leadership strategies like Think-Plan-Do. She is also pursuing her education working toward developing her own independent career. Michelle is featured in two videos that highlight the use of Think-Plan-Do as a strategy to develop a career and public speaking.

 

BRC Partners

BRC partners with organizations and specialists who share its philosophy and complement expertise that meets needs of clients. A diverse partnership brings organizational strength and an energetic blend of technical execution to achieve success. With a qualified team, BRC is able to provide a broad range of services, making complex ideas simple.

 

The SCILS Group,

a nonprofit consulting organization, was established in 1977 to serve communities by advancing strategies and providing trainings that guide inclusive thinking and help others become contributing members of their community. The SCILS Group practices are based on a set of beliefs;

People with disabilities must be included in their communities as a requisite for personal growth and advancement of society.

People with disabilities want to be valued, seen as productive citizens and included in community life,

People with disabilities are the primary decision-makers about their services and supports,

People with disabilities should have access to supports needed to utilize opportunities to make contributions to their communities.

The SCILS Group is committed to ensuring school and community inclusion is available for children with developmental disabilities. Services include group process and facilitation, coaching and training for families, and strategic intervention with agencies and community organizations. Outcomes are the cornerstone of the group’s work. They are accomplished by identifying and initiating emerging practices that encourage use of natural communities and utilize personally designed supports.

 

Marcia Orland

began her career as a film editor after spending more than 25 years in client relationship management with the financial services business sector. She launched her own media production enterprise Afterglow Media as a mechanism to capture and tell stories that needed to be told - whether to preserve a family legacy, inspire social change, or create awareness on behalf of individuals determined to better themselves.

As an expert in pre-production, production and post-production digital video technology, Marcia conducts interviews and creates customized media for individual and corporate clients. Her specialized years in client relations and more than a dozen years of video production lead Marcia’s exceptional ability to respond to diverse clientele by producing professionally crafted video projects. Marcia is a member of the Association of Personal Historians (APH) and co-chair of APH Southern California. She also served as a Core Team member of the Westside Women's Network, affiliated with the Greater West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

Working with BRC gives Marcia opportunities to use her talents to inspire people through a multimedia story-telling approach that promotes social awareness and change. Contact Marcia

 

Leslie Ann Levine

is a graphic designer and production artist who has taken her background in the fundamentals of print production to the multimedia environment so essential to contemporary marketing and business communications. From creating websites with customized content management technology to employing new industry techniques to produce publications, marketing tools and interactive web applications. Leslie meets and complements diverse client needs.

After learning typesetting and layout design from her mother, who had her own graphics business, Leslie began work as a typesetter. Since then, she has advanced her expertise and expanded her professional tool kit to incorporate skillful utilization of Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Client projects have included designing and typesetting film titles for Title House in Hollywood, and designing and producing hotel guides for corporate chains such as Hilton and Marriott.

Working with BRC gives Leslie opportunities to direct her passion for esthetically-pleasing design toward projects accessible to all people so they may utilize information and communicate with ease. Contact Leslie

 

Ivan Lee

is the Creative Director of Lee Advertising providing marketing strategies, web composition and graphic design to small and intermediate businesses throughout California. For the past twenty years, Ivan has been practicing as an active art designer and web master in the Silicon Valley.

Lee Advertising has been honored with numerous national awards including best national magazine campaign and most creative national print ad. Ivan and his team are able to assist clients identify visual and design elements needed to produce a successful media campaign.

Ivan collaborated with the BRC team in defining and designing a web site that captures the breadth of the BRC work and portfolio of print and digital media. His work with BRC focused on developing an easy to access web site format guided by the organization’s values and intended audience, thus fulfilling the vision of visual simplicity and “Making Complex Ideas Simple” ^sm. Contact Ivan