Labor Leader / Organizer

Multiple careers and interests with common concern for justice.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

BB was born in Washington, D.C.; his father was a Foreign Service officer whom he accompanied to postings in Indonesia, Mexico, and Tokyo; his mother was Argentine, and it was from her that he learned to speak Spanish.

EDUCATION

BB graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS, attended Montgomery Junior College and eventually graduated from the University of Maryland. 

FIRST CAREER NEEDED SUPPLEMENTAL INCOME

BB began his journalism career as a Washington Post news aide; early in his career to supplement his income as a news aide, he was a school bus driver and a garbage collector, a bartender and later, a logging truck driver, an auto mechanic, a taxi driver, carpenter, house painter, short order cook and motorcycle messenger; he was also a California farmworker who organized protests against low wages and poor working conditions.

STRONG BELIEF IN FAIRNESS LED TO CAREER CHANGE

At the Associated Press, BB partnered with a colleague to conduct extensive reporting about drug trafficking. BB believed his boss at AP was blocking and delaying his stories, so he left for CBS News and broke the stories of the “Iran-contra arms for hostages” scandal, covert operations of the CIA, international terrorism, money laundering, excessive levels of toxins in sea fish and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

SAVING MONEY FROM FIRST CAREER ENABLED FOLLOWING PASSION

In his late 50s, BB took a three-year hiatus from journalism to co-found and direct a rape crisis and domestic violence counseling center network in Mexico, inspired by his friendship with a Catholic nun and missionary who had been abducted, raped, and tortured by members of the Guatemalan military.