Domestic Abuse Counselor

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 from her he learned to speak Spanish.

EDUCATION

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

MULTIPLE, SUCCESSIVE JOBS BEFORE FINDING A CAREER FOCUS

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 messager; he was also a California farmworker who organized protests against low wages and poor working conditions.

FOLLOWING HIS PASSION TO ALTER HIS CAREER

At the Associated Press, BB partnered with a colleague to conduct extensive reporting about drug trafficking. He 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 terorism, money laundering, excessive levels of toxins in sea fish and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

VOLUNTEERING TO HELP OTHERS

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 memebers of the Guatamalan military. 

(Editor’s note – The obituary did not clarify whether BB was compensated for his work with the rape crisis and domestic violence counseling center network. Perhaps he was able to line up one or more major financial donors to fund the counseling center. Another funding option was to have saved enough money during his employment years. Without confirming a source of personal income to support himself while working with the network in Mexico, we must assume his work was voluntary and thus not a “career” as defined within these career stories. Of course whether or not BB was paid made no difference to the people who benefited from his work at the crisis network.)

(from Washington Post obit)