Name: Antone Olivier Age: 59 Occupation: Teacher of visual arts, theater and stagecraft at Saint Mary’s College High School How long have you been at Saint Mary’s? I was a student here; I’m a member of the class of 1970. There were two very influential instructors on campus when I was here. One was one of the Christian Brothers; he lived on campus. Eventually he directed on Broadway. The other was Bobby Barrett, the band instructor who taught here for 30 years. He was very much a life coach, a mentor. I came back in 1977 as an instructor. Bobby Barrett passed away in the early 1990s. Many of …

Name: Linda Laufenberg Yaris Age: 56 Occupation: Associate Director of Admissions at Saint Mary’s College High School How does the admissions process at Saint Mary’s begin? We have events for people who want to find out about Saint Mary’s. We usually hold an open house; this year it’s on Nov. 20. Anyone can come and see the classrooms, talk with teachers, athletic coaches, administrators. There are demonstrations and classroom interactive presentations. How many students come from Albany? Twelve. The student body is about 600, and 294 students (49 percent) come from Alameda County. How long …

Name: Amy Smolens Age: 52 Occupation: T.V. Production Free-lancer specializing in sports You speak a number of languages. What role have various languages played in your career? My production in Spanish – that’s one of the things that makes me versatile and useful. If I go to international events, I can interview people, get around, get things done. I’ve done work in Spanish quite a bit; I’ve done work that’s been aired in Latin America, such as the Tour de France and the X Games. In Kazakhstan in February for the Winter Asian Games, the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] was crewing the…

Name: Matthew Ferreira Age: 27 Occupation: Instrumental music director at Saint Mary’s College High School How did you get interested in music? I started playing an instrument in fourth grade; I started on clarinet. I’m actually an identical triplet. My brothers and I all started music at the same time. One started on violin, the other on saxophone. In fifth grade we all started playing alto saxophone. In middle school the director said we needed a tenor and baritone saxophone, so I started on baritone. It took a while to get used to being in the back, playing, “Oompah, oompah.” With an alto…

Name: Quynh Gallagher Age: 11 Tell me about your hat. First I took an interest in making a weird different fish hat, and I thought how ridiculous it would look if I saw someone walking down the street with a jellyfish on their head. I knew I wanted little tentacles, so I could pull them to the front and tie them, but it wasn't long enough. But it's versatile. You can wear it as a sun hat. What I love about knitting is you can make as many mistakes as you want, and it'll all come out well, as long as you know what you're doing. Weird things can be beautiful too. So you're a knitter. How did …

Name: Dave Johnson Age: 56 Occupation: Vice president of finance at the California Autism Foundation When did you first get involved with the California Autism Foundation (CAF)? My son, when he graduated from Albany schools, started with the program [at CAF]. Nine months later it was having financial problems, so I went to work for them. I started with CAF in 2008; now I’m working part-time. What is your background? I went to Berkeley and got a graduate degree. I worked for big companies for my first 10 years, then for the computer industry for 15 or 16 years. I made a commitment that, when I…

Name: Laurie McGaw Age: 74 Occupation: Retired San Francisco Symphony trumpet player How did you get involved in the “Midsummer Mozart Festival”? Since I retired, I was available, and [Music Director] George Cleve asked if I would play, and I did. George knew me from the time when he was a guest conductor at the symphony. Do you have a favorite Mozart piece? I love the “Post-Horn Serenade,” of course, and I have a nice little post-horn I bought in Austria. There’s an instrument-maker named Lechner whom three of us trumpet-players went to visit after a concert in Linz. We took the train from …

Name: Birtukan Beyenssa Age: 53 Occupation: Accounts payable at Marin Municipal Water District How long have you lived in Albany? I moved to this place in 1992. What was your life like growing up in Ethiopia? It was good. I grew up in a city [Ambo], just like regular kids, nothing special. I was an only child, but I had tons of cousins, aunts, uncles. What is the name of your foundation and its current status? The Ethiopian Village Schools Advancement Foundation (EVSAF). I have a tax I.D. number; it’s incorporated already. We’re working on getting non-profit status. How do you send money to …

Name: Tricia Clark Age: 68 Occupation: Retired beautician Where did you work? I worked at The Powder Box, when it was still on Solano, for 14 or 15 years. Tell me about the fundraising event on July 10. It’s called “Cutting Hair for Ethiopian Children.” It will cost $15 a cut. All the proceeds will go to Billo Elementary School [in Ethiopia]. How did it come about? I was all excited about this foundation that (Albany resident) Birtukan [Beyenssa] had asked me to help her with. I had gone down to talk with someone at Mr. C.’s [salon], Rosa Ramirez, and I was sharing this story and my …

Name: Robin Davis Age: 68 Occupation: Principal of Albany Middle School (Retiring June 30) How many years have you been working in the Albany Unified School District? 42. I came in 1968-69 as a sixth grade teacher at Marin. When they condemned [Marin School] after three years, I moved to seventh grade. In 1976-77 Ocean View opened as a middle school. I taught seventh grade history, English, math and science. I also taught eighth grade math for a couple of years, then moved to eighth grade English. In 1999-2000 the [current] middle school building was completed. I taught here for two years. In…

Name: Juanita Rynerson Age: 64 Occupation: Teacher When did you start teaching? 1970, at Etiwanda, near Cucamonga. I moved up in 1972 to the East Bay. I never taught more than three years in a place till I got my job in Albany in 1989 at Marin. I’d taught every grade level through eighth, except for kindergarten and sixth. I was hired as a combination third- and fourth-grade teacher at Marin. How did you like teaching fourth grade? I stayed as a fourth-grade teacher for nine years. I loved the curriculum, the social studies; we did the “Ship Trip” at Hyde Street Pier. I would take my kids to …

Name: Beth Pollard Age: 54 Occupation: City manager What is your role as city manager? I help inform the City Council of challenges to and opportunities for the city, and I advise them in policy direction. Once they’ve made a decision, I supervise the city staff to carry out the directions of the City Council. How did you decide to go into this field? I used to cover cities as a newspaper reporter in high school and college. I just kept finding myself attracted to the inner workings of the city. For me it was interesting how people with different interests and perspectives can come together …

Name: David Miller Age: 57 Occupation: Banquet service of the Doubletree Hotel I’ve heard you followed the 1970s British rock scene in San Francisco. The main blog is “Brit Rock by the Bay,” which has all of our memoirs. My personal one is “David’s Rock Scrapbook”; the two are linked together. You can see ticket stubs, autographs, whatever I can pull together to give a general history of the band, and some links to YouTube so you can hear them. How did you start getting autographs from British rock groups? Bill Graham, after he closed the Fillmore, opened up Winterland. It was my friend …

Name: Robert Mickey Age: 67 Occupation: Former Lead Custodian at Ocean View Elementary School. How did you get started as a custodian at Albany schools? I’ve been in Albany schools since 1973. I worked at the high school years ago; I worked the graveyard [shift] in those days. [Before that] I was a barber, and I wasn’t making much money. I had a barbershop, but I had to close it up. I worked here when the middle school was here. The principal asked me to apply for the job as assistant lead custodian [around 1990], so I stayed here. I’ve worked at all the sites, and I like this age group …

Name: Patty Donald Age: 54 Occupation: Naturalist coordinator for the City of Berkeley at the Shorebird Park Nature Center and Adventure Playground How did you come up with the idea for the Adventure Playground? There was an Adventure Play Association that came in 1978 and put on workshops in the Bay Area. About 10 different cities participated. It was right after Prop. 13 hit, and recreation had pretty much been demolished. It took volunteer donations of getting the poles sunk, [moving] dirt piles, communicating with lumberyards and contractors, saying we’d take their old lumber. It’s very …

Name: Gail and Tyler Smith Ages: 64 and 29 Occupation: Owner and manager, respectively, of Toy Go Round, a consignment shop for toys How long has Toy Go Round been in Albany? (Gail) Since 1976. The two women who started it, Joy Ernst and Dora Freeman, had the incredible foresight to see that there was a need for this. Our business model, which was created by them, is to keep toys out of the waste stream and [back] into the “play stream.” [My son] Tyler’s worked here since he was 10, I mean officially. In between [there’s been] other stuff – high school, college; he’s also a chef. When did you…

Name: Pete Smith Age: 61 Occupation: Second-grade teacher at Cornell Elementary School I hear you’re retiring soon. Yeah, June 10 will be my last day as an Albany teacher. It’s kind of poignant for me. How long have you been here? Have you always been a second-grade teacher? I taught kindergarten for 10 years; I really liked kindergarten because I like music, movement, singing and rhythm games, in conjunction with teaching specific skills. I enjoyed playing guitar with them. I’ve taught for 37 years – 10 in kindergarten, the next 17 in third grade, and then 10 years in second grade, and this …

Name: Sarah Hake Age: 58 Occupation: Center director, USDA Plant Gene Expression Center, and adjunct professor at U.C., Berkeley, in plant and microbial biology Congratulations on your award in 2010. I did get elected to the National Academy of Science, which was a great honor. [They induct] 60 scientists a year – economists, physicists – there were two other plant biologists in addition to myself. Why do you refer to your field as “plant biology” rather than “botany”? Botany was the science of looking at a plant and a product and putting plants into groups. Plant biology looks at opening up …

Name: Bill Orts Age: 49 Occupation: Research leader, Bioproducts Chemistry and Engineering, USDA Western Regional Research Center What products do you develop here? We make either biofuels or bioproducts. About 10 years ago we started researching bioproducts. We became the “not corn” group, making [things] from oil, rice, rice straw, barley, even garbage, and that’s got us famous. Here is a bottle of ethanol made from garbage from Salinas. We would have loved to make fuels from rice straw, but you’d have to bring in a lot and store it [seasonally]. The one thing that’s the same [year-round] …

Name: Bill Belknap Age: 56 Occupation: Research leader of the Crop Improvement and Utilization Research Unit at the USDA Western Regional Research Center What do you do? The group works on a real diverse set of commodities. For example, we’re working with guayule [a desert plant] to make a domestic source of rubber. There’s a private-sector plant that is making latex out of guayule in Tucson. We’re trying to supply a strategic material to the United States. That’s one project. On the other extreme, we work on disease resistance in crops, mostly citrus, which is facing a serious problem. The …