Bob Driscoll: Reinventing himself

HAYDEN - Twenty-five years ago, Bob Driscoll had to reinvent his life after losing his foot in a car accident.

Driscoll, 69, grew up in South Dakota and relocated to Southern California after serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He oversaw three medical clinics in the area before the wreck left him hospitalized for a year.

The business, Driscoll said, was quickly growing and at the point where the majority of patients were professionals rather than people in need. However, the doctor of psychology said he got into the business to make lives better for those with the greatest needs.

"I didn't want to rebuild a universe where I was the biggest thing in it, and that's where it was heading," Driscoll said. "If the universe is only as big as me, it's a real little universe."

After recovering from the accident, Driscoll accepted a position in Lewiston with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. He and his wife relocated in 1995, and he served as director of family and youth at risk for the Demonstration Grant Program.

Driscoll was only in Lewiston for three years, he said, before he was scooped up and relocated to Coeur d'Alene to lead the area's Work Over Welfare Program.

"It was basically a case management program working with folks, of whom I have a heart for, and trying to assist them in changing their lives and getting their lives moving again," Driscoll said.

Driscoll recently retired, but still plays an active role in bringing community organizations together so they're able to better serve people in need.

Have you always had a passion for helping people? Where did that develop?

When I was in high school, I went over and visited an old folks home for part of my scouting merit badges.

There were these cute little old ladies and these guys there and I just thought they were the neatest people in the world. I loved sitting down and talking to them and quickly discovered I could bring them joy just by talking to them.

I had so much fun, I went and got a bunch of friends and made them go with me. Every week we'd go over there and spend a couple hours with them. I got out of it as much as they did, but it was clear to me they were getting something out of it - they looked forward to us coming.

That was the first time I really experienced that, whatever it was within me, if I just experienced people their lives were better.

It sounds like that really ignited a passion that lasted your whole life?

Absolutely.

When I was in the Navy they sent me to Culver City, Calif. I lived in a motel and worked to develop the missile guidance system for the F-14, the Phoenix System.

While I was there, I became the retention counselor, drug exemption rep, the race relations facilitator, and I went to training for instructor school - I did all kinds of things, most of which wasn't in my rate.

But you just jumped at those opportunities when they presented themselves?

I remember I received a huge award, big, big medal, and the Navy Times came out and interviewed me. I had a huge retention rate and I told the reporter I've counseled far more guys to get out then I have to get in.

I wanted to know what they wanted for their lives, if they didn't know we talked about it and I helped them figure it out. That just seemed natural to me, that's what I'd want done for myself so that's how I've interacted with people my whole life.

Was that outlook on interacting with people beneficial throughout your career?

I ask people 'If you died and there was an obituary, that's the time people write things about you that they've never bothered to tell you when you were alive and it could have done some good. So what would you like your obituary to look like? Go write it.'

I've had people do that my whole career because that's the character of who people are, they want to be seen.

My biggest fear my whole life is that I would die and see on my tombstone 'Here lies Bob, he took up space.'

I want the world, the lives of people I've touched and participated in, to be better than when I got here. So I've always been in community involvement at every level, no matter the size of the community.

Tell me a little about your work in Coeur d'Alene.

My job was to help connect people with resources in the area, so I would ask various people in the community where the resources were and who was providing them. No one knew.

I became involved in, and eventually took over, an inter-agency group that currently has about 700 individuals participating from various agencies.

So you had to find the resources before bringing them to the people you were working with?

And I did this selfishly because I wanted to know.

But this helps everybody - how can we serve people if we don't know what's available or we're duplicating things?

The program was called "Work over Welfare" and I think there's a lot of preconceived notions that people don't want to work when they're on welfare, did you run into that?

(Loudly gasps) No, never.

First of all, $309 a month is not going to make you rich, nor are you going to survive on that. People are not living on welfare; you can't even if you wanted to.

But what it can do, along with other assistance, is buy some of the incidentals to help you get employment and move from there.

Right now I'm not sure I could get a job if I wanted to, but a month ago I could get any job I wanted because I was employed. So the first thing I worked at is trying not only to develop what they wanted career-wise, but I tried to figure out what skills they had right then that could get them into a job.

I worked really hard with soft-skills. You can train anybody to do anything, but you can't train anyone on the soft-skills - either you do it or you don't. Either you have a sense of showing up on time, being reliable, being courteous to your coworkers, and being respectful to your supervisor even if they're younger than you, or you don't.

All of those things, as a middle class person, are things I grew up with. But there's a whole segment of the population that didn't grow up with that, so I worked real hard with those soft-skills.

What was one of the biggest challenges you encountered in your work in Coeur d'Alene?

Getting people to believe that their life can be better tomorrow than it is today.

And how did you get people to believe that?

I honestly believe that, I believe my life can be better tomorrow than it is today.

If I believe in that, then it will happen and I know it. I can convince someone that through a small change, whether it's working specifically towards a goal they set for themselves, they can have the proof that it can be better.

I would write those down so that we could go back and look at their progress.

I may be more crippled tomorrow than I am today, but that doesn't mean that my life can't be better tomorrow.

Is there a particular project or moment of which you're personally proud?

When I go someplace, it's really interesting because I don't remember all the people and families I've worked with and I should probably do better at that. I was at Walmart three weeks ago and there was lots of people there.

This one checker shut her line down and came around to the other line I was waiting in to give me a big hug and say 'Thank You.' She'd been at Walmart for a year and a half and she'd been promoted twice - her life was going wonderfully. I had put her into an apartment, paid the deposit for her, and their family was doing wonderful.

I couldn't ask for more of a reward. To see that the work we had done, the planning we had done, had come to fruition just meant more to me than anything else.

You didn't create the Inter-Agency Group, but you took over?

There were five people that were meeting once a month, they'd go have lunch at the Iron Horse.

Now it's up to 700 people?

Yes, and there's no place I can meet with 700 people. We've been meeting at the Sunset Bowl the third Wednesday of every month. I made the time from noon to 1, so that everyone can come on their lunch hour. Even the frontline staff worker, who needs this information far more than the supervisor, can come.

We always feature one organization and they tell us about who they are and what they do, as well as who makes good candidates for referral to that organization.

What have you seen as it has grown, has it benefited the community?

There is more and more collaboration between the groups than has ever existed here. We are also able to easier identify what needs still exist.

There's always someone who would love to fill the need, so other needs are being met because of that group.

And that information is getting out more and more to the people that need it. That's what I'm all about, and that's what I want to see happen.

Is that why, in spite of your retirement, you're still very active in the community?

I live here, so it's my responsibility. My home is my responsibility, the health of my church is my responsibility, the health of the town I live in is my responsibility. I'm living here so I better take an active role.

If I see someone hungry and say 'Someone will take care of them,' that's not what Jesus said. He said I'm supposed to do that, so that's what I do.

I asked you up top what the best advice you've ever received is, but what's the one piece of advice you'd give to somebody in the community?

Care for people the way Christ cares for you.