Long Beach leaders, philanthropists to be honored at aual CCEJ dier

For Darick Simpson, the executive director of the Long Beach Community Action Partnership, life has come full circle.

He started his career, in the early 1980s, working in television production for a CBS affiliate in his native Mobile, Alabama. But when he came to Califoia in 1983, his burgeoning production career dried up.

“It was quite trying, those first couple of years,” Simpson said.

He leaed about resilience early — a skill he took with him throughout his banking career and imparted to others, first at the Los Angeles Small Business Development Regional Network at Long Beach City College, where he was interim director, then at LBCAP.

When he got to LBCAP, the agency was suffering, he said. People didn’t know about the agency, and there were programmatic challenges.

Under his decade-long leadership, LBCAP has grown from 24 staff and a $1.3 million budget to 80 staff and a $9 million budget. Simpson introduced new programs, including the Energy program, which provides utility assistance to low-income families, and the Leadership Academy Mentoring Program —LAMP — which teaches job skills to teenagers.

Now, Simpson is being honored with the Califoia Conference for Equality and Justice Humanitarian Award for his leadership and “commitment to help the community build a better tomorrow,” CCEJ Executive Director Wende Nichols-Julien said.

“I’m humbled and honored,” Simpson said. “It’s been a very trying year for me.”

Last June, Simpson said, he received the sixth surgery in an ongoing battle with bladder cancer. Three months later, his father died, and he was “brokenhearted about other things in life.”

Shortly thereafter, the tide began to tu — he leaed that he would be honored by CCEJ and PBS called to tape a segment with him for its “American Graduate Champions” series.

He said he tries not to dwell too much on life’s highs or lows.

“I know there’s more work to be done,” he said.

Simpson will be honored at the CCEJ’s 53rd Aual Humanitarian Dier, which will take place Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency, 200 S. Pine Ave. A reception at 5:30 p.m. will precede the 6:30 p.m. dier. Single tickets are $200, with tables of 10 begiing at $2,000.

The dier, chaired by Julie and Walter Larkins, will present the Building Bridges award to the Assistance League and a Humanitarian Award to Simpson and four others.

Other honorees include:

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• Jim and Liz Breslauer, who have lived in Long Beach for 24 years, are being honored as a pair. Among many individual achievements, Jim and Liz have funded a number of national and inteational endeavors, including the start of a new Cantorial School in Berlin and have supported a Progressive Synagogue in Prague, Beit Simcha, through the family’s Breslauer-Soref Foundation.

• Terry Geiling, president and CEO of the American Gold Star Manor in Long Beach. The Manor is a senior retirement facility for women who are U.S. veterans or those who have lost sons and daughters in the U.S. military. Geiling, a veteran of the Navy, is directing a $58 million construction effort that will renovate the Manor’s 25-acre facility.

• Robert Luna, Chief of Police for the Long Beach Police Department. Prior to his appointment, he worked for the LBPD in a number of operational, investigatory, and administrative assignments, including SWAT, homicide, drug, and gang investigations, canine operations and communications. His crime prevention and reduction ideas include mentoring youth, and his work has been honored by the NAACP and the Community Hispanic Foundation.

Jeifer Rice Epstein is an editor with Gazette Newspapers. She can be reached at [email protected].