Synopsis

Consumer advocate and environmental activist Erin Brockovich was born in Kansas in 1960. While working as a file clerk at a Los Angeles law firm in 1992, Brockovich uncovered documents that ultimately led to more than 600 residents of Hinkley, California, filing a lawsuit against utility giant PG&E. The $333 million settlement they received is the largest of its kind in the history of the United States. The story of Brokovich’s life and involvement in the case was the subject of the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, which starred Julia Roberts in the title role. Since the film’s release, Erin Brockovich has continued to work as a consumer advocate and environmental activist.

Early Life

Consumer advocate and environmental activist Erin Brockovich was born Erin Pattee in Lawrence, Kansas, on June 22, 1960. The youngest of four children, she grew up in a tightknit middle-class family. Her father was an industrial engineer, and her mother was a journalist. Diagnosed as dyslexic at a young age, Erin was not a particularly good student. After graduating high school in 1978, Erin briefly attended Kansas State University before transferring to Miss Wade's Fashion Merchandising College (now Wade College) in Dallas, Texas, where she graduated with an associate’s degree in applied arts in 1980.

After earning her degree, Erin moved with a friend to Newport Beach, California. After working briefly as a management trainee at Kmart, in 1981 she quit and entered and won the Miss Pacific Coast beauty pageant. She also met her first husband, Shawn Brown, around this time, whom she married in April 1982. The young couple moved around the country for the next few years, during which time Erin gave birth to two children, Matthew and Katie. However, their marriage eventually fell apart, and they were divorced in 1987.

Now a single mother, to support her children Erin found work as an assistant at a brokerage firm in Reno, Nevada, where she met Steve Brockovich. They married in 1989 but divorced within a year, at which point Erin learned she was pregnant with her third child, Elizabeth. The events that followed would set Erin Brockovich on the path to her eventual fame.

Hinkley and Hollywood

Shortly after her divorce, Brockovich was involved in a severe car accident that necessitated her having neck surgery. She then moved to Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley, where she was referred by a friend to the law firm Masry & Vititoe, whom she hired to represent her in her accident case. Brokovich was eventually awarded a small settlement, but not enough to support her family with. Feeling sorry for her, in 1992 attorney Ed Masry offered her a clerical job at the firm.

One day, while filing documents for a real estate case involving the utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Brockovich noticed that the paperwork included blood samples. Her suspicions aroused, she asked Masry permission to look into the matter further. In subsequent visits to the California desert town of Hinkley, Brockovich eventually uncovered evidence linking a rash of illnesses there to high levels of hexavalent chromium found in the drinking water. When the pollution was eventually traced back to the PG&E compressor station in Hinkley, more than 600 hundred of the town’s residents hired Masry & Vititoe in 1993 to represent them. After information surfaced during the trial that suggested PG&E had been aware of and tried to cover up the pollution, the case was settled in 1996 for $333 million, the largest in United States history for a case of its kind.

For her part in bringing the case to the firm, Brockovich received a fee of $2.5 million. But the publicity that the case received also brought Brockovich to the attention of Danny DeVito’s production company, Jersey Films, who bought the rights to Brockovich’s story in 1995.

Julia Roberts as Brockovich

Released in 2000, the film Erin Brockovich stars Julia Roberts as Brockovich and Albert Finney as Masry in a mostly accurate recounting of the Hinkley lawsuit. It also features a cameo by Brockovich herself, who appears briefly onscreen as a waitress. The movie was a major critical and commercial success, earning more than $250 million worldwide and receiving multiple Academy Award nominations. For her performance as Brockovich, Julia Roberts won the award for Best Actress.

Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored, founded in 1976, and is president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. To date, he has edited or coedited eight volumes of Censored (published by Seven Stories Press) and contributed numerous chapters to these works dating back to 2008. Additionally, he has coauthored several chapters on media and propaganda for many other scholarly publications. He is currently professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is cochair of the history department.

Huff is cohost with former Project Censored director Peter Phillips of The Project Censored Show, the weekly syndicated public affairs program that began in 2010, originates from the historic studios of KPFA Pacifica Radio in Berkeley CA, and airs on 40 stations around the US. He sits on the advisory board for the Media Literacy and Digital Culture graduate program at Sacred Heart University, and serves on the editorial board for the journal Secrecy and Society. For the past several years, Huff has worked with the national outreach committee of Banned Books Week, working with the American Library Association and the National Coalition Against Censorship, of which Project Censored is a member. He also represents Project Censored as one of the cosponsoring organizations for the National Whistleblowers Summit held annually in Washington DC and speaks about media literacy and censorship issues at venues across the US. He is a longtime musician and composer and lives with his family in Northern California.

Sharon A Winningham is an Unconditional Loving Life Coach who has a private practice teaching and coaching people from all over the world applying the life changing principles of Unconditional Love. Sharon does private one on one coaching, interventions and retreats. Sharon has been coaching, training and facilitating Loving Groups since 2005. Her practice includes personal and group sessions specializing in conflict resolution, marriage, parenting, workplace issues, depression, addictions, dating, anger, and teens. She teaches classes and workshops in all areas of relationships. Sharon is the Director/Founder of Loving-groups.com, Inc.,  a 501(c) 3 Corp. non-profit.  An expert in the field of unconditional love, she brings years of life experience and a passion that shines through in a very direct and meaningful way. Sharon is in a course of study to become a Practitioner of Religious Science (SOM) at New Vision Center in Phoenix.   

Ms. Amy F. Odom is the Director of Litigation for the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP). She is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. As Director of Litigation, Ms. Odom represents veterans and survivors before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and other federal courts and trains, develops, and supervises other NVLSP staff attorneys. Ms. Odom’s practice also involves mentoring and advising pro bono attorneys representing veterans and survivors through NVLSP’s Lawyers Serving Warriors® program, as well as pro bono attorneys representing appellants through the Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program.

Ms. Odom has served as the Treasurer of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims Bar Association and as Vice Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Veterans Affairs Committee.  She has spoken on matters related to veterans disability benefits on several occasions, including as a panelist with expertise in disability ratings for orthopedic conditions during the Twelfth Judicial Conference of the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and as an expert on VA benefits for disabilities caused by military sexual trauma during the University of Missouri’s School of Law Veterans Clinic Symposium in 2014. Her publications include contributions to the 2011 and 2012 editions of the Veterans Affairs Chapter of the American Bar Association’s Developments in Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, as well as to several editions of NVLSP’s Veterans Benefits Manual.

Prior to joining NVLSP in 2008, Ms. Odom served as an attorney-adviser in the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Administrative Law Judges. She is a graduate of the University of Florida Levin College of Law (J.D., cum laude, 2006), where she competed on the school’s moot court team and served as a Public Interest Fellow with the Center for Government Responsibility. Ms. Odom also earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida (B.A., Political Science, cum laude, 2003).

Dr. Sam Mugzzi is a doctor of Natural Medicine PhD, Certified Iridology, Certified BioFeedback Specialist and Radio Host on KCOR.

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A while back, I hired a consultant to help me brand my business. As a professional composer and performer, I started Mad Island Music in 1979 to publish my original songs. In 1987, my life as a psychic began, which led to publishing books. My psychic work then expanded into Conflict REVOLUTION®, step-by-step instructions for a revolutionary process of finding peace first and foremost within self. This led to coaching and training Con Rev® around the world. Eventually I published two CD of original songs, followed by more books. When I published Guerrilla Publishing, I also started coaching would-be authors to accomplish their dreams of becoming published.2016bwflower

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 Lisa Miliaresis, Medium, Author and Founder of Extreme Communication  

Lisa Miliaresis is a psychic medium, author, reiki master and manager at a well-known employee benefits firm. Born with the ability to channel, she instinctively followed internal guidance and fine-tuned her abilities until she became an accomplished medium.

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