alumni

Peter Hecker

Peter Hecker is a retired lawyer, who practiced business litigation with New York City and San Francisco based law firms for 42 years. He is a 1970 graduate of Carleton College, Magna Cum Laude, with Distinction in Comparative Modern Literature, and a 1973 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Order of the Coif. He and his wife Cynthia live in North Berkeley. They have two adult daughters.

As an adoptive parent since 1983, Peter has a long-standing interest in social welfare issues, particularly as they relate to families and children. Even before then,...

Roy Earnest

Roy Earnest has served as a gerontological social worker and program administrator since 1978 in a wide variety of community based non-profit senior services as well as a 15 year tenure from 2002 to 2018 at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that is best known for the AmeriCorps program. This broad range of experience has given him an in-depth perspective on the continuum of services for older adults in the United States.

After retiring from CNCS in 2018, he joined the staff of the Center for Age Friendly Excellence (CAFE) in August 2019...

John Wu

John graduated with his BASW in 2021, and he is currently an MSW candidate with a concentration in Strengthening Organization and Community at the School of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley. Before coming to UC Berkeley, John served four years in the United States Marine Corps and eventually assumed a leadership role as Field Artillery Section Chief. During that time, he learned how to become an effective leader and advocate for the welfare of his Marines, and that is also when he developed the vision and career goal to continue serving his fellow veterans after his military service. John is...

Socorro Reynoso

Socorro ‘Soco’ Reynoso, LCSW is the proud daughter of her Black mother from Mississippi and her Mexican father from Los Angeles. She is a licensed clinical social worker and the owner of Soco Rey Therapy. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a Masters in Social Welfare and Claremont McKenna College with a Bachelors in Psychology. She has been a social worker for 11 years and a therapist for eight.

While working in social services and in group homes, Soco learned that the people who were in need of the most help and who looked like her weren’t receptive to services and she knew why —...

Celina Ramirez

Celina is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, class of 1992. Her focus was children and family services. She earned a Spanish major from the University of the Pacific. Throughout her career, she has worked with the underserved providing quality service to families impacted by community violence, by leading parenting groups in local schools, family court as well as providing individual and family therapy.

With a recent focus in medical social work, she has been involved in discharge planning, bridging care from the hospital to the community for patients with...

Brian McGhee

Brian has 25 years working with youth in Probation, Foster Care systems and Non-Profit Organizations such as West Oakland Health Center, Casey Family Programs, and Alameda County Social Services- Children & Family Services, & Alameda County Office of Education. Brian has spent the last 7 years working with Oakland Unified School District’s Office of Equity/African American Male Achievement Program as a Program Manager.

Brian was a student-athlete at UC Berkeley (Football 1985-89).

In his leisure time he enjoys traveling with his wife, reading, volunteering feeding...

Louis Labat

Louis Labat is a graduate of the UCB School of Social Welfare class of 1972. He was part of Mary O'Day's 2nd Gerontology focused program. Louis has worked in various positions as a result of his graduate experience, including setting up the first Gerontology program at the Univ of Nevada Las Vegas' Schoof of Social Services; Program Developer for the Senior Coordinating Council of Palo Alto; and Program Financial Specialist with the Alameda County Area Agency on Aging. He has been retired since 2003 and lives in Emeryville, Calif.

Louis joined the Alumni Board in order to contribute...

Cynthia Hecker

Cynthia Hecker became a social worker as her fourth career, after working as an attorney for Great Society community legal services programs in the 1970’s, as a mother in her adoptive family with Peter Hecker and two daughters, and as a nearly full-time school volunteer, with roles ranging from school management support at the small private Windrush School, to classroom support at Berkeley Unified School District’s King Middle and Berkeley High schools.

Her formal education consisted of public school in Collingswood, NJ (a small town near Philadelphia, PA), Wellesley College,...

Dorothy Graham

Dorothy Graham has had a 40+ year career working as an advocate, planner and administrator to improve the health care system so that low income and medically indigent communities could receive the care they so desperately need.

Dorothy graduated Phi Betta Kappa from UC Berkeley in 1972, majoring in Sociology. She was awarded an MSW from the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare in 1974, in the Social Planning and Community Organization track which trained social workers as agents of social change.

While still an undergraduate, Dorothy and several other students founded a...

Mary Ann Hamamura-Clark

Mary Ann received her BA from UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, Class of 1968. This time in history was pivotal in the formation of her career going forward. It instilled a desire to serve the public and provided inspiration for positive change. Those values which made such an indelible impression in 1968, hold true today. UC Berkeley continues to play a critical role in shaping awareness of social issues and elevating debate on matters of class mobility and human rights.

Mary Ann is committed to raising awareness of the School of Social Welfare as the nation’s premier...