Motorcycle wreck spurred a life’s work in the mental-health field

MICHELLE NOLAN

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Rick Dudley laughs when he says he has a “terrible memory,” but he’ll never forget how memory loss helped lead him to a long career in the mental-health field.

If not for a motorcycle accident, he says he might never have become fascinated by how the brain works.

He also might never have found his way to Bellingham 35 years ago, when he literally took advantage of an unexpected chance to become director of what is now known as the nonprofit Lake Whatcom Residential and Treatment Center.

| PHILIP A. DWYER THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

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For more information, visit www.dudleyfoundation.org.

Dudley, 64, sums up his career-long concern for people in pain this way: “I feel sympathy for the suffering of any sentient being.”

Question: How did your accident play such a huge role in your life?

Answer: I had a motorcycle accident in Germany while I was enrolled at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. I was studying engineering. I was in a coma for a few days and I was sent to an orphanage to convalesce. It turned out to be life-changing for me, because I learned some German, and I became fascinated with the study of the brain. Q: Also because of your accident?

A: Yes. I found I had “holes” in my memory and I had to relearn a lot. After a year, I came back home and I was totally functional, but I had to learn to work with a terrible memory. I learned to rely on my “hard drive” — my schedule book — and I still do. Things you forget, you often don’t know you forgot them.

Q: So you must have changed your academic emphasis.

A: I returned to Union College and obtained my degree in psychology, then my master’s in social work from the University of Illinois. I had an adventure at Tulane University in Louisiana while I was earning what was known as a third-year certificate in psychiatric social work, which is halfway between a master’s and a doctorate. I went through Hurricane Camille and became a volunteer, helping people recover.

Q: And your experiences told you Bellingham was where you wanted to live?

A: That’s right. I’ll always remember hitchhiking around the country with a pet raccoon on my shoulder. I found him in a garbage can and rescued him. I arrived in Bellingham with that raccoon! Q: And then fate must have intervened.

A: It sure did. I met Donald Berg, the director of the Whatcom Counseling and Psychiatric Clinic, in 1972 and he told me about a place called the Blue Canyon Foundation. I became director that year. We were renting an old, semi-dilapidated 8,000-square-foot building about 16 miles outside Bellingham. We had 21 mostly elderly and developmentally disabled clients.

Q: That sounds so much different than your modern current facility.

A: We moved to Agate Heights Road in 1980 and changed our emphasis to people with mental-health issues, such as schizophrenia, affective disorders and personality disorders.

We’ve grown so much since. I now work only part time but I’m still the director. We now have 375 mental-health consumers: 67 in our "superlived" living center, 140 in our supported living apartments and 168 in other community settings. We still operate a 24,000- square foot living center on 75 acres and it doubles as a wildlife sanctuary. Q: You seem very proud of your staff.

A: I have so much pride and respect for our staff. We have 10 mental-health professionals, six consulting specialists, and 25 registered mental-health counselors, along with other personnel including 50 regular staff positions. We have come so far. Q: Do you still interact with your clients?

A: I sometimes socialize with them. A huge need to help people with mental-health problems arose in the 1970s when Northern State Hospital in Sedro-Woolley closed down. I’m always glad when a client makes progress, but illnesses such as schizophrenia are not a straight line with regard to improvement. Sometimes a person will get better and then, boom, he or she has a problem again. It’s part of the package. What is frustrating is when a setback could have been prevented, such as when people stop taking their meds.

Q: But the medical community is making progress, right?

A: There is progress, and we certainly have better medications now.

Q: It must have been so challenging to build practically from the ground up.

A: When I contacted an official at the Blue Canyon Foundation in 1972, he figured I was an angel from heaven. The director was leaving in two days. When they learned of my background, they offered me the job. The foundation was founded in 1968 as a nonprofit. It was failing when I got there, and there were numerous complications and problems.

Not long after I got there as director, we had the accidental drowning of a patient in Lake Whatcom. After an investigation, we were exonerated of any wrongdoing. It was a very rocky start. Q: What’s your Dudley Foundation?

A: It’s not related to the treatment center. The Dudley Foundation is a nonprofit involved in environmental and social issues. We accept applications for funds by invitation only.