Former Exec Turns Talents to Aiding Homeless

But it would have been hard to find someone better able to cope than Adamson. For 23 years, he was vice president of administration for the Automobile Club of Southern California, where he oversaw the acquisition of nearly all the company's offices in the region and a $400-million annual budget.

"One of my former Auto Club colleagues said jokingly, 'You just can't get away from real estate, can you?' " Adamson said.

Adamson is a new breed of social agency director: a no-nonsense businessman with virtually no background in social services. The board of directors that seven years ago named him president and chief administrative officer of the Midnight Mission considers that a major asset.

Adamson "was invaluable for our efforts in building the new facility and saved us quite a bit of money," said David R. Doan, a mission board member and LAPD deputy chief, who has known Adamson since the two were schoolboys.

The Midnight Mission, an independent agency with no religious affiliation, opened its new facility in April at 6th and San Pedro streets, a few blocks from its former home downtown where affluent loft-dwellers, cafes and galleries commingle with thousands of homeless residents.

Showing off the cozy library, spacious day room and sweeping, light-drenched staircase at the new 123,000-square-foot Mission, which has 360 beds and seats 500 for meals, Adamson said, "I think what I brought to the table is how to get this done."

Adamson is a hands-on administrator, one who will walk into the main lobby to ask clients how they're being treated.

"I've tried to instill in my people that they're not to be herded like cattle; they're to be treated like human beings," he said.

Adamson has graying hair, a graying mustache and a weary gaze that he insisted was not totally the result of the new building.

He has the good executive's knack of never appearing to be frazzled, even while hosting visits by an endless stream of city inspectors.

His job would seem to be the ultimate bleeding-heart endeavor, but he said, "I'm not a traditional liberal and, in fact, my upbringing was quite conservative."

Adamson, who with his wife has two adult daughters, was born and raised in Venice, graduated from Venice High and Cal State L.A., and grew up venerating the Dodgers.

A former Los Angeles police officer, he became a senior executive of the nation's biggest auto club in the car culture capital of the world, and now heads one of Los Angeles' oldest social agencies.

The diversity of his experiences exposed him to the city's riches and its unsavory depths. But it was his parents who taught him the importance of caring for his neighbors.

"My brother and I never had to worry about bringing home a friend unannounced because it was always an open door," Adamson, 53, said.

"My mom always had 15 dishes on the table, and my dad said, 'I don't care what a person's station is in life; that could be you.' "

Adamson had considered coaching high school football or baseball, sports in which he had excelled. But at Cal State L.A., he became fascinated by the psychology of crime — so much so that he entered the Los Angeles Police Department Academy and in 1974 was assigned as an officer to the Pacific Division.

His law enforcement career, however, lasted only a year. Adamson said he quickly realized that confrontation was not his forte.