A Close- Up Look At People Who Matter : 2 Volunteers Who Make a Difference

Bud Brown still sets his alarm clock for 5 a.m.

“I’m every bit as busy now in the Valley as I was then,” said Brown, 62, who retired two years ago as public affairs manager for GTE in San Fernando.

But retirement did not end the involvement with many community groups for Brown, a finalist for the Fernando Award, given each year to honor one person’s lifetime of volunteerism.

“This is retirement?” Brown said his wife, Althea, asks him when he gets up to drive from their Thousand Oaks home for early morning meetings in the Valley .

Brown said his mentor in community involvement was San Fernando civic leader Frank Modugno, who died in a car crash in April. Modugno, whom Brown describes as “a dear friend,” encouraged him to get involved in different groups.

In 1978, Modugno talked Brown into working with Project HEAVY, which provided counseling and other services for troubled youth. Later he joined the group’s board and now is chairman of New Directions for Youth in Van Nuys, created when Project HEAVY merged with the Juvenile Justice Connection Project.

As chairman, Brown has worked with teen-agers who have gotten in trouble with the law or are in danger of that.

“I spend quite a bit of time over there talking with them,” said Brown, who was especially heartened by a girl named Maria who could not get a job, was involved in gangs and thought she had no future.

But after a 10-week computer training course, Maria got job offers and went back to school.

“We’ve had a lot of kids graduate from New Directions for Youth and go on to college and get their degrees,” Brown said.

“I go home after a day of various volunteering work,” Brown said, “and I really feel good, that I really accomplished something that day.”

Another Fernando Award finalist, Nancy Schmidt of Chatsworth, has felt something similar.

“My family has been involved in volunteer work for over 60 years here in Los Angeles,” said Schmidt, 47, a Valley resident since she was 2. As a girl, she spent much of her time riding the historic Angels Flight Railway on Bunker Hill in Downtown Los Angeles. Her grandfather bought the funicular in the 1950s, she said.

“I’ve grown up knowing that you have to give back to the community that you come from,” said Schmidt, a branch manager for American Pacific State Bank in Sherman Oaks. Schmidt helped found the San Fernando Valley Charitable Foundation and is now its president.

The foundation runs a handful of fund-raising events and distributes the money to some of the smaller charities in the Valley in an annual ceremony.

Schmidt has also been involved with the Valley Leadership Institute, the North Hollywood Rotary Club and the San Fernando Valley Economic Alliance. She chaired the Community Redevelopment Agency Earthquake Recovery Advisory Committee for Sherman Oaks and Studio City.

“I like that I’m able to address a whole range of issues,” Schmidt said. “I’m only limited by time.”

This has been one in a series on the finalists for the Fernando Award, which will be awarded in early November.

Personal Best is a weekly profile of an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. Please address prospective candidates to Personal Best, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax them to (818) 772-3338 .