Jose Luis Flores
My wife, Carole, and I moved to San Luis Obispo five years ago soon after our retirement. However, our first visit here was in 1972 when we spent our first honeymoon night at the Madonna Inn. (We stayed at the Mountain View room. Yes, there’s a story here.) We have three daughters and while raising them in the Encino area of the San Fernando Valley, we often took them to the Central Coast on vacation. It was due to these visits that lured our oldest daughter and her husband to move to San Luis Obispo 11 years ago with their two young children. Our youngest daughter and husband have two children and live in Ventura, and the middle daughter and husband have three children and live in Calabasas. Carole and I are fortunate to be able to often visit our seven grandkids and to attend their school achievements, afterschool sports activities and theater performances. I am a Marriage and Family Therapist, licensed in 1975, but have retired from clinical practice and as an associate professor in clinical psychology with emphasis in marriage and family therapy. Although my practice and instruction was in the San Fernando Valley, I worked as a mental health supervisor and consultant to public mental health agencies throughout the greater Los Angeles region. In addition, I was the administrator of contracts with the State and the LA County in awarding educational stipends to graduate students in the various mental health disciplines. These stipends were intended as a workforce initiative to recruit qualifying students to work in public mental health clinics upon completion of their degree. After the pandemic I have returned to administer current contracts from Southern California counties, including SLO, to address their mental health workforce shortage by awarding stipends to graduate students in social work, family therapy, psychology and psychiatric nursing. I am originally from Southern Arizona and came to Los Angeles in 1967 to attend Loyola University (now, Loyola Marymount University). Although my parents expected me to return to Arizona after finishing my degree, I met Carole, and after our marriage, we made our home in the San Fernando Valley. I am the seventh of ten children from a close-knit family. My extended family now includes 25 nieces and nephews and 32 great nieces and nephews. Carole and I keep in contact with all of them and have created a calendar of everyone’s birth dates. With my six remaining siblings, three over 80 yrs. old, we use the Internet to keep each other updated on family, health and social activities. Now, I will let them know that I have become a RAM.