Ten years ago, on my very first staff assignment as a newspaper reporter, a baby camel named Kazzy urinated prolifically onto me in the parking lot of Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa. It wasn’t the most auspicious baptism for a newcomer to journalism, but I hadn’t yet learned that there’s such a thing as getting too close to your subject.
This summer, charismatic megafauna were once again on hand—if at a more comfortable distance—for the latest landmark in my reporting career: I was observing (through glass) the polar bears at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Wash., when my phone buzzed with the offer of a job I hadn’t even applied for, but that no sane local journalist would refuse. By the time you read this, I’ll be working for Patch, the online community news initiative backed by AOL. The company is rolling out more than 100 local sites in California—including one in Napa, my beat for more than 10 years and my home for the past seven.
Now, the city is my newsroom as well. Equipped with a laptop and Wi-Fi, I’ll be working wherever the stories are, posting news and updates—around the clock, when necessary—to keep my fellow Napans up to date on what’s happening in our town. Several North Bay Patch sites are already up and running; you can find them all at www.patch.com.
I have to admit, I’m a little dizzy at the prospect of a full-time job with all the trimmings after nearly four years of freelancing. Working for oneself can be liberating—but it also brings with it a heap of burdens, from record-keeping to insurance. The administrative tasks were never my strong point: I blush to admit that figuring my city taxes challenged me so much that I usually sent in a check for some random amount that I knew had to be more than I owed. And with a divorce looming, my future health coverage was starting to be such a scary topic that it threatened to cause some health problems of its own.
So now more than ever, my hat is off to those Napans who are bravely striking out on their own, despite the shadows of what I’ve been intrigued to hear the radio people call our “recent recession.” A couple of spirited individuals I’ve met during my reporting career here have really impressed me with their creativity and resilience, and I’d like to tell you about their endeavors in this, my penultimate Napa Insider column.
You probably didn’t expect my next words to be about an aspiring weapons designer, but David Haymond can’t be profiled as a mere mercenary. His proprietary project, developed over an intensive year in the Machine Tool Technology program at Napa Valley College, is intended for law enforcement—to be specific: SWAT teams, the municipal troops who turn out in worst-case scenarios.
A patent application is in the works, so the most a friendly Haymond could disclose when we spoke is that he’s designed a “shorter-range” weapon that’s “more compact and easier to carry.” He’s successfully fired hundreds of rounds at an East Bay shooting range and plans to license his invention to a weapons manufacturer in exchange for royalties on sales.
Whatever mental image you may now have of this budding gunsmith, it’s time to shake your head like a Magic 8-Ball and make room for the real David Haymond. Just 19 years old when I interviewed him at the end of the spring semester this past May, Haymond endured a heart transplant during middle school and received his high-school instruction at home.
A rare neuromuscular disease means Haymond can’t breathe without the use of a ventilator 24 hours a day; his nostrils sealed by the machine’s tubes, he can speak only with quick, urgent sips of breath. Haymond’s ventilator weighs 15 pounds, and he carries it with him wherever he goes. Haymond’s slight frame has been twisted by scoliosis, making it it easier for him to stand leaning on his crutch than to sit during classes; yet he emanates energy and determination.
Fans (like me) of novelist Rick Riordan’s red-hot Percy Jackson and the Olympians novels for young adults could easily view the lightly whiskered Haymond as an appealing cross between the series’ earnest, inspired satyr Grover Underwood and the ancient metal-working god Hephaestus, famous for both his limp and his undisputed mastery of the forge.
Meanwhile, NVC’s machine-tools instructor, Dean Ehlen, whose wife was the school-district teacher in charge of Haymond’s instruction during his homebound high-school years, sees a bright future for the student they’ve both watched develop into a promising young inventor. As long as Haymond is enrolled at NVC, Ehlen explains, he has the run of the workshops and equipment, and he can re-enroll as many times as he likes—even using the program as a launching pad for his gunsmithing startup. “What we’re hoping to do here at the college is be an incubator for the business,” Ehlen says. And, adds Haymond, his green eyes wide and serious, “to employ students in this program.”
The other inspiring Napan I’d like to mention is Ashley Nicole Teplin, a trained visual artist who earned a bachelor’s degree from UCLA before launching into the film business then following her inspiration to the Culinary Institute of America. After graduation, Teplin found work at the right hand of the valley’s most exclusive public relations designer, Pam Hunter of Studio-707, with whom she campaigned with great imagination for clients like Meyer Family Port and restaurateur Paul Martin.
Hunter (now retired) encouraged Teplin’s creative side, and the protegee is stepping out on her own. Her website, media-ant.com, is like a mash-up of a gallery—Teplin posts an intriguing original photograph each week—and a reading room with links to blogs about cooking, gardening, art, design and anything else that catches her roving imagination.
The high-profile Napa Valley clients Teplin has been working with this year include the folks behind Gott’s Roadside (formerly Taylor’s Refresher) chain of burger shrines; but she also donates her services to myriad nonprofit causes, from cancer benefits and the di Rosa art ranch in Carneros to the effort to extend the Napa Valley Vine Trail for bicyclists and pedestrians from one end of the county to the other.
