BERKELEY, Calif. - A young Bronson Frick ’95 taught tourists to pan for gold in a small creek behind his mother’s general store in Brown County, Indiana. He often dreamed what life might be like outside Gatesville and Nashville in Southern Indiana. His dreams probably never matched what was soon to become reality.
His thirst for adventure has taken him around the world and into the hallways of Washington D.C.’s most powerful. He was an intern for President Bill Clinton and assistant to First Lady Hillary Clinton, advance team member for Dept. of Commerce Secretary Norm Mineta, and now he’s an activist based in Berkeley, Calif. He travels the country fighting big tobacco and helping communities enact no-smoking laws in his role as Assistant Director for Americans for Non-Smokers’ Rights.
His story begins in Nashville, Indiana, ending in Berkley – but at a young age he’s lived a life full of cultural and political adventure few could match in a life time. After his freshman year at Wabash he went to Estonia and taught English. He traveled the old Soviet Union. He was present when Georgia was recognized as an independent country. There were incidents when he literally dodged bullets during the strife.
After just one year back at Wabash his wanderlust overcame him again. He studied in France as a junior but that wasn’t enough adventure. So during his time in France he traveled with friends to Bosnia and Croatia where fighting had just ended.
"We went there as political science students to really have a better understanding of what was going on there," Frick said, sitting in a neighborhood coffee shop not far from his Berkley office. "It provided a stark reality check between the sensationalism one sees on CNN versus the more complex reality of the situation that is actually occurring."
Then and now he credits Wabash’s study abroad programs for his practical experience in an international setting. "I feel that gaining a lot of cultural baggage is very helpful for being successful not just in one field but in many fields."
He gained even more of that ‘cultural baggage’ before graduation. His frequent travels and willingness to give up his seat earned him considerable airline mileage. He took a trip to Indonesia after his junior year to Bangkok, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Like many of his experiences, the trip would later come back to have significant impact.
He returned to Wabash and finished his French and political science degrees. Next was a brief stint in Los Angeles as a production assistant making television commercials for car companies. That bored Frick and he headed back to Indonesia.
"I was settling into a pretty nice ex-patriot lifestyle of helping people learn English, snorkeling a lot, hiking and things like that," he said of his life in Asia.
During a visit to the States he met up at a Wisconsin bar with friends he had made in Europe. When he met the group abroad they were working as part of an advance team for Vice President Dan Quayle. They encouraged him to come to D.C. and work for the White House. He was accepted in 1997 as an intern within weeks and was soon running errands for President Bill Clinton.
"I was fortunate enough to be placed in the White House social office which coordinates events in the residence, ceremonies, dinners, state visits," he explained. "This was the brass ring of internships."
He made an impression earning an invitation to join Hillary Clinton’s staff. "It was such a great opportunity," he recalled, "meeting people like the Dahli Lama, Princess Diana, and world leaders."
He soon moved to the Department of Commerce doing advance work for the president and then eventually advance planning for Commerce Secretary Mineta. "I became Mineta’s advance person to coordinate his domestic and international travel. I got to go with him around the world. It was amazing going on trade missions to the Middle East, South American, and things like that.
But following the drawn-out and controversial presidential election of 2000, he sensed his political career was over. Mineta stayed on in the early days of the Bush Administration but Frick became a casualty of the political change.
"I have many Republican friends, but all of these Bush people started showing up in my apartment building. It was like being at a party after they turn the lights on. I knew it was time to get out of D.C."
His political contacts and life experience beyond his years, earned him a job offer from American’s for Non-Smokers Rights. "I came straight here," he said of the coastal job switch. "It seemed like a great opportunity to help people and to use my political background to help people."
Frick doesn’t mind the ‘activist’ image of Berkeley; it’s more like he revels in it. The Non-Smokers Rights group shares an old building with the nation’s first city recycling program, and the Sierra Club, among others. He doesn’t own a car, but belongs to a car sharing program. He often rides his bike about the eclectic college town.
Berkeley was the nation’s first city with a smoking restriction ordinance. Frick and the group’s staff provide assistance across the country to cities and states looking at similar laws. "We’re the organization that helped lead the fight for smoke-free airlines; 2005 was the 15th anniversary of that debate," he said. "Flight attendants were dying as young as age 30 of lung cancer. Now, although many businesses and particularly white collar office buildings have adopted their own smoke-free policies due to the changing social attitudes that our organization is at least party responsible for, many workers still remain exposed – particularly in the service industry like restaurants, bars and casinos.
"Those workers have essentially the highest cancer rate of any occupational sector in America. We want everyone to be able to breathe clean air at work."
The movement isn’t new but has picked up momentum in recent years. "It’s a huge national trend," Frick said. "It has to do with the huge mountain of scientific evidence about the health hazards of second hand smoke, combined with increased public support and demand for these smoke-free environments."
He adds the business community has become a primary force in the smoke-free environment movement. "They’ve learned it’s a key factor for having a healthier, more productive, more competitive workforce as healthcare costs continue to spiral upwards. Car companies now spend more money on healthcares costs for workers than for steel in that car. Starbucks now spends more money on healthcare benefits than on coffee beans."
So Frick’s employer works to educate communities, states and businesses on the benefits of a smoke-free environment and assist in creating those laws. "The growth of the smoke-free ordinances is really attributed to the clear scientific evidence behind the health hazards of second-hand smoke and increased public understanding of those health hazards and the response of elected officials to those concerns.
"The foundation of our movement is local grassroots organizing and the individual people speaking up and opponents, particularly the tobacco companies, trying to frame this as an issue of smoking versus non-smoking. This is really about everyone’s right to breathe without being harmed by other peoples’ smoke."
Frick is quick to point out what is more than politically-correct semantics but philosophy of the organization. Americans for Non-Smokers’ Rights isn’t anti-smoking, it’s pro non-smokers’ rights.
Or as he more succinctly puts it, "It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you have to breathe."