Hanna Boys Center CEO announces retirement

Brian Farragher, CEO of Hanna Boys Center, announced on Friday that he will retire after five years of leading the center for at-risk youth at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, citing personal reasons.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it,” Farragher said of his decision. Farragher’s father-in-law is 94 and “has some challenges,” he said. And at the beginning of November, he and his wife, Anne, went “back East” where they are from, then their kids and new grandchild visited California during Thanksgiving. Anne’s father will need extra care, plus those times together with family tugged at their heartstrings.

“We really feel we’re needed back there,” he told the Index-Tribune. “We’ve been talking about this since probably mid-October. This is really much more running to something than running away from something.”

In a press release about the retirement, Tullus Miller, chair of the Hanna board of trustees, praised Farragher’s “legacy” as leaving the 74-year-old institution “poised to embrace the latest research and science to positively impact those we seek to help.”

“The Hanna Board of Trustees met yesterday, and Brian explained his decision, reached over several months, to return to the East Coast to be closer to his family, including an ailing parent and a new grandchild,” wrote Miller in the release. “We are grateful that Brian has given us ample notice so that we can begin the process of identifying a successor, and have time for an orderly transition.”

In the statement, Farragher, 61, conceded the “transition comes at a challenging time.”

“When I joined Hanna in 2014, with the board’s endorsement, I set out to make much needed changes and plot a new course for the future,” wrote Farragher. “While it hasn’t always been easy to initiate change, we’ve made great strides, and I am proud of our accomplishments.”

“It’s been a bumpy ride,” Farragher said by phone. He said he feels that some of what happened at Hanna “has been misunderstood,” referring to the “changes we made on program philosophy.”

Farragher described himself as “honored” to have helped programs that “promote resilience and recovery” and expressed pride that, “despite hurdles, (Hanna is) in the forefront of modern behavioral change and care.”

Among the hurdles Farragher referred to include losing a $1.1 million whistleblower lawsuit to former Hanna clinical director Tim Norman, who was fired by Farragher after raising concerns about unaddressed bullying and drug use at the boys center, along with multiple scandals involving Hanna employees sexually abusing the youth at the center.

Farragher made several changes at the school for at-risk teenage boys, including establishing a policy of Trauma Informed Care (TIC), which some employees alleged eliminated their ability to discipline and hold the boys accountable for their actions.

Last spring Farragher embarked on a tumultuous reorganization of Hanna High School, which effectively fired all school employees and offered an opportunity to apply to be rehired, but some were offered the same or similar jobs at lower wages. Three former employees filed a lawsuit against Hanna for wrongful termination claiming age discrimination and retaliation for what was described as whistleblowing.

During this same period, three longtime board members resigned.

Much of Farragher’s time at Hanna took place over a backdrop of sexual abuse claims against former Hanna clergy by men who were boys at the time of their alleged abuse. Three new charges against Father John Crews, who was Hanna’s longtime executive director, came out over the last year, and those close to the situation believe there are more to come. Crews resigned in 2013 following an accusation of sexual abuse in the 1970s before he came to Hanna.

In light of that, Farragher took a proactive approach and hired a private investigator to seek out all former Hanna residents to determine if they were abused, or know of anyone who was while at Hanna.

The “abuse issues here are steeped in the culture,” Farragher said. “We have to change the culture.”

He said the board told him that the TIC practices instituted during Farragher’s tenure will continue as will the Hanna Institute he built, which serves as a training and research arm of TIC, and operates out of Hanna Boys Center.

Hanna officials say they will embark on a succession plan to replace Farragher, and initiate a search for a new CEO immediately.

Contact Anne at anne.ernst@sonomanews.com.