When Kirk Spry graduated from college in 1973, he expected to begin teaching high school in his home state of Nebraska.
Little did he know that he soon would be relocating to California, where he would spend the better part of his life helping developmentally disabled adults learn the skills needed to live an independent life and enter the workforce.
And after more than 30 years leading the charge at VTC Enterprises in Santa Maria, Spry has retired.
His official retirement date was Dec. 31, although he’s still working with the nonprofit organization to help his replacement, Jason Telander, make a seamless transition into his new role as VTC Enterprises chief executive officer.
“I’m guessing by February that I will be totally out,” Spry said. “I have been here 33 years. I was shocked when I added it up. It’s not that easy to just step away. I already feel like something is missing.”
Spry, who began working for VTC Enterprises in 1979 as the organization’s director of production, got his first taste of working with developmentally disabled adults while studying to become a high school teacher at the University of Nebraska.
During college, he worked part-time supervising a group of seven mentally disabled adults who cleaned a building where he was employed.
“These guys really appreciated what I was doing and appreciated that they had a job,” Spry said. “I don’t know if I would’ve gotten the same response (from a group that wasn’t mentally disabled). It hooked me.”
Upon graduating college, Spry jokingly told his then-supervisor, who was moving to Porterville, that if he had a job opening the young graduate would take it. His former boss called Spry within a month and offered him a position in Porterville, which he accepted.
While in Northern California, Spry earned a master’s degree in rehabilitation administration from the University of San Francisco and relocated to the Santa Maria Valley in 1979 to take a job with VTC Enterprises, where he has served for the past 22 years as the nonprofit’s chief executive officer.
“I moved to Santa Maria with the idea that I would be here four or five years,” Spry said with a big smile.
The mission of VTC Enterprises is to assist youth and adults with disabilities or other limitations in choosing and achieving their life goals, something that Spry takes very seriously and has worked for many decades to help achieve.
“We are all about getting people out and into their own community,” Spry said. “We want them to get out there … not be holed up in some nursing home.”
VTC Enterprises has a client base of 350 individuals, whose disabilities run the gamut from severe to mild.
Many of those the organization serves hold paid jobs in the community thanks to the skills they learn at the nonprofit, which has long-term employment contracts for its clients at both Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc and Naval Base Ventura County.
“We are here to meet your needs (as an employer),” Spry said. “It’s not to make you feel good because your hiring people with disabilities. It’s a very different marketing approach. You have to prove to the customer that we are a credible contractor … and I believe we’ve succeeded in doing that.”
In addition to its employment contracts with the Air Force and naval bases, VTC Enterprises also operates a full-scale, custom catering service, thrift store and printing shop that all employ clients from the nonprofit.
The majority of VTC’s clients are referred to the organization by the Tri Counties Regional Center, which provides the nonprofit with the bulk of its training fees, although numerous individuals are also referred by the state Department of Rehabilitation and Santa Barbara County Department of Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services.
For Spry, one of the most enjoyable parts of his years at VTC Enterprises has been watching the organization’s clients become productive members of their communities, something he said he’ll definitely miss.
“It really comes down to the people that we serve, watching them succeed” he added. “Some have never worked before or didn’t know how to work. You really go home at the end of the day knowing that you made someone’s life better. It’s why we exist.”
VTC celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and also completed construction on a new state-of-the-art facility, which in some ways prompted Spry to pen his retirement notice, although at 61 he said he’s not old enough to stop working just yet.
“I felt that somebody new needed to come in and take us into the next 50 years,” Spry said about his decision to semi-retire. “I would like to transition into retirement. I’m keeping my options open.”
He added with a laugh, “I won’t be at the golf course every day.”
One of the accomplishments that Spry is most proud of during his tenure at VTC Enterprises is helping the organization become less dependent on state funding.
Since his time with the organization, it has gone from being 100 percent reliant on state funds for keeping the doors open to a mere 35 percent. Sixty-five percent of VTC funding is derived from private contracts.
“That has helped us survive during a down economy … and stay on the cutting edge,” Spry said.
Although he knows he’s leaving the organization in good hands with Telander at the helm, Spry said he’s going to miss the day-to-day challenges of running a nonprofit and will miss its clients.
“They aren’t just people we serve,” he added. “They are your friends.”
Spry has three grown daughters and six grandchildren. He and his wife, Kathy, who met in high school in Nebraska, will be married 40 years this year. In his spare time, he enjoys running, golfing and traveling.
— — Noozhawk contributing writer April Charlton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
