Saving Troubled Minds

Garen and Shari Staglin, shown here with
children Brandon and Shannon at the
Staglin Family Vineyard in Napa
Valley, Calif., wanted a "walk-on
water scientist" in exchange for their
$1-million endowed professorship
focusing on schizophrenia research.

Copyright © John McJunkin

The results of the study were just beginning to seep into the medical and research communities when UCLA began looking for a schizophrenia researcher for a new professorship endowed by Garen and Sharalyn Staglin, both 1966 UCLA graduates. Like Cannon, the Staglins know all too well the toll schizophrenia takes on a family. And, like the man who would soon run their eponymous center, they wanted to help find a cure.

Garen and Sharalyn, who goes by Shari, met at a dorm party at UCLA in the mid-1960s.

Garen was studying engineering, Shari international affairs. After finishing their studies at UCLA, the couple moved to Northern California so that Garen could pursue a business degree at Stanford. They married right after graduation. At the ceremony, a friend locked their wrists together with handcuffs.

Shari, who went on to earn an M.P.A. from NYU, worked as a legislative aide and ran her own welfare-to-work nonprofit. Garen served on a destroyer in Vietnam and made his mark in information technology. In 1985, Garen and Shari bought a 50-acre vineyard on Rutherford Bench, not far off the main highway that runs through Napa Valley. They had two children, Brandon and Shannon '01.

When schizophrenia happens in a family, it's like being struck by lightning, says O'Brien. In the summer of 1990, lightning struck the Staglin family. Brandon, then an 18-year-old freshman at Dartmouth, had a psychotic break.

In 2004, writer Julian Guthrie of the San Francisco Chronicle interviewed Brandon and his parents about what happened. The story she wrote was painstakingly detailed and "completely accurate," Garen says. Today, Brandon, 34, is on medication and doing well. He works for the family business as a writer and Web designer. He is also a poet. He wrote a paean to Napa Valley wine country that appears on the home page at www.staglinfamily.com. Brandon is trying to move on with his life, so the family lets the Chronicle story stand as the official record.

In 1990, Guthrie wrote, Brandon had everything in the world going for him. He had a 4.0 grade point average in high school and scored a perfect 800 in the English portion of the SAT and a 785 in math. He played soccer and hoped to become an astronautical engineer.

That summer, Garen and Shari rushed home from a business trip in Paris. Brandon had been picked up by police and placed in a psychiatric hospital. In the days leading up to his hospitalization, Brandon told Guthrie, "half of my identity vanished." He wandered the town of Lafayette east of San Francisco, "covering his right eye as he walked, fearful another personality would fill the void."

Published Oct 1, 2006 8:00 AM