Hanna Boys Center CEO to retire, ushering in change at top of embattled Catholic facility

Brian Farragher, the executive director of the embattled Hanna Boys Center, announced Friday that he will retire from his post next year, marking an unexpected end to his now five-year tenure roiled by internal and legal strife, including the conviction of a top staffer for child sex assault involving three former residents.

Farragher, 61, will serve out the remainder of the school year and leave in June 2020.

He and his wife plan to return to the East Coast to be near aging, infirm parents and their first grandchild, Hanna officials said.

“This transition comes at a challenging time for Hanna,” Farragher said in a written statement from the boys center about his retirement. “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. While it hasn’t always been easy to initiate change, we’ve made great strides, and I am proud of our accomplishments.”

In an interview, Farragher said his time at Hanna “hasn’t worked out completely how I expected.”

“But I think, like I said, even with all the challenges, I do not think I would have proceeded differently if I came out here today,” he said. “I think we’re going in the right direction.”

The news comes less than a month after three new lawsuits were lodged against the home for troubled boys by former workers who claim they were forced out for speaking up about persistent problems under Farragher, centered around cultural and operational changes imposed since he took over in 2014. The center is affiliated with the Santa Rosa Diocese of the Catholic Church.

Board Chairman Tullus Miller partly acknowledged that strife in the notice about Farragher’s retirement, which he said was driven by the couple’s wish to return to New York.

“(A)s Brian explained to the Board, after almost 45 years of pursuing his life’s work - helping young people overcome adversity - he has decided that now is an important and critical time to focus on his own family and their needs,” Miller said in a press release from the boys center.

He praised Farragher for giving “ample notice so that we can being the process of identifying a successor.”

Farragher took the helm of the venerable 74-year-old institution near Sonoma after its longtime executive director of 29 years, Father John S. Crews, was accused of having molested a young parishioner decades earlier at St. Sebastian’s Catholic Church in Sebastopol.

Staff members say Farragher arrived and pronounced the residential care facility in good working order and appeared content to make few, if any, changes.

But his introduction of a new trauma-based treatment protocol that upended the center’s longtime system of rewards and punishments proved profoundly disruptive. Critics said it promoted bad behavior that made for an unsafe environment for residents and staff, and, ultimately pitted many rank-and-file against top management.

Rising incidence of bullying, drug use, fighting and other misconduct drew citations from state licensing personnel and nearly cost Hanna its operating license. The state instead put the facility on three years probation, now about halfway over.

Hanna also was on the losing end of a $1.1 million civil suit in which Tim Norman, the longtime clinical director, was found to have been illegally fired for speaking up about concerns at the facility. His replacement, Kevin Thorpe, a longtime caseworker before his promotion, was arrested and convicted of molesting three Hanna residents. Two of them, brothers, in June won an unprecedented $6.8 million settlement from Hanna in connection with the case.

Yet Farragher had retained the support of the board majority despite facing constant questions and challenges to his leadership. He has said he considers the continuing tumult to be natural fallout from change and the discomfort of adapting to new things.

“We work with kids who have trouble managing their affect and who lash out and can be difficult, and that’s part of what we’re helping them through,” he said earlier this month. “So you gotta lean into that. And so that’s been a change under my leadership, and I stand by that.”

“I have no regrets about the changes we’re making here,” he said Friday, “and I think they’re long overdue. And it’s been very hard, and that’s not really what this is about, in terms of leaving.”

Santa Rosa Bishop Robert F. Vasa, who sits on the board, said he was “sad to see him go.”

“I have a lot of regard and respect for Brian,” Vasa said. “He’s taken on a very challenging job in a very challenging time. If he were running away from it because of it, I would understand, but that’s not a piece of it. Brian’s not running away from it. I just want to make that explicitly clear.”

The boys center said in a press release that Farragher informed the board of his decision Thursday after several months of consideration.

“Brian and the board would be the first to acknowledge the challenges Hanna faces, and the difficulties associated with change and growth,” Miller said in the statement. “Many of those challenges are endemic in any educational, faith-based, nonprofit organization; here at Hanna they are amplified because of the special needs and circumstances of the at-risk young men we serve and help. However, as John F. Kennedy said, ‘Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.’?”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.