Dad Has New Role: President of Mothers Against Drunk Driving

The music of an ice-cream truck lured Courtney Birch out of his grandmother’s house, as he rushed to keep up with his cousins on May 3, 1988. Meanwhile, a car was tearing down the street at 70 miles per hour.

The driver of the speeding car had a blood-alcohol level of 0.26 — the equivalent of a 12-pack of beer — when he hit the 21-month-old boy and dragged Courtney’s small body 150 feet before coming to a stop. The man was driving with a revoked license after three previous drunk-driving convictions.

Ever since, Glynn Birch, 48, has been haunted by his son’s senseless death. But Mr. Birch says he has been able to survive because of a relationship he forged with the advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The organization, commonly referred to as MADD, has helped him come to grips with his loss and helped prosecutors win a 15-year prison sentence against the driver.

Mr. Birch has spent more than 15 years volunteering for MADD — telling his son’s story to audiences in his native central Florida and helping to craft the organization’s agenda as a member of its Board of Directors.

“The support that they gave me is the reason why I’m involved with MADD today,” he says. “MADD empowered me to get my life back.”

On July 1, Mr. Birch heightened that commitment by leaving his account-executive job with an Orlando, Fla., cable-television company to begin a paid, three-year term as MADD’s national president. He succeeds Wendy Hamilton, and will earn $80,000 annually for the position. Mr. Birch will work from his home in Orlando, since the day-to-day management of the organization, which operates on a $53-million annual budget, is handled by a chief executive at MADD’s national headquarters in Irving, Tex.

In his new role, Mr. Birch is the advocacy group’s public face — working to increase awareness about the dangers of drunk driving and lobbying for tougher laws and stricter penalties for intoxicated drivers.

Mr. Birch’s face also offers MADD, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, a symbolic departure from its past. Like his predecessors in the president’s role, Mr. Birch has experienced the death of a child in a drunk-driving accident. But, unlike them — all of whom were white women — Mr. Birch is a father, and black.

His presidency, according to those involved with the organization, is expected to help MADD spread the message that its services aren’t just for mothers and to more effectively market itself to a diverse audience.

“People say, ‘Oh, there are men in MADD?’ Predominantly, the organization is a lot of females, but there are men, as well. We have constantly put that message out, but Glynn can now bring it out even more,” says Cynthia Roark, MADD’s national chairwoman.

MADD’s efforts to lobby states to pass tougher drunk-driving and traffic-safety laws remain crucial, Mr. Birch says, despite past victories. The group has already been successful in pushing for laws that make seat belts mandatory in every state but New Hampshire, and lowering the legal blood-alcohol limits for drivers. But even with those tougher laws, drunk driving accounted for nearly 17,000 deaths on American roadways in 2003, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Mr. Birch says MADD has been facing a major challenge from the Bush administration, which outlined plans in April to divert to the federal government’s general fund $1.27-billion in money earmarked for restitution from the Crime Victims Fund, a federal program that, among other programs, helped pay for the same MADD counselors who aided Mr. Birch after his son’s death. His first goal as president is to lobby to restore that money for MADD and other nonprofit groups that receive money from the fund.

“That is at the top of my list at MADD,” Mr. Birch says. “A victim advocate gave me my life back. She empowered me to not let this driver who killed my son take over my life.”

He also hopes to help the organization do a better job of reaching out to minorities. A federal study has found that blacks who die in car crashes are less likely to have worn seat belts than whites in fatal accidents. In addition, he will work to bring the organization’s message into new cities and towns, to help reduce the number of accidents and offer support to more victimized families.

That support, says Mr. Birch, is the reason that he is involved with MADD.

“There’s never closure. What you do is adjust. Over the years, I’ve been able to adjust to the fact that my son is no longer there,” he says. “Making something positive out of my son’s death is something I need to do.”

In an interview, Mr. Birch discussed his experience and his goals as MADD’s first male president:

How has your experience in the business world prepared you for this role?

My years in the corporate world prepared me in a business sense for what we need to do as an organization. It’s still all the same. The only difference is I’m saving lives with the message I’m delivering to the public. I’ve also been on the national board for the past five years, so I understand MADD.

How is the public responding to a male MADD president?

I’ve been pretty excited about the response I’ve gotten from the public so far. Because of our name, people might have been hesitant to think it’s for everyone. But it is.

We all hurt, so we all must take part in stopping drunken driving. They understand it. It clicks. They understand that it hurts everybody.

What do you hope MADD looks like when your term is over?

We always look at the number of accidents per year. Lowering that number is a key goal. Certainly, we want to raise the awareness level and we want to make sure that more victims are being taken care of. We want to increase that number.

What should people know about drunk-driving victims?

Every single day, people say, “You probably don’t want to talk about it.” Yes, I want to talk about it. By me talking about it, it raises awareness.

[Victims] would like to talk about it, but we tend not to allow them. MADD did that for me. It allowed me to tell my story over and over again.

ABOUT GLYNN BIRCH, PRESIDENT OF MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING

Education: Attended Valencia Community College, in Orlando, Fla., for two years.

Previous employment: Spent the past 16 years as an account executive for Bright House Networks, a cable-television company in Orlando. Mr. Birch had previously worked in restaurant management for 10 years.

Previous volunteer experience: After his son’s death, Mr. Birch began volunteering as a speaker for MADD’s central Florida chapter. He was elected to the chapter’s board in 1998 and became its president one year later. Mr. Birch won a seat on MADD’s national Board of Directors in 2000 and has served on several committees. In 2003, he was named MADD’s national vice president of victim issues.

What he’s reading: Mr. Birch says he has had little time for pleasure reading as he has prepared for his new role as MADD president. “I’ve been engulfing myself with materials from MADD and the field,” he says.