Utah loses VOA chief

After 19 years in Utah, a defining career change and a legacy of helping Utah's most vulnerable, Jeff St. Romain has headed back home to New Orleans.

Going from helping thousands of people recover from personal storms of substance abuse and chronic homelessness to helping an entire city recuperate from the worst hurricane-related disaster in U.S. history is a little like transitioning from a scooter to a bullet bike.

"But it's really the ideal situation," the 53-year-old president and chief executive of Utah's Volunteers of America mission said during a break from packing his office on 200 South and 500 West in Salt Lake prior to his move. "Same work, different scale of need and size of the office. But it's back home, so I know the terrain."

Helping those who need it most has always been the draw, but doing the work in the place he's from and where both sides of his family still live, is an "opportunity that came out of the blue and one I had to accept."

St. Romain has visited New Orleans seven times since the floodwaters from a combination of Hurricane Katrina and overwhelmed levee system hit his father's house head-on and left 5 1/2 feet of water in his in-laws' home. A total of 38 family members were displaced by the Hurricane.

St. Romain's duties will be more administrative, "but my goal is to take a blueprint of corporate, public and nonprofit agency cooperation that has become a remarkable, positive trait here in Salt Lake and make those type connections there."

New Orleans' population is still down about 100,000, and serious crimes — murder, assault, auto theft and burglary — are a huge concern, he said.

Salt Lake's crime rate is a fraction of New Orleans', but St. Romain believes the social problems behind much of it are common to any U.S. city.

"It's a matter of trying to instill a little bit of hope," St. Romain said, noting that anywhere there are human beings there are man-made disasters, often from alcohol and drug abuse.

"These are people who have struggled their whole lives — and many more are women with children — and maybe they've been self-medicating because of trauma in their lives," St. Romain said. "They often feel ashamed, and too often society will shame them rather than help."

The welfare of others, especially those who lose their grip on life whether by circumstance or choice, has been a professional priority — from working for Aetna insurance after college to still sometimes riding at night with the VOA's "boozer cruiser" squad, he's been trying to improve for his fellow human beings.