Late Easterseals Advocate Howard McBroom Honored

Howard McBroom was an outgoing, friendly and knowledgeable man—as well as a force to be reckoned with and a fiercely dedicated disability advocate for Easterseals Southern California. Sadly, Howard passed away in 2024, but his legacy lives on in many ways.

Howard became part of the Easterseals SoCal (ESSC) family when he joined the Glendale Adult Day Services (ADS) program’s Peer2Peer group in the fall of 2017, seeking to make friends. 

Before an entire year had passed, ESSC recognized Howard’s abilities and hired him as an advocate. He quickly became a tireless champion of civic engagement, leading drives to mobilize voters with disabilities, conducting seminars on voting, speaking at the California ADS Conference, meeting with local civil representatives and state legislators in Sacramento and helping decorate ESSC’s 100th Anniversary Rose Parade float and riding in the nationally televised parade as an Easterseals ambassador, among many other important efforts.

Glendale ADS Program Director Brian Nguyen was particularly close with Howard. “Throughout our time together, I watched him progress from being 100% independent to physically needing more help,” Nguyen recalled, “but advocacy was at the top of his mind at all times.”

A Lifetime of Achievement

On Oct. 20, the Frank D. Lanterman Regional Center celebrated its 60^th anniversary and the opening of a second location in Glendale. During the event, the organization presented a lifetime achievement award to Howard, who served on its board of directors and program and services client advisory committee from 2006 – 2014.

Lanterman’s Executive Director Srbui Ovsepyan presented the award, which reads, “Howard embodied Lanterman Regional Center’s core values, community ownership, partnership, accountability, leadership and advocacy. Howard was truly an advocate for himself and all of us.”

Nguyen was on hand when the award was presented. “It brought back a lot of memories of the advocacy work that Howard and I did together. But I didn’t know how important that was before Howard taught me how to use our voices because of all the injustices going on in society.”

The Howard McBroom Fellowship Program 

Additionally, Disability Voices United (DVU)—a California non-profit led by people with disabilities and their families that advocates for control over their own lives and a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect them—established the Howard McBroom Fellowship Program. 

The fellowship honors Howard’s legacy by providing leadership development for people with disabilities to strengthen advocacy skills for disability rights and building community collaboration among self- advocates, families and professionals on the Self-Determination Program and other critical disability rights issues.

Judy Mark, president of DVU, met Howard in 2011 and said, “We became friends quickly because of our shared passion for human and disability rights.” 

In 2013, Howard helped DVU pass the Self-Determination Law and became one of the first participants when the program expanded statewide in 2018. In 2022, he became DVU’s first ambassador. He worked with the #FreeBritney movement to advocate for the passage of the Conservatorship Reform and Supported Decision-Making Act.

“Howard’s passing was devastating to me and to everyone who knew him,” said Mark, “but his legacy lives on through the Howard McBroom Fellowship, which gives a self-advocate the opportunity to become a leader in the disability rights movement, just as Howard was.” 

“It’s so wonderful to see Howard’s important work and legacy continuing to make such a meaningful difference,” said Mark Whitley, president and CEO of ESSC, which supports the fellowship program by donating Howard’s annual salary in his honor.

The fellowship program’s first recipient, Tina Ewing-Wilson, will soon embark on a new job at the Department of Developmental Services where, utilizing the skills she learned as a McBroom Fellow, she will help lead an effort to recruit and assist other self-advocates to work at the department.

For more information visit Howard McBroom Fellowship.