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BILL LANE…BIGGER THAN LIFE
A personal journey into the history of CEDU
By Kathy Nussberger
 Great sense of humor and quick wit describes the fun side
of Bill Lane, but you can’t help but feel the deep dedication
and loyalty Bill has for the families and students he served
for the 31 years he worked with the CEDU Family of Services.
Today, he continues to serve those families with his new
company, Bill Lane & Associates. Bill explained how he
met and became friends with CEDU’s founder, Mel Wasserman,
several years before the first program began.
“I met Mel in San Francisco several years before he started
CEDU, while I was working for Synanon, a drug rehabilitation
center,” Bill said. “I remember talking with him about his
ideas and thought he might have a better way of working with
teens and younger students. But as the years passed, we went
our separate ways with Mel moving to Palm Springs, and I
never really thought much more about it, until I began hearing
about a new non-profit organization that had opened a school
in Running Springs, CA.”
According to Bill, Mel started the first program in about
1966, but it was several years after that when Mel approached
him about working for CEDU.
“A few years after the program opened, I started reading
and hearing about it, and we began communicating back and
forth, but I was pretty content at Synanon, which was how
I became involved in working with all ages, from teen to
adult,” said Bill. “However, when Mel asked me to come down
and take a look at CEDU, which at the time consisted of a
very small school in Running Springs and an office in Los
Angeles, I agreed and was pretty excited about what I saw
at the program. He offered me a job and I started working
for Mel in January 1974, ‘I was only nine at the time,’ he
joked.”
In the early days of his work with CEDU, Bill’s expertise
was in public relations/ fundraising and he traveled all
over the country to locate whatever the program needed.
“At that time, they had very few private pay, it was mostly
adjudicated kids, so I used to work very closely with the
families who donated money to the school,” he said. “But
then I began traveling a lot when we needed funding for building
projects. If we needed materials, I would move to Oregon
for a month and go to every saw mill and lumber yard in the
state with a list, and based on that list, I would get them
to donate the materials we needed. After that I would contact
trucking companies to get them to donate their services for
picking up and hauling the materials to the school. That’s
how we helped to fund the organization. If we needed beef,
I went to Texas for a month and visited every cattle yard
to “get the beef.”
As time went on, Bill moved into admissions and every other
aspect of the organization, culminating in his becoming president
of CEDU High and Middle Schools, director of Hilltop and
finally, his ultimate love, director of the transport service
CEDU began providing.
“I fell into what has become a passion for me when Mel suggested
starting a transport service, I love what we do and the services
we have to offer the families, educational consultants, psychiatrists,
etc. that I work with throughout the country,” Bill explained.
“Mel approached me about 12-years-ago with the idea because
it was evident that we were getting a lot of students who
required transport services. We felt we could do a good job
of transporting them ourselves, and we could better prepare
the students in their understanding of the schools they were
coming too. Whenever Mel was considering a new venture, he
would say to me, ‘Bill, look into this, see if it is feasible
and if it will work.’ The transport service was a very successful
venture.”
Bill explained how escorting students to a school is often
a very scary situation for both the parents and students,
so he quickly addresses the anger and fear and defuses it
by describing the program and explaining what the child may
expect upon arrival at the school.
“Although the company name is different today, I still have
the same employees and implement the same beliefs as I did
when CEDU was running the service,” he said. “Everyone who
works for me is very well trained with CPR and First Aid
certifications, and all employees must pass both a federal
and state background check to escort a student. I employ
a lot of people up here in North Idaho, and when CEDU closed
down in March, I immediately incorporated under Bill Lane & Associates
Inc., and we continued with business as usual.”
Bill said he also fell into an entire industry that he truly
loves, “quite frankly, going to work for CEDU in the 70’s
was a godsend to me because it was new, the only place available
at that time and it was a major contributor in spearheading
today’s movement in the struggling teens industry. A lot
of the folks who work in the industry today also worked for
CEDU. It’s really been a great experience; I wanted to continue
doing it even after CEDU closed because working with students
and parents is wonderful.”
When the IECA first started over 20 years ago, Bill said
he was one of the first people to bring CEDU to the attention
of the educational consultants who were members of the organization.
“Personally, I believe Mel would be devastated by the closure
of the CEDU schools,” Bill said. “I think what’s taken place
is unconscionable; Mel as the inspirational, big man and
visionary, was a very dynamic guy. He knew what he wanted
and what he had to do to get it. He was a tough guy to work
for on the one hand, but was also the fairest person I knew
and treated his employees very well, which is why he had
one of the biggest programs in the industry.”
Bill explained that when Mel sold CEDU to the Brown Schools,
the company was at its peak in the market. All the schools
were full and everything was going great. “However, after
the first and second year the company was owned by Brown
Schools, the staff turnover at the highest levels was unbelievable.
There was no one left with any time or stability in the company,
and the organization went backwards. Mel saw what was happening,
and he would say, ‘well, we don’t own it any more,’ but you
could tell he was very disappointed.”
The day of the infamous phone call announcing the CEDU closures
caught everyone off guard, including Bill who said he was
in the middle of transporting a student to the Ascent program
in North Idaho when he was told they couldn’t take the boy.
“I spent time with Mel on his 70th birthday, which was shortly
before he died, and I can say that what was done to the parents,
students, staff and consultants that day, probably made him
turn over in his grave. To not give any notice to anyone,
especially the parents, students and staff was unconscionable.
The legacy is wounded, but lives on in the industry. The
family can’t believe what happened to the CEDU name; they
are stunned that it progressed to that point because Mel
put his heart and soul into that company.”
Copyright © 2005,
Woodbury Reports, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
(This article may not be reproduced without written approval
of the publisher.)
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