Meet Dave Spitzer of Harbor Mandated Programs in San Pedro

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dave Spitzer.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Dave. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
It’s the old adage-being at the right place at the right time. Five plus years ago I was in the envious position to inherit Los Angeles County Probation authorized programs. And this does not happen every day! These treatment centers have been around for 30+ years and the only way to get these is by some other agency willing to give them up!

So now I have groups of men and women for 1203.097 pc, Batterers’ Intervention 52-weeks, pc1000 for first offender possession of narcotics and or paraphernalia, Anger Mgt., Parenting, Teen offender programs, e.g. petty theft and assault. Specialized DCFS programs for Individual Counseling and I have two MFT’s both bilingual for English and Spanish. And interns for the DVC or Domestic Violence Counseling.

Many on-going referrals from Parole Agents, Formal Probation Officers, and Social Workers. I also have another office in Cerritos having some of these.

Yep I got the world on a string sitting on a rainbow! Lucky me. Life is a beautiful thing as long as I hold the string around my finger. And going to be married this year in December-a new S Chapter officer and employee-my wife!!! When people I see ask me-“Hey Dave how are you doing?” I say “I never had it so good!!”

Has it been a smooth road?
Coming from a family manufacturing metal stamping tool & die background after the military, I have had a vision of other “opposite” endeavors. So going to work for 12 hours a day, and going to school at night for 5+ years, I have done internships for several years and working three jobs per day as a counselor/instructor for some more years, I got my credentials.

A masters in Criminology from the University of Illinois, a California Board Certified Addictions Specialist and other important degrees to open up my own successful practice that continues to grow today.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Harbor Mandated Programs story. Tell us more about the business.
Specializing in Criminal and Family Law cases, the multitude of populations, socioeconomic, and other factors bring a medley of various educated offenders that have made a legal consequence mistake.

I have had commercial airlines pilots, emergency room doctors, dentists, accountants, law enforcement, and some nurses. Then there are the high school drop outs, longshoremen, warehouse workers, auto mechanics, and the like. Then the trick here is to educate them all at the same time in mixed multi-groups where each one benefits from my instruction.

Also I appear in court of different cities on cases as an advocate to assist judges, city attorneys, private consuls, and public defenders in seeing the intricate details of my clients’ cases to avoid incarceration, namely prison as a request from my clients. I write narratives to Family Law Judges to see why parent and child reunification can exist to everyone’s benefit-nearly 90% of these treatment centers do not do what I described.

I self-educated myself to be the very best handling complex cases and situations, that are not normally available to the skills of others in this business field-they fall short.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Hahahaha, job security!!! As long as there is a criminal case or a family losing their children for some neglectful act(s) of their parents, and take the deal for education rather the incarceration terms or need to discharge their case-I am so in there! The only thing that can happen eventually is that I grow old from Alzheimer’s or something, then my future wife of 17 years younger than I and have to hang it up…….but right now, hell it feels like I am already semi-retired as it is!

Contact Info:

• Address: 411 North Harbor Boulevard
  Suite 202
  San Pedro, CA 90731
• Website: downtownpedro.com
• Phone: (424) 477-5339
• Email: dspitzer.hmp@gmail.com

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