Garen and Shari Staglin were on their way to Paris in the summer of 1990 when they received a call that would reshape their family’s life forever.
At just 18 years of age, their son Brandon, a National Merit Scholar at Dartmouth, had experienced a schizophrenic episode and was plunged into a life-altering battle with a mental illness that affects some 1.5 million people in the United States alone.
“It was like I was only half of me,” Brandon, now 52, recalled in an interview this week.
Back then, said his mother Shari, CEO of Staglin Family Vineyard, it was a “no-no” to talk about mental illness and the struggles that came with it.
“We even hid it from our closest friends,” Shari Staglin said.
But in trying to help their son, the Staglins realized they needed to do something proactive.
“We told ourselves, ‘We can either run away from this or run toward this, and that was when it all came together,” Garen Staglin said.
Their decision to take on their son’s mental health crisis was a turning point that would give rise to their One Mind foundation and their Music Festival for Brain Health. Having raised over $600 million for brain research since its inception, One Mind and the Staglins are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Music Festival on Sept. 7 at the Rutherford winery where it all started.
What began as a modest community dinner at the Staglin’s vineyard home has grown into one of the most popular events in Napa Valley. In addition to hosting a Science and Innovation Symposium where top neuroscientists discuss their latest groundbreaking work, the festival has featured concerts by some of the world’s biggest music stars: Jennifer Hudson, Gladys Knight, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw, Pat Benetar, Dionne Warwick, One Republic…the list goes on. This year’s featured performer is Grammy nominee Elle King, renowned for her unique blend of country, rock and punk. There is also the wine tasting reception inside the winery’s underground cave and a VIP dinner created by James Beard award-winning chef Paul Bartolotta.
Brandon Staglin, whose journey sparked the nonprofit’s creation, now serves as the event’s emcee as well as Chief Advocacy & Engagement Officer for One Mind.
As he noted, he was not always open about his battle with schizophrenia, even as the foundation and music festival began reaching new heights.
But that all changed when he read a story in an online newspaper 10 years after the first festival was held.
“I was ashamed of what I had become due to the illness I was experiencing,” Brandon said. “But a turning point came when I read a story similar to mine; the article profiled how vast the scale was for mental health crises, and it dawned on me.”
Failures in the mental health system that he learned about fired him up.
“I had a story that I could share,” Brandon said. “We had funded a nonprofit, and I wanted to support it through my own advocacy.”
He shared his thoughts with his parents the same day he read the article. He then started blogging about his experiences with schizophrenia and launched a webcast titled, “Brain Waves.” His presence over the years in the mental health world began to expand. He serves on various councils, including the California Department of Health Care Services, Mindstrong Health, and the World Economic Forum.
Just this month, he gave an address to the Food and Drug Administration advocating for a new initiative aimed at accelerating treatments for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
“I didn’t want to be a poster child,” he joked. But Staglin has been leading One Mind with the goal of helping others who do not have the same access to mental health care.
Now an internationally recognized organization “of hope” in brain health, One Mind is a trailblazing nonprofit with a mission to accelerate “visionary change through science, business, and media to transform the world’s mental health.”
The non-profit’s projects include One Mind at Work, which promotes workplace mental health for over seven million employees.
“We can have a huge impact on society through the workplace,” Garen Staglin said. “Employees have families, they are the heads of households, so we are touching millions more.”
For the last 29 years, many attendees at the music festival have shared their personal stories, said Garen, and their comments all have a similar refrain.
“The conversations were and are always, ‘I never told anyone, but my brother, a close relative, etc., has a mental illness.” In this way, he said, the festival has been a catalyst in destigmatizing the topic of mental health.
“Here we are dealing with something that was not talked about much: people being sick,” Shari Staglin added. “We do the other side, and we talk about the joy of research discoveries, recovery, and we celebrate life.”
For information on the One Mind Music Festival for Brain Health, click here.
