Law Firm Serving California's Nevada City, Grass Valley & Surrounding Communities
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Allan S. Haley's Personal ProfileAlthough he was born in the Bay Area, Allan Haley came to Nevada City with his family when Allan was one month old, and he has always considered it his home town. His father was a mining engineer who wrote a still-consulted report describing all of the gold placers in California. Allan attended Nevada City Elementary, where his mother taught first-grade pupils for many years. He went on to Nevada Union Junior and Senior High Schools, and in 1961-62 served as president of the first class to graduate from the new facility on Ridge Road. He was awarded a National Merit Scholarship to Harvard College, where he majored in music and graduated with high honors in 1966. The local Rotary Clubs sponsored Allan for a Rotary International Foundation scholarship to Germany, where he attended Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg for the year 1966-67, learned German, and spoke to local Rotary Clubs there. In the fall of 1967 he returned to Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1970. He joined a litigation firm in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he practiced for ten years. During that period, he also started a wine and beer wholesale and import business, which brought him frequently to California, as well as to Europe. It was while on trips to visit his family in Nevada City that he made the acquaintance of local grape growers such as Peter Arnold and Dr. Richard Cobden. From them he learned of the strong interest in having a local winery to showcase Nevada County grapes. Allan moved back to Nevada City with his wife and children in 1980, and he promptly organized a group of local investors to purchase the grapes from a local vineyard, hire a winemaker, and make wine at temporary facilities in Davis. This was the first vintage for what in 1982 became Nevada City Winery, which that fall opened its doors from the old Miners' Foundry garage on Spring Street, where it has remained ever since. With each passing year, the Winery has gained more and more recognition for Nevada County as a viticultural area of the first rank. (At the end of the previous century, there were over a hundred wineries in the Sierra foothills, and thousands of acres of wine grapes planted in Nevada County alone. Prohibition closed the wineries, and vineyards went largely unharvested for more than fifty years.) In 1989, the American Victorian Museum at the Miners' Foundry ran into financial difficulties, and the property faced foreclosure. Allan persuaded the investors in Nevada City Winery to pay off the mortgage, and then set about organizing a non-profit entity to take over management of the facility. He drafted, and the Winery then funded, the Nevada County Cultural Preservation Trust, with both Nevada City and Nevada County as formal beneficiaries. With four other like-minded citizens, Allan formed the initial Board of Trustees, which then hired a manager for the newly renamed Miners' Foundry and began its initial fund-raising. Once the Trust had a solid footing of local contributors and support, the Winery deeded over the parcel on which the Foundry sits as a further contribution to the Trust and to the community. Ever since, Allan and other Winery shareholders have continued to assist and to encourage the Foundry in its mission to serve as a local cultural center for community talent and events. Allan has also served on the boards of Foothill Theater Company and Twin Cities Concert Association. He helped the latter organization obtain a Grotrian concert grand piano for use in local recitals and concerts. He also has assisted with the formation and start-up of the Gold Country Piano Institute, which offers master instruction over an intense two-week period for selected students at all levels.
Contact Haley & Bilheimer, Attorneys at LawLegal Services for Nevada City, Grass Valley and Surrounding Areas
URL: http://www.lawhb.com/haleypersonal.htm
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