Dr. Ian Hunter graduated from Occidental College with a Psychology major and earned his PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Oregon in 1966.  He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Hospital and at the Mt. Zion Psychiatric Hospital in San Francisco and also completed a clinical internship at the Suicide Prevention Center in Los Angeles.  After teaching at UCLA for a few years, in 1969 he became a staff psychologist at the Student Health Center at Cal Tech.  In 197, he was named Administrator of the center, and developed an Encounter Group program there which helped drastically reduce student suicide rates.  Dr. Hunter joined the LA Department of Mental Health in 1975, as a senior psychologist and Assistant Director of the San Gabriel Valley Region.  When a new Mental Health Center was built in La Puente in 1979, he was appointed as the Director and subsequently became District Chief.  In 1981, Dr. Hunter accepted the position of Executive Director of the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, the job he still held at the time of the interview in 2009.  As a core member of the California Council of Community Mental Health Agency, Dr. Hunter contributed to the development of the Mental Health Services Act.  He is also a member of the Association of Community Human Service Agencies.

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