The new Chief Probation Officer for Santa Clara County, Nick Birchard, at the Juvenile Justice Courthouse in San Jose, Calif., on Jan. 19, 2023. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
For Nick Birchard, working from the ground up comes naturally.
After graduating in the early 1990s from San Jose State University with a psychology degree, he immediately got to work at Santa Clara County’s probation department, taking on the all-important work of counseling at juvenile facilities.
Nearly three decades later, his career come full circle. Starting Monday, he’ll take over a department that has transformed itself into a trailblazer in innovative criminal justice reform