"I'm not standing here as a lone ranger," Erin Brockovich-Ellis told CTA Summer Institute participants in a keynote address. Although she has good reason to believe in the power of an individual to create change, she believes even more strongly in collective action.
If the 600-plus residents of the community of Hinkley had not come forward and "stood strong together" to protest their exposure to the toxic chemical chromium 6, she would not have been able to bring Pacific Gas and Electric to its knees for polluting the water supply and lying about it. The story of her investigation and her law firm's legal triumph were dramatized in the movie Erin Brockovich.
As she travels around the country on the lecture circuit, Brockovich-Ellis says she's not trying to destroy corporate America, just hold it to a higher standard than it's set for itself. "We need to teach the next generation about ethics."
The bad information PG&E gave Hinkley residents kept them from making decisions that could have preserved their health and, in many cases, their lives.
Brockovich-Ellis was working as a file clerk for a law firm when she "stumbled on Hinkley." After much legwork, the result was the largest toxic tort injury settlement in U.S. history and Julia Roberts portraying her on the silver screen.
"I saw something wrong and I had to do something to make it right." She just hopes, that, at the end of the day, others are able to live with the decisions they make.
"Your head and heart have to work in tandem," she said. "Lying to yourself is very self-destructive. It can kill the spirit."
Part of her life came full-circle in Hinkley. The lessons of her childhood, especially her family's insistence on practicing honesty and "stick-to-itiveness," were well-learned, she discovered.
Brockovich-Ellis, who suffers from dyslexia, said she "sucked at schoolwork" and never got good grades "except for penmanship" until one teacher recognized her problem. After watching her flunk test after test, the teacher decided to test her orally. Sure enough, she knew the material. She's eternally grateful to her and other teachers who were "willing to step outside the box" to help her succeed. Just because you don't learn in the conventional way "doesn't mean you don't deserve a chance to succeed."
Hinkley taught her that her family and her teachers were right. "Nothing can take the place of persistence - not even talent."