Mom

Grace in front of the original Peet's coffee. Alfred Peet set up the shop at Vine and Walnut in 1966. In those early days, Peet went to the far world to select his beans and then ship them directly to his shop. The sacks took up most of the available room. Soon a second store opened near the Claremont Hotel in South Berkeley. As legend has it, the three founders of Starbucks, then at Stanford Business School, new Peet and visited his stores while contemplating a business plan. In fact, when they founded their chain from Seattle, they bought Peet's beans. Peet's has been slower to expand than Starbucks, and has maintained (to some extent) more of its focus as a coffee and tea retailer, rather than a coffee bar, a distinction that has long separated Peet's from Starbucks. Peet's is still primarily a California operation, with a few stores in other metropolitan areas. In total, there are now 118 Peet's. The company went public in January 2001 (symbol PEET).

Grace maintains her active life, and its main focus is her non-profit Organisation TLC, which has received grants from the State of California and others. TLC's mission is to provide the framework for the healthy emotional development of children 0-5 years of age within a culturally relevant context, even in difficult times and under difficult circumstances, by providing early intervention mental health services at child care centers in Alameda County. Grace's work brings together many talented and dedicated people including her former colleague Katrina Ross from her Montessori School in the 1970s. Otherwise, weekends find her working away on grant proposal or going to the movies; talking to her grand kids and enjoying it all generally.