Shirley Coletti, founder of Operation PAR, dies

Shirley Coletti, who founded Operation PAR, a model program for drug and alcohol abuse treatment in Florida that inspired similar programs around the country, died on June 22 in Austin, Texas. She was 89.

Former colleagues call her a powerful force who seldom if ever met defeat, whose concern for addicts took precedence over any hesitation to seek state and federal funding for her treatment centers, which now stand in eight counties, and to expand upon what she had built.

“I can’t think of anyone in the addictions field nationally who has had as much of an impact,” said John Daigle, the first executive director of the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association (FADAA), an organization Coletti helped create.

“She took her personal situation, her daughter’s drug use, and found a way to help tens of thousands of other families,” Susan Latvala, a former Pinellas County Commissioner who served when then-Gov. Jeb Bush named Coletti to the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame, told a newspaper at the time. “She’s the epitome of what a mama can do when she puts her mind to it.”

That drive, coupled with a clear focus and an ability to persuade, helped Coletti pioneer addiction treatment at a time when that concept barely existed. Before she retired 37 years later, she had created residential treatment for women and their children, garnered national recognition and consulted presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, including serving on the President’s National Drug Control Strategy.

She accomplished these things through “effective tenacity and not understanding what ‘no’ means,” her son, Bill Coletti, said. “When she saw a need, there was nothing that was going to get in her way.”

Coletti was a registered nurse in 1968 when she overheard her teenage daughter, Pamela, talking about “dropping acid” and how she could “make walls move.”

“What’s acid?” she asked Tricia, another daughter, who told her the term was slang for LSD.

Her husband, television producer and director William Coletti, was away at work, so she summoned a neighbor, State Attorney James T. Russell. The two sat in her living room for the next two hours, she told the St. Petersburg Times in 2005. The question was not only what she could do but also what resources any concerned parent had to help a child involved with drugs.

All they could think of was a drug-education program, which functioned mostly as a speaker’s bureau. While Pamela’s situation did not turn out to be dire — it was her first exposure to LSD, and she went on to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner and earn a doctorate in public health — her mother remained focused on improving access to recovery.

She founded Operation Parental Awareness and Responsibility (PAR) in 1970 in St. Petersburg. At its beginnings, the program operated with 25 patients and a volunteer staff. (That facility later moved to Clearwater, but an Operation PAR clinic still operates in St. Petersburg.)

In the late 1960s into the 1970s, drug use was alternately celebrated or demonized but not understood in the ways it is today.

“In the seventies, there was tremendous stigma,” Daigle said. “It certainly was not received as a disease by most people, including medical professionals.”

“I had to do something so parents wouldn’t be under the same circumstances and not have a place to turn,” Coletti recalled later.

Shirley Dean Calbert was born in Clinton, Kentucky on Feb. 17, 1935. Bill Coletti said her father, a musician, had played bass fiddle for Hank Williams Sr. The family later moved to Indiana. Before she embarked on her ever-expanding mission, her life centered on nursing and her family, including assisting her second husband William, a St. Pete Beach Mayor from 1964 to 1968.

She spoke to civic clubs frequently about the education, training, and treatment program being built at Operation PAR and dispelling common myths about addiction. In the 1970s she was telling audiences that drug abuse was primarily a 20th-century problem, but that people were associating it with young people and illegal substances. They were not talking about middle-aged addicts or those who become addicted to prescribed medications.

She was at the leading edge of awareness as the issues changed. She knew, for example, that some heroin addicts needed methadone to recover and others did not, and was on top of the rapid upsurge in cocaine as early as the 1970s.

PAR also underwent its share of crises, from a bogus bomb threat to allegations of racial disparities. A civic group in the mid-1970s complained that the program was not addressing the needs of the area’s Black residents despite having three prominent African American board members. In subsequent decades, one employee was charged with sexual assault and kidnapping, and a CEO was fired after keeping his DUI conviction a secret.

She responded to problems with action, including creating a grievance reporting procedure and a counselor certification program.

“She felt that it was not enough to be an addict or have a degree,” Daigle said. “It was a particular skill.”

Around 1980, she joined Nancy Reagan, the founding chair, and others in starting the National Federation of Parents for a Drug-Free Youth (now the National Family Partnership).

In 1988, Pinellas County donated several houses for a residential treatment program for mothers and their children. PAR Village included pregnant mothers and was one of just four such programs in the country.

“She believed that substance-abusing mothers do better in treatment if they can go through the experience with their children,” Bill Coletti said. Similar approaches have been replicated throughout the country.

Coletti always endeavored to stay abreast of the latest research and advocate for more. “She was research-oriented before the term ‘evidence-based treatment’ was even used,” said Daigle, who remained chief executive officer of the FADAA for 30 years.

Operation PAR’s leadership prides itself on looking ahead.

“She always had her ear to the ground for what was happening in the rest of the country,” said Diane Clark, a 44-year veteran of Operation Par who retired as its CEO in March. “We always know what the next wave is going to be so we can prepare for it.”

Keeping an ambitious nonprofit going takes a lot of networking. In her pitches for financial help, Coletti emphasized the plight of addicts and told a good story.

“She certainly started off with a smile,” Daigle said. “But she was also a very strong-minded woman. If things weren’t moving in a positive direction, she was not afraid to take a more determined stance.”

Her vision and a quiet resolve proved effective. “If you are reluctant to ask for help, you don’t get it,” Coletti said in 2005. “Out of everyone that has been asked to do anything for Operation PAR, I don’t believe anyone has said no.”

She had friends who could help get those things done, including U.S. Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young. “When he was in charge of the budget in Washington, he shoveled a lot of resources into the county” for Operation PAR, former state Sen. Jack Latvala said. “She knew how to pull the strings and get the help.”

Today, PAR Village has 15 homes on a cul-de-sac. “When we take people back there, they are always shocked,” Clark said. “Women talk about what it means, being there in a community like that.”

Operation PAR itself treats more than 4,000 people a day across eight counties and more than 10,000 people a year. Coletti retired on Aug. 31, 2007. The honors continued to roll her way. She received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from the University of South Florida and a lifetime achievement award from USF’s Mental Health Institute. The St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce inducted Coletti into its Women’s Hall of Fame, and WEDU Channel 3 named her Community Service Woman of the Year.

“She joked about how this little girl from Clinton, Kentucky, could be invited to the White House numerous times, have personal meals with Nancy Reagan, and travel the world talking about drug policy,” her son said. “She often marveled at how she got there.”

“It was certainly not my design,” she would say.

Coletti is survived by her children, Pam Detrick, Jeff Brown, and Bill Coletti; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her husband, Bill Coletti Sr., and children, Cindy and Tricia. A celebration of life will be held at 2 p.m. Aug. 3 at Brookdale Westlake Hills in Austin, Texas, and another in St. Petersburg, Florida, at a later date.