- The ARC - California Edition -

Peter Leibert

Mr. Leibert has been continually and actively involved with the mental retardation parent movement for almost 38 years, serving in many leadership positions at the local, state, and national level of The Arc. Since 1973, Leibert has given priority in his advocacy activities toward embracing the cause of preventing mental retardation and other disabilities.

Leibert for a number of years has served on the Health Promotion and Disability Prevention Committee for The Arc of the United States, and the Arc-California Prevention Committee that promote programs designed to pursue The Arc mission of reducing the incidence of mental retardation.

Perhaps most importantly is his participation in efforts to distribute prevention information to members of The Arc state and local level chapters. This Arc Prevention Information Network motivates further dissemination of information about preventive enterprises through the use of newsletters and other communication methods.

In California, Leibert is starting his 15th year as the Editor for The Prevention News, a publication that focuses on the prevention of mental retardation and other disabilities. Currently, each issue is distributed to approximately 1,000 prevention advocates throughout the country.

During his professional career, Leibert worked as an engineer with Northrop Corporation. He retired from this occupation during 1985 after 31 years of service with the company. Most of the work with Northrop was directing the design and development of electronic test and control systems.

Mr. Leibert and his wife of 47 years, Virginia, are the parents of four sons. Their second child (now aged 43) was born severely brain damaged of an unknown cause. This circumstance sparked an interest within Mr. Leibert to attain an understanding about causal relationship to mental retardation.

January 2001