As the director of disability services for the Washington State Department of Social & Health Services, Duane French oversees a $53 million budget and 325 employees. In one sense he is uniquely qualified for his job. He is a quadriplegic. In 1968, he was a happy-go-lucky 14-year-old who dove into a river of despair. There were times, doped up on Demerol, feeling useless, when he just wanted to die. Without his family and the intervention of other caring people he might have.

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