"I was really angry in junior high school when the special ed kids were criticized and not given the same recesses and same lunch times, and when they were put down and pushed aside and made fun of," Hamilton recalled. "I decided that I would try and do something to normalize awareness of people with disabilities not being different, just having different needs. All of us are different; we all have special needs."

A native of Escondido in San Diego County, Hamilton has been a therapist for 27 years and the director of VTF Services for 15 years. The company, which is self-supporting and nonprofit, employs 35 people, 30 of whom have chronic mental health diagnoses or learning disabilities. It offers three areas of service: packaging and assembly, janitorial services, and landscape maintenance.

Hamilton pays her workers prevailing wages, which at $7 to $7.50 an hour are higher than minimum wage. Some hourly wages go up to $8.50, depending on the job, she said. Most of her employees work part-time, and their income supplements government subsidies they receive.

VTF Services began in 1968 as the Vets Task Force as the brainchild of Bob Kerrins, who now serves as general manager, and a group of individuals who wanted to see disabled Vietnam veterans employed and on their way to becoming self-sufficient.

"I believe we started with $8 from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and we operated inside the Palo Alto VA [Veterans Administration] as a work for pay program for some of the mental health patients there," said Hamilton.

The company's operating model has not changed much since its inception 34 years ago. "It's been proven many, many times over that working for a paycheck is the quickest way to recovery," Hamilton said. "The program's name was 'compensated work therapy,' and we paid regular wages, just like we do here."

Hamilton noted that the company was always been separate from the VA, even though they shared a building. "It looked like we were part of [the VA]. We just operated inside there because the patients couldn't leave," she explained. "That isn't done much anymore because the times have changed and the medications are better, and people don't need to stay in the hospital for such a long time."

The company was forced to relocate after the 1989 earthquake damaged its building. "We then moved into the community and changed our name to VTF Services because we weren't just serving disabled veterans anymore," Hamilton said, adding, "We still maintain a good relationship with the VA and we hire veterans from their program."

As far as Hamilton knows, VTF Services and another firm in Texas are the only companies of their kind in the country that are self-supporting. "We get zero funding -- no grants, no state, county, local or federal funding, no United Way money," she said.

Although the company has federal contracts and many local businesses who are repeat customers, Hamilton said that the most challenging aspect of her job is finding the money each year to keep operating. The economic slow-down of the last eight to nine months have been especially difficult.

"Thanks to all of our dot-com friends in the high tech industry here, when the bottom fell out, our work ceased," she said. "We work for a lot of the companies that work for those companies."

Things nonetheless began looking up at the beginning of July. "We started to see a little bit of blue sky," Hamilton said.

Another challenge for Hamilton and her administrative staff of five is marketing. "We work for so many different companies, and we have a very wide variety of things that we do, so advertising is a problem because we don't have just one niche," she said. "Single egg basket theory is a really bad way to go in this business."

Hamilton, who is also an active member of the Chamber of Commerce Mountain View, the Mountain View Library Foundation and the Mountain View Kiwanis Club, is beginning to be recognized for her hard work. In February she was one of three women honored in San Jose at the "Speaking of Women's Health Conference" for Community Champion for Vocational Rehabilitation. She has also been nominated for the Chamber of Commerce Mountain View's 2001 Athena Award.

Most recently VTF Services was honored by one of its longtime customers, Jack Nadel, Inc., an advertising company based in Culver City, Calif. The company named VTF Services its supplier of the year out of its 150 local suppliers.

"Susan is always eager to take on a job," said Yvette Widdicomb of Jack Nadel, Inc.'s Palo Alto office. "They always seem happy to see us, and they take a lot of pride in their work. They're very reliable. It was no question as to who we were going to give this award to." Reba, who has been working at VTF Services for six months, said her job has given her a new lease on life.

"This place has turned my life around," she said. "I was a mess six months ago. [Susan] counsels, she coaches, she encourages me. She makes me feel really important, something I haven't had for a very long time. She's a wonderful teacher, a miracle worker."

For Hamilton, the rewards of her job outweigh the complexity of the work and the constant worry over funding.

"It's always wonderful to see people succeed," she said. "I was blessed with quite a few advantages and a pretty good mind, and no disabilities that I couldn't fix or handle, and there are so many people who just need a safe space in which to develop their desire and skills. Most people want to succeed, but they don't know how. This job can be very rewarding. It makes you feel pretty good when you can help someone discover their potential."