Across the Great Divide

Armed with as many donated computers as he's been able to find -- nearly 2,000 to date -- Loeb has spent the last seven years using his nonprofit organization, Break Away Technologies, to wage war on urban isolation. But Loeb's interest -- his mission -- goes beyond simply getting people connected. His passion is to create whole networks, entire communities of people who can hook up to each other as well as to the Web. Loeb's goal is to go beyond the individual opportunity. In his view, technology is not just about "me" or "you"; it's about "us." It is, in other words, all about social change.

"Our mission is to develop the next generation of indigenous leaders in our community," says Loeb, who grew up in the Watts section of Los Angeles. "Our community is hurting. And if it's to be helped, that help won't come just from people outside of the community; it has to come from people within it. I firmly believe that the greatest source of raw, untapped talent in America comes from the inner cities."

Loeb practices what he preaches out of his headquarters, a white two-story building in the heart of Central Los Angeles, not far from the scene of some of the worst ravages of the 1992 Rodney King riots. The modest façade of Loeb's building belies the social revolution that's taking place inside. But open the glass front door, step inside, and you begin to get the picture.

At the heart of the building is Loeb's computer lab: a cavernous, 7,000-square-foot warehouse space. Inside are rows of computers set up on tables and stacks of monitors in boxes. Loeb uses this laboratory to build computer networks for all kinds of communities, ranging from churches, social-service organizations, and schools to a summer camp for high-risk students. "There's a real need for schools and other organizations to have their own computer labs," says Loeb. "But they don't have the money or the expertise to set them up. We're sort of a conduit for technology, connecting other nonprofits and community-based groups."

Loeb has been obsessed with providing opportunities for people ever since the riots rocked the low-income neighborhoods of Central and South Central Los Angeles. He grew up there and is proud to call himself a product of those neighborhoods. Born in Louisiana, Loeb moved to Los Angeles with his family when he was only five years old. One of six children, he was raised by his mother, a domestic worker, and his aunt. Loeb worked hard in school and graduated from the University of Southern California in 1979 with a degree in business. He settled into his old community, established a successful trucking business, and began volunteering at his local church, where he served as associate minister and taught the Bible at a mission on Skid Row. All in all, Loeb had no complaints. Life was good.

And then the riots and violence and explosive rage tore the community apart. Loeb became deeply depressed. "I was anguished by what was going on," he recalls. "I could understand the frustration of the community; people felt that they had nothing to lose."

Loeb wanted to help, but didn't know how -- until he happened to see a rerun of the old "Mission: Impossible" television series. In the episode he saw, actor Greg Morris had to find a way to sneak into a small eastern European country -- a problem compounded by the fact that Morris was black and would stand out in an all-white population. In the episode, the problem was solved when Morris's partner deliberately damaged the country's state-of-the-art computer system -- and Morris, as the world's foremost expert 0n computer technology, had to be flown in to remedy the situation.

"That said to me that technology represents one of the few level playing fields in our society," says Loeb, a self-taught computer user. "When a company's computer system goes down, and it's losing $10,000 an hour, the last thing that company cares about is the color of the person who fixes the problem. Technical expertise is something you cannot argue with."

So, in 1992, Loeb took what was for him the next logical step. He sold his Porsche 928 -- a present he had given himself when he turned 35 -- and used the proceeds to buy 10 PCs. He turned his garage into a computer lab, teaching anyone who wanted to learn about computers and recruiting anyone who wanted to help. "Everything changed after the riots," recalls Fred Berry, 39, one of the first people to help out at Loeb's garage and now a Break Away staff member. "We all gave up our own little immediate dreams and started focusing on dreams that were about the future of the community. What Joseph was doing seemed small, but t I thoughit was something that could change the world."