Tracy Stein was born on September 7, 1958 and was always proud to declare she shared her birthday with her niece, Morgan.
Tracy grew up in Sacramento. She attended John F Kennedy High School. She was one of the first people diagnosed with dyslexia in the state of California. She was so grateful to the Kennedy band teacher, Mr. A. She credited him with be the reason she was able to make it through high school. She was color guard captain for the Bicentennial band at John F Kennedy high school and toured with them in Washington, New York and Boston.
She began working with the California Regional Center System in 1983 when she was hired by Alta California Regional Center. During her employment with Alta, Tracy oversaw the client trust department, ensuring the unit complied with all State and Federal regulations. Under Tracy’s supervision, Alta provided representative payee services to 2,850 consumers, administering more than $7.8 million a year. At Alta, Tracy was also responsible for training and advising Regional Center staff on Social Security and Medi-Cal policies and regulations. In a subsequent return to Alta, Tracy was a key member of the team leading the conversion to the current Sandis client database. Tracy helped develop the conversion and training materials and trained the staff on the use of the Title19 I.D. Note Module.
In 1992 Tracy left Alta and was the Founding Director of L.I.F.E. (Living In Familiar Environments) one of the first fee-for-service representative payee agencies in the state of California. Through her experience in fiscal management and government benefit administration L.I.F.E. grew to be recognized as a model agency by the Social Security Administration. During Tracy’s six years of operating L.I.F.E. the agency provided services to more than 4,000 clients with mental health or substance abuse disabilities, administered more than $65 million, issuing an average of 20,000 checks per month on behalf of its clients.
Also during this time, Tracy was an instrumental member of the RPAS team that developed a specialized computer software package to streamline monthly fiscal services to large populations. The RPAS software has been successfully marketed to and implemented by other agencies throughout the country.
In 1999 Tracy founded Trust Management Services, Inc. to provide trust management to individuals with Special Needs Trusts and fiscal management services for Regional Center consumers participating in the Self-Determination pilot project. In 2004, Trust Management Services contracted with Alta California Regional Center to provide representative payee services to its consumers. Subsequently, Tracy founded Tracy Stein Management Services, Inc. to acquire the Self-Determination Pilot Project consumers so that Trust Management Services could be developed into an organizational representative payee agency. As a result, Tracy and Gary Montgomery founded My Choice Foundation with the DBA of Trust Management Services. My Choice Foundation dba Trust Management Services has grown and is now contracted with 5 California Regional Centers (Alta California, Harbor, Redwood Coast, Tri-Counties and Valley Mountain Regional Centers) and acts as the payee of record for over 5,000 Regional Center consumers. Trust Management Services is now one of the largest organizational representative payee agencies in the state of California and is recognized as a model agency by the Social Security Administration.
In 1999, Tracy met Gary Montgomery and were married on July 26, 2002.
She is preceded in passing by her mother Yvonne Mitchel Stein and father Robert Stein. She is survived by her husband, Gary Montgomery, sister, Kim Owens and friend whom she always considered brother, Bill Owens as well as step-daughter Erin Murphy (Seth Murphy), niece Morgan Owens, and nephew, Evan Owens.
Memorial gifts in Tracy’s honor should go to Nick Angiulo Scholarship at the College of Education Sacramento State or to San Diego Global Zoo for the care of mama giraffes and their babies.
