Brittany Hinchcliffe is in the business of rebuilding lives.

A double Duck who works as an outreach coordinator for the Center for the Prevention of Abuse and Neglect’s 90by30 program, she is part of a team that aims to reduce child abuse in Lane County by 90 percent by 2030. She is also an evaluation coordinator for a three-year project the center is partnering with the Ford Family Foundation on, measuring the effectiveness of a child sexual abuse prevention program.

That she has chosen to make a career out of helping others is not surprising — she is not the first Duck to do so, and won’t be the last. But how she got to that point is a little more unusual, as it involves her background as a track and field athlete, and Prince Harry.

As a Duck, Hinchcliffe was a 2006 All-American, is the owner of the third-farthest hammer throw in UO history and placed 10th overall at the 2008 US Olympic Trials. When the U.S. Marine Corps came to Hayward Field looking for throws coaches to train their wounded athletes, she was recommended for the job.

Hinchcliffe, who earned a bachelor’s degree from the UO in 2006 and a master’s in 2014, is now in her sixth year of coaching veterans and earlier this year was selected to be a throws coach for Team USA at the Invictus Games. Founded in 2014 by Prince Harry of Great Britain, the younger son of Charles and Diana, Prince and Princess of Wales, the Invictus Games are an international Paralympic-style sporting event for wounded military veterans.

This year, 15 nations took part in events ranging from sitting volleyball to paratriathlon. Hinchcliffe oversaw Team USA’s discus throwers at the games, and one of her athletes swept the medal standings.

Thanks to their military backgrounds, the veterans Hinchcliffe teaches are very coachable and typically pick up the sport quickly. Giving an at-risk population such as wounded veterans something to focus on can, quite literally, be a life-changing experience for both athlete and coach.

“To meet people from other countries who were going through the same thing I was going through was a breath of fresh air,” said Joshua Jablon, an Invictus silver medalist and former Marine who was so inspired by Hinchcliffe’s coaching that he has re-enrolled in college and wants to become a coach himself. “Everyone has different circumstances, but we’re all going through the same thing.”

Hinchcliffe’s time spent training wounded veterans led her to the UO’s prevention science program and is the reason she now helps at-risk populations in Eugene and Springfield.

“Wounded Warriors inspired me to work in communities and work in prevention areas,” Hinchcliffe said. “It inspired me to go into that master’s program, and now I get to work for CPAN, work in primary prevention efforts within this community as well with 90by30 full time, and still get to work with Wounded Warriors.

"My coach — Lance Deal — instilled in all of his athletes to 'leave their environment better than they found it,' and I have taken this philosophy into my career in prevention efforts,” she said. “Working with Wounded Warriors showed me time and again how much resilience lies within an individual, and my current work at CPAN allows me to foster this at the community level. I can’t think of any work that is more rewarding than working alongside community members to build child safe and child friendly environments and investing in our future."

For an in-depth story on Hinchcliffe’s work, see “The Captains of their Souls” in the UO Alumni Association newsletter.

—By Damian Foley, UO Alumni Association