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VEGAN COMBINES LOVE OF FOOD AND ANIMALS ... Patrick Hogan thought he could change the culture at search engine giant Google when he took a job there two years ago - the food culture, at least.



Hogan, 25, is a vegan, and the job as raw food chef at Google seemed a perfect fit. He could prepare the food he loved and change the minds of all those meat-eating computer whizzes.

"I thought if I could just get in there, I could have them go vegan," Hogan said. "It didn't quite work out that way."

Hogan, who has been an animal activist since he was 15, made a few converts but decided he'd be happier actually working with animals.

He quit his job and became a wildlife technician at Peninsula Humane Society's Wildlife Center, where he had volunteered once a week when he worked at Google.

"He's gone from feeding future high tech millionaires to feeding orphaned ducklings, using some of the same items on both menus," joked Scott Delucchi, a spokesman for the Humane Society.

And believe it or not, there are similarities between the two jobs. "A lot of it is just chopping vegetables in the end," said Hogan, who especially liked being able to take the leftover food at Google to the animals at the center.

The cafe he worked at in Google headquarters - one of 14 cafes there - fed about 200 to 250 people a day. At the center, the staff feeds more than 100 animals a day, 250 in baby bird season, which is under way.

-- read full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9412500