Curt Chisholm's rich baritone conveys the voice of authority, and around Montana he's known as one tough son of a bitch.

As director of the Montana Department of Institutions in the 1990s, his was the unflinching public face taking the heat after the 1991 Deer Lodge prison riots that left five inmates dead and eight wounded. Chisholm also orchestrated the controversial consolidation of the Warm Springs state mental hospital with the nearby state hospital-nursing home at Galen.

In the late 1990s, he brushed off allegations of "spin doctoring and truth twisting" while deputy director of the Department of Environmental Quality, but admittedly was the go-to guy when the going got rough, with a vocabulary that would make a construction worker blush.

Less known is the Curt Chisholm who as a young man studied with the Jesuits and considered becoming a social worker. Few recall his early work as the person who set up an innovative group home for inmates on parole, a forerunner to today's prerelease program.

And only a handful of friends know Curt Chisholm as the heartbroken father of a son who committed suicide eight years ago.

Jonas Chisholm was the youngest son, the kind of person who always looked after others, a fun guy, a friend to everyone and well-known around Missoula, where he worked in a variety of jobs.

"We heard stories of how generous he was with his time and money and resources to help other people," Curt Chisholm said. "If you're looking for the face of mental illness, that's the face I would like to promote."

But Jonas had a hidden side.

"He left a tape saying he had been struggling with depression for years. There were times he couldn't get out of bed for days, but I didn't know that," Chisholm recalled, sipping coffee at a downtown Helena restaurant.

He's only been able to watch the video tape once.

"I knew the clinical terms. I knew about manic disorders, now called bipolar. But I didn't know my son was suffering. Looking back, I still don't. Clinical depression takes many forms. The ironic thing is he took care of everybody except himself."

Today, Chisholm's dark curly hair is gray. The tough exterior is intact, but the swagger is softer and a certain gentleness has surfaced. He's retired from state government work and prefers watching his grandson playing baseball to himself playing politics.

Still, Chisholm has some fight left in the dog, and he's combined his bureaucratic know-how with his personal experiences to try to get better help for people and families struggling with mental illness.

After Jonas' death, the social worker in Chisholm resurfaced, caring for those who can't care for themselves. He took a class that saves lives, the Family-to-Family Education Program, pulled together by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, and taught in Helena by an old high school chum, Gary Mihelish.

Chisholm laughs ruefully, noting he had to take the class twice to get the point. But now he knows of the difficulties posed to those with mental illnesses, and their families, in Montana.

"We started to understand the struggles he must have gone through with his depression," Chisholm said of Jonas.

More than 400 people in the greater Helena area alone have taken the class during the 11 years it's been offered, as have hundreds in Missoula, Billings, Great Falls and Butte. Attendees at the semi-annual class learn symptoms of various mental illnesses and possible responses. They learn how many mental illnesses are physical diseases, with a biological basis in the brain. They learn how to fight for care, compassion and respect for people with serious mental illnesses.

Chisholm learned how depression can ensnare people in suffocating gloom, where they can't sleep, can't eat and don't want to see anyone.

He learned how one man in 10, and one woman in five, will have a serious bout of depression, usually before they're 40 years old. He learned that 40 percent of people with major depression have only one episode, but that in others the illness returns within two years and the average number of bouts of major depression is about seven in a lifetime.

He learned that 15 percent of those with recurring depression kill themselves, a suicide rate 30 times greater than what's found in the general population.

Yet he also learned how medications can draw people back into the world. He learned to stay calm, not to criticize or threaten someone who is sinking into a serious crisis.

He learned not to be afraid to ask someone if they are thinking of committing suicide.

And for the past five years, he's taken those lessons to the street, organizing the annual walk in Helena to raise awareness of mental illness. This year's NAMI walk is slated for Sept. 27.

He also was instrumental in working with NAMI in getting police officers trained to deal with people in the midst of a mental health crisis.

Chisholm has returned to his roots with the government, where in 1975 the Legislature -- in what's referred to as the "Year of the Institutions" -- decided Montana needed to set up community-based care programs to reduce the populations at institutions. He's advocating those types of programs to anyone willing to listen.

Chisholm said great strides have been made since the days when care and custody meant three meals and a place to sleep.

But he still doesn't see the kind of integrated care needed, especially in small communities, when a person moves from a care facility back into the community, where they are helped with medications, jobs, meals and other day-to-day life experiences.

And he also doesn't see mental illness moving out of the shadows and into the spotlight, removing the stigmas that kept his son from getting the help he needed.

"The state doesn't understand what it takes to treat mental illness, and how important it is to treat in the community," Chisholm said. "One year they give out a grant to develop a crisis service. The next year they encourage recovery programs.

"They can't have that soup-of-the-day (crap) year after year. They need to establish a pattern that's consistent at the community level and get good, affective diagnosis and early intervention at an in-patient level."

To view the complete series on mental health care services in Montana, click here.