Month: May 2021 (Page 2 of 2)

Bert von Stuelpnagel will discuss the family background, personality, and disastrous rule of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Perhaps the most colorful historical figure opening the door to the 20th Century was the vainglorious Wilhelm II. How do you explain the fact that the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria led Germany into a deadly fight with the countries governed by his cousins King George V and Tsar Nicholas II? The Great War has been analyzed and discussed in thousands of works, but to this day many questions remain.
A DMA member, Bert has extensively researched the history of the Hohenzollern. In this he has been motivated by the fact that a number of his ancestors worked for the Crown, including his grandfather who was a senior administrator of the Kaiser. The “Second Reich” was not called that until Hitler engineered the third one — and when the Austrian WWI corporal used, or abused, Prussian traditions and military symbols to legitimize his dictatorship. The 20th Century cannot be understood without examining the impact of the last Kaiser at its onset.
Bert was born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1950 and graduated from Bad Toelz High School in 1969. After military service and training in banking he worked in the financial industry during his entire career, including 35 years at the New York Branch of BayernLB, a German public sector bank. He retired in 2015 as Executive Vice President U.S. Capital Markets. He holds a Masters degree in Political Sciences from State University of Bavaria, and an M.B.A. in Finance from Pace University. Bert served on the DMA board as Treasurer and is currently chairman of the DMA endowment fund

Video of Presidentation 

Jim Knox, curator of Education for Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, will speak about “The Rarest Wolf of All.” Once extinct in the wild, enigmatic, and elusive, the Red Wolf’s story is one of unfolding mystery and 21st century discovery. With less than 300 animals in existence, these remarkable creatures are found solely in the U.S., and are among the rarest species on the planet. Join Zoologist and Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo Curator of Education, Jim Knox, to meet the animal behind the mystery and learn what we can all do to ensure its survival.
Jim  directs educational programming and conducts field conservation for this AZA-accredited institution. Jim is a graduate of Cornell University where he studied Animal Science and Applied Economics. He has studied Great White Sharks in South Africa, conducted field research on Alaskan Brown Bears, field conservation for Atlantic Salmon and written nationally for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
A member of The Explorers Club, Jim has served as an on-camera wildlife expert for The Today Show and The CBS Early Show and has lectured for The Harvard College Conservation Society. Jim has been featured in The New York Times, served as a TEDx Presenter and as a Guest Host for Connoisseur Media Star 99.9 FM Anna & Raven Show. Jim writes a column, Wildly Successful, for The Greenwich Sentinel and serves as a Science Adviser to The Bruce Museum.

Grant McCracken is a cultural anthropologist. He will discuss “American Futures: How an anthropologist can help spot, track, and predict change.” Grant holds a PhD from the University of Chicago. He is the author of 14 books including Culturematic, Flock and Flow, and Dark Value. His book A New Honor Code was published by Simon and Schuster last year. And his next book, The Return of the Native, also published by Simon and Schuster, is scheduled to be out at about the time he addresses the DMA. Grant was the founder and Director of the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum. He has taught at Harvard, University of Cambridge, and MIT. He is a co-founder of the Artisanal Economies Project. He is the inventor of The Griff, an early warning system for social and cultural change (see www.mapping-the-future.com). He consults widely, including with Google, Ford Foundation, Kanye West, Reddit, Netflix, Sony, Boston Book Festival, NBC, Diageo, IBM, Nike, and the Obama White House. He is credited with spotting the rise of Donald Trump, the fall of Second Life (an artificial world that some thought would dominate the Internet), and the disruption of consumer packaged goods sales in the grocery aisle by Alice Waters and others in the artisanal food movement.

Arranged by Ric Grefé

Video of Presentation