Month: July 2026 (Page 1 of 2)

Kevin Coupe – Getting A Grip On Grocery: The Local, The Global, & The Cutthroat

Drawing from over four decades of industry experience, Coupe offered a lively, humor-infused look at the past, present, and future of the U.S. food retail market.

Coupe opened with sharp wit, reflecting on how radically the grocery world had transformed since he started reporting on it in 1984 when Walmart did not sell groceries, A&P operated nearly 1,000 stores, and e-commerce was entirely nonexistent. He quipped about the absurdities of modern consumer perceptions, noting how shoppers wildly overestimated supermarket profit margins at around 35%, when actual margins hovered at a modest 3.5%. Drawing laughter from the room, Coupe joked that if grocery stores were pulling in 35% margins, he would have quit journalism years ago to open his own supermarket.

Throughout his talk, Coupe balanced humor with keen industry observations about the dominant retail giants of the time. He contrasted Walmart—which sat within 10 miles of 90% of U.S. households and was aggressively testing drone delivery—with Amazon’s relentless focus on rapid fresh delivery and automated subscriptions. Local corridors like the Boston Post Road served as prime examples of where regional favorites like Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Wegmans, Costco, and Stu Leonard’s actively competed for consumer loyalty.

Beyond price perception, Coupe highlighted several pressing Main Street challenges, including maintaining trust amidst food safety scares like cyclosporiasis outbreaks and navigating consumer anxiety surrounding dynamic electronic shelf tags. He also pointed to the growing influence of GLP-1 weight-loss medications, noting that while 11% of the U.S. population was using them, few food retailers had adapted their inventory to cater to those changing appetite patterns.

To thrive in an environment dominated by mega-retailers, Coupe urged local businesses to abandon complacency and adopt five core strategies: actively competing every day rather than relying on past reputation, eliminating non-essential practices, offering distinct experiential spaces and proprietary products, prioritizing long-term customer relationships over individual transactions, and using authentic storytelling to build customer trust.

Video Presentation

“Content Guy” / Prime Storyteller, MorningNewsBeat.com, Author, “Retail Rules! 52 Ways To Achieve Retail Success,” & Co-Author, “The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons From The Movies”

For more than 40 years, Kevin Coupe has been bringing to audiences all over the world a wealth of experience, sharp storytelling skills, provocative and contextual insights, unique worldview and “serious irreverence” about the world of business and consumers. He is the author of “Retail Rules! 52 Ways To Achieve Retail Success,” a guidebook for competing effectively and efficiently on Main Street, and co-author, with Michael Sansolo, of “The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies,” which uses film narratives to teach about leadership, marketing and surviving the workplace. A quarter century ago, he launched MorningNewsBeat.com, providing “business news in context, and analysis with attitude” to more than 25,000 subscribers all over the world, finding critical, relevant and resonant lessons not just in the world of retailing, but also in sports, popular culture and a wide range of other businesses. An independent survey recently ranked MNB as the “top industry news and information site.” And, Kevin is an adjunct faculty member at Portland State University in Oregon. In addition to speaking at hundreds of conferences in the U.S. and abroad and reporting from 49 states and six continents, Kevin has been a daily newspaper reporter, magazine writer/editor, video producer, bodyguard, and clothing salesman. He has supervised a winery tasting room (happily), run two marathons (slowly), driven a race car (badly), learned to box (painfully), tried stand-up comedy (amusingly), and acted in a major (but obscure) motion picture. He is married with three grown children and lives in Connecticut.

Summary of Mike Chinoy and Kathi Zellweger’s Presentation

Journalist Mike Chinoy and Swiss humanitarian worker Kathi Zellweger presented a unique, human-centric overview of North Korea to the Darien Men’s Association on September 23, 2026. Their collaborative work and presentation are centered around their co-authored book, Miss Kathy: Saving Lives in North Korea, which aims to provide a window into the daily lives of the country’s 25 million ordinary citizens. Chinoy opened the presentation by explaining that Western media and literature tend to focus almost entirely on two narrow genres: high-level nuclear diplomacy or dramatic defector escape stories. This leaves little room to understand the vast majority of the population who are simply trying to live their lives, manage daily economic realities, and survive under difficult circumstances. Chinoy noted that defector narratives are highly disproportionate in public discourse; for instance, in the first six months of 2026, only 63 defectors successfully made it out of the country.

Chinoy provided the necessary geopolitical context for Zellweger’s humanitarian work. Having traveled to North Korea 17 times since 1989 as a foreign correspondent for CNN, Chinoy met with the original leader Kim Il-sung three times. He noted that, contrary to the typical cartoon clichés of an absurd state, the regime has consistently executed calculated political strategies. Historically, Pyongyang sought a better relationship and security guarantees from the United States—such as through the 1994 Agreed Framework—but mutual suspicion and political failures repeatedly broke down these deals. Following the collapse of the 2019 Hanoi Summit with Donald Trump, current leader Kim Jong-un fundamentally shifted gears. The regime wrote off the idea of rapprochement with Washington and instead forged an exceptionally close military and economic alliance with Russia, trading weapons and troops for food, cash, and technology, while carefully maintaining ties with China.

Operating amidst this constant international tension, Kathi Zellweger managed over three decades of field experience, making 75 trips to North Korea—the longest continuous history of humanitarian engagement of any individual. Beginning her work with the Catholic charity Caritas in Hong Kong, her direct involvement with North Korea began during the catastrophic 1995 floods, which triggered a severe famine that claimed between 600,000 and 3 million lives. Zellweger built relationships of trust with local doctors, nurses, and government officials by remaining strictly impartial and respectful. To overcome widespread international doubts about the military siphoning off relief goods, she established rigid, countersigned bilateral agreements that specified exactly who the beneficiaries were and how long rations would last, allowing her to monitor distribution directly.

Zellweger shared an amusing anecdote from her early days living in Pyongyang that highlights the ever-present state surveillance. Before her office was connected to a secure Swiss government server, she had to rely on a standard local landline. One Saturday afternoon, the spouse of her agricultural expert was on the phone chatting with her 94-year-old mother in France, casually speaking in a mixture of English and French. Suddenly, the line clicked, and a monitoring voice interrupted the call, politely requesting, “please not to change languages”. Despite such pervasive state control, Zellweger emphasized that ordinary North Koreans maintain a vibrant sense of humor even in grim circumstances. While visiting a local free market, she asked a female vendor what she was selling that day. The woman looked at her and playfully responded, “Everything, even my husband, and at a discount!”

Over her extensive career, Zellweger expanded her efforts from emergency food distribution to sustainable development and specialized health programs. She spearheaded a Sloping Land Management Program to teach housewives contour-belt planting on hillsides to reverse soil erosion and boost crop yields, and she managed the Pyongyang Business School for four years, bringing in foreign lecturers to teach young North Koreans the basics of capitalism and global economics. In 2015, she established her own Hong Kong-based non-profit, Coreat, which funded over 30,000 cataract surgeries across 10 hospitals and built greenhouses at child residential centers.

Through this prolonged engagement, Zellweger tracked a massive societal transformation she calls the “Five M’s”: the growth of unofficial Markets, the spread of Money, the rise of Mobile phones, the influx of Motor cars, and the emergence of an urban Middle class in Pyongyang. A sixth “M”—Mindsets—began changing among a younger generation born during the famine who never fully relied on the state. However, this growing consumerism and hunger for knowledge sparked a severe regime backlash, leading to significantly tighter domestic surveillance and information censorship since 2017.

The presentation concluded with a sobering look at the current reality. North Korea completely sealed its borders in response to COVID-19 in early 2020, forcing almost all UN and NGO teams to leave by spring 2021. International aid workers have still not returned, leaving a massive information vacuum. According to a 2025 UN report, 46% of the population—roughly 11.8 million people—remains undernourished due to chronic food insecurity, decaying infrastructure, and a lack of basic medical equipment. Zellweger strongly asserted that decades of Western economic sanctions have completely failed to alter the regime’s nuclear ambitions, instead disproportionately punishing ordinary people. Both speakers advocated for a shift toward long-term development, pragmatism, and a period of peaceful coexistence rather than relying on isolation and pressure.

Video Presentation

CNN Coverage of Miss Kathi

CNN covered the story behind this book and posted a 14-minute video, link below, about North Korea and Kathi’s work less than one week after their presentation to the DMA, featuring interviews with Miss Kathi and Mike Chinoy.  The video shows her footage of life in areas of North Korea which few outsiders have ever seen.  It also described in depth the work she did over many years to provide much needed food and health care to those in need in North Korea.

What North Korean life is actually like beyond Pyongyang

The Authors

Mike Chinoy is an American journalist who, along with his co-author Kathi Zelleweger, will be speaking to us live as the first stop on their book tour of the United States. Last year, via remote video, Mike addressed the prospects for China’s increasingly muscular efforts to take over Taiwan. He has reported on many of the most important geopolitical events in Asia since the mid-1970s, including the death of Mao Zedong, the rise of China, the Hong Kong handover and developments in Taiwan, Thailand, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, North Korea and elsewhere. Mr. Chinoy spent 24 years serving as a foreign correspondent for CNN, serving  as the first bureau chief in Beijing, from where he reported live during the Tiananmen Square crisis. He also worked for CBS and NBC in Hong Kong. In addition to receiving an Emmy Award for reporting on Tiananmen Square, he received a Peabody Award, a Dupont Award, and an ACE Award.

He has also covered North Korea extensively, traveling there 17 times since 1989. In1994, he became the only journalist invited to accompany President Jimmy Carter on his historic trip to Pyongyang and was the first journalist ever to file live TV reports from North Korea.

Mr. Chinoy is a consulting editor of the Taiwan Strait Risk Report, a monthly newsletter that quantifies fast-moving geopolitical risk on the Taiwan Strait.. He is also a Nonresident Scholar at the University of California, San Diego’s  21st Century China Center. Previously, he also spent 15 years as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the U.S.-China Institute of the University of Southern California. From 2006-2009, he was a Senior Fellow at the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy, focusing on security issues in China, North Korea, and Northeast Asia. He is the author of six books. Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea, was  described by former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan as “an unrivaled account of heartbreak and heroism in the world’s least understood nation, North Korea.”

He has a degree in Chinese Studies from Yale University and a Master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in Taipei, Taiwan.

Kathi Zellweger

Kathi Zellweger is a senior aid manager with over thirty years of field experience in Hong Kong, China, and North Korea. She was based in Pyongyang for five years (2006–2011) as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an office of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before joining SDC, from 1978 to 2006, Zellweger worked in a senior post for the Catholic Agency Caritas in Hong Kong, where she played a key role in pioneering Caritas’s involvement in China and North Korea.

She also managed the Hong Kong–based KorAid Limited, a nonprofit she established in2015 to focus on serving children in institutions and people with disabilities in North Korea. She has made 75 trips to North Korea and has the longest continuous history of humanitarian engagement with the country of—literally – anyone.

Zellweger is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC)at Stanford University in California and is  a Non-resident Fellow at the European Center for North Korean Studies at the University of Vienna.  She holds a master’s degree in international administration from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont.

In 2005, Zellweger was presented with The Bishop Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Award from a South Korean foundation established to promote social justice, peace, and human rights. In 2006, she received the honor of the Dame of St. Gregory the Great from the Vatican for her work in North Korea.

A Voyage Around America: Joern Repenning’s Great Loop Adventure

In his presentations to the DMA, Joern Repenning delivered a detailed, firsthand narrative of completing the Great Loop, an almost 6,000-nautical-mile circumnavigation by water of the Eastern United States and Canada. Rather than offering a high-level overview, Repenning focused on the real-world logistics, tactical decision-making, and personal observations from the helm.

A veteran of over 40 years in ocean cargo shipping, Repenning took on the Loop with his wife, Regina, aboard their 43-foot trawler, the Sea Cups. Preparation was rigorous. The couple joined the Great Loop Association, attended conventions, and hired a professional captain to train them on managing the vessel’s mechanical complexity, which included twin 540-horsepower diesels and dual chart plotters. Repenning emphasized that a successful voyage hinges on vessel selection and bridge clearance limits (air draft), particularly through restrictive sections like the Western Erie Canal. Boaters must carefully manage fuel, water, and power consumption while balancing time at remote anchorages against full-service marinas.

Setting off from Longboat Key, Florida, in March 2018, the couple tackled the trip in phases across two summers. A significant portion of the journey involved the physical mechanics of navigating North America’s inland infrastructure. They transited dozens of commercial locks—including one that lifted the boat nearly 100 feet and a mechanical lift that carried the vessel in slings across a road. Repenning shared insights on coordinating with lockmasters over VHF radio, managing turbulence, dodging commercial barge traffic on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and monitoring depth sounders in constantly shifting shoals.

The journey was equal parts adventure and misadventure. Early on, their engine died in five-to-seven-foot seas off the Florida coast, causing a tense 30-minute roll before restarting. Later, a rough Atlantic crossing near Atlantic City sent cabinets flying, prompting Regina to briefly “jump ship” and head home. On the Mississippi, Regina accidentally mixed fresh water into the fuel tank, causing a contamination that took three days to fix. The couple also endured 100-plus-degree heat for 40 straight days and underwent a friendly Coast Guard safety inspection.

Despite the hardships, the highlights were vast, including visiting alligator farms, enjoying potlucks with fellow “Loopers,” and taking side trips to Annapolis. Repenning highlighted the seasonal rhythm necessary for the trip: moving north in the spring to stay ahead of summer heat and heading south ahead of early winter freezes.

The couple completed the Loop in September 2019, crossing their own wake to earn the official “Golden Looper” pennant. Afterward, they sold the Sea Cups to fund a home renovation Regina had negotiated in advance. Repenning closed by answering audience questions, noting that the shared camaraderie among fellow boaters and the kindness of strangers make the long voyage deeply rewarding.

Video Presentation 

Joern was born in Germany and came to the United States as a young man, settling in Fairfield County, For 40+ years, he specialized in the business of Ocean Transportation Dry cargo movement, including 30 years with his own Company Alpha Chartering Inc in Greenwich CT, which he closed in 2008. The business provided initial brokerage mediating between Ship Owner and Commodity interest as well as Ship Management Ship Investment.

Joern’s hobby also took him on the water, sailing in the Caribbean with family as well as in the Baltic in Europe. He also has enjoyed long distance sailing such as Newport RI to Bermuda, Long Island to St Maarten and small motor boating on the Long Island Sound.

Men’s Health After 65: What to Do and What to Skip

Core Philosophy

Dr. Morel, an internist with 30 years of practice, emphasizes that while living a long-life matters, the primary goal of medicine should be maintaining an individual’s overall quality of life. He highlights that medical choices are rarely black-and-white. Instead, modern healthcare requires carefully balancing the unique risks and benefits of any given treatment rather than searching for definitive, one-size-fits-all answers.

The Stoplight Framework

To help patients navigate complex health choices, Dr. Morel utilizes a clear, color-coded stoplight system to categorize various medical interventions:

• 🟢 Green: Options that are strongly recommended and deserve definite consideration.
• 🟡 Yellow: Decisions that must be personalized based on an individual’s specific circumstances.
• 🔴 Red: Dangerous, unproven, or unnecessary treatments that patients should completely avoid.

Key Medical Recommendations

• Cardiovascular Health: Heart attacks and strokes remain leading causes of death, with age and being male serving as the two highest risk factors. A patient’s genetic code and zip code also heavily dictate heart health. Blood pressure should generally target 130/80 mmHg or lower. Statin therapy is highly praised as a top intervention to drastically lower heart attack and stroke risks. Dr. Morel notes that multiple studies prove statins do not cause dementia. Conversely, taking daily aspirin for primary heart disease prevention is now heavily discouraged due to major bleeding risks.
• Exercise: Marked as the single most critical intervention, older adults should follow a comprehensive four-phase routine. This strategy must include aerobic activity, resistance training, range of motion exercises, and balance training.
• Screenings and Vaccines: Routine colonoscopies and low-dose lung CT scans for former smokers are strongly recommended screenings. Regular checks for diabetes, sleep apnea, abdominal aortic aneurysms, and bone density are also vital. For older adults, flu, pneumonia, and shingles vaccines are strongly encouraged, with preliminary data showing the shingles vaccine may even prevent cognitive decline. However, the COVID vaccine is deemed a personal choice due to milder current variants.

Brain Health and Emerging Trends

Protecting the heart directly shields the brain, as cardiovascular risk factors heavily influence cognitive function. While new blood tests like Lumipulse can help confirm existing cognitive issues, they are not designed for early screening. Furthermore, clinical trials for amyloid and tau protein treatments carry serious side effects, such as cerebral hemorrhages. Dr. Morel also highlights peer socialization and basic depression screenings as life-saving tools for supporting mental well-being in older demographics.

Finally, the presentation warns against unproven, trendy treatments. Whole-body MRIs, biopeptides, and standard testosterone replacement therapy should be strictly avoided due to high false-positive rates, blood clots, or general health risks. Meanwhile, GLP-1 weight-loss medications are highly effective for specific candidates but require immense caution to prevent muscle loss.

Video Presentation 

Dr. Richard P. Morel

Dr. Richard P. Morel is an experienced internist with over two decades of experience in adult primary care. He earned his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency in internal medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital’s Columbia campus. Dr. Morel is board- certified in internal medicine and serves as the President and CEO of Stamford Health Medical Group.

Dr. Morel is renowned for his patient-centered approach, emphasizing attentive listening, comprehensive assessments, and collaborative treatment planning. Patients consistently commend his professionalism, thoroughness, and ability to explain medical information clearly, fostering confidence and trust. His commitment to personalized care and extensive experience makes him a trusted choice for those seeking dedicated internal medicine services.

Ed Hynes’s presentation examines the largely overlooked naval and irregular warfare conducted on Long Island Sound during the American Revolution. Drawing on local records and Kimberly Goodling’s 2021 doctoral dissertation, Hynes argues that privateers played a far more important role in the American victory than traditional histories acknowledge.

The geography of the Sound shaped the conflict. British forces occupied Long Island, while Patriot-controlled Connecticut lay less than ten miles away in places. Connecticut’s numerous shallow harbors protected small, maneuverable whaleboats from larger British warships. Crews—often experienced sailors, traders, and shipbuilders—used these boats to cross the Sound at night, raid farms and ships, capture prisoners, smuggle goods, and gather intelligence.

Privateers were essentially government-licensed pirates. After posting a bond and receiving authorization from Connecticut or the Continental Congress, they could seize British ships and property. Courts were supposed to determine whether captures were lawful and divide the proceeds between the government and privateer crews. The prospect of profit attracted sailors who might otherwise have joined the poorly paid Continental Navy. Privateering also had strategic value: captured supplies and weapons supported the Continental Army while depriving British forces in New York. According to evidence cited by Hynes, Patriots captured seven British supply vessels for every ship Britain seized, causing marine-insurance rates at Lloyd’s of London to soar.

The struggle was also a bitter civil war. Connecticut expelled many Loyalists in 1775, while Patriots fled British-occupied Long Island after 1776. Families and communities divided, and former neighbors repeatedly attacked one another. Notable episodes included the British destruction of Danbury’s supply depot; Return Jonathan Meigs’s successful raid on Sag Harbor; the kidnappings and eventual exchange of Patriot General Gold Selleck Silliman and Loyalist Judge Thomas Jones; and the 1781 destruction of New London and Groton under Benedict Arnold.

Locally, Loyalist Captain Frost’s raid on the Middlesex meetinghouse—present-day Darien—demonstrated careful planning around darkness and tides. His force captured 49 men and 40 horses, transported them through the Fish Islands, and later returned to seize livestock.

Hynes concludes that violence on the Sound continued even after Yorktown because the conflict had become intensely personal. Privateering materially weakened British supply lines, but it also produced fear, retaliation, displacement, and lasting divisions along both shores.

Video Presentation

Ed Hynes, CFA was born and raised in Wilton, CT. He attended Wilton High School where he played both football and lacrosse. In 1977 Ed graduated from The George Washington University in Washington D.C. with a B.A. in Political Science. He subsequently spent most of his career in financial services. As an equity analyst, institutional salesperson and trader he worked with some of the premier investment banking firms in many of the world’s leading financial centers including New York, Tokyo, London, Chicago and San Francisco. In 2001 Ed became a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder, and is currently a Financial Advisor with Merrill Lynch in Westport, CT. He lives in Norwalk.

Ed first became interested in the Revolutionary War as a child when he learned his neighbor’s house was partially burned by the British during the Danbury Raid in 1777. Fascinated by history, he and his late wife visited many important battlefields both here and abroad. Ed has spoken to the DMA  before –  2013 on the Battle of Ridgefield, 2019, about the War on Long Island Sound and again in  2020 on the Origins of the Star Spangled Banner.