DMA member Ted Helms will speak with our group about the startling demise of Venezuela in his presentation entitled “Venezuela – A Failed State: Story of the Road to Destruction.” As Ted observes, it is not widely understood or appreciated just how rich and developed Venezuela was, including the wealth of its resource base, and the abject condition in which it currently finds itself. Large numbers of people, representing 25% of its population, have fled the country in desperation, with entire families walking as far as Chile or the United States, literally to escape starvation. Today, Venezuela is arguably a failed state with no foreseeable possibility of returning to its prosperous and democratic past. Based on his first-hand experience, Ted will highlight the root causes of Venezuela’s road to ruin, and why, under any plausible scenario, its future remains bleak.
Ted Helms lived in Caracas for three years in the late 1970s, as a tennis teacher to the oligarchy, witnessing the boom years that followed OPEC’s fourfold oil price increase. He returned to Caracas in the 1980s as the country manager for Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company during a period of economic volatility. In the 1990s Ted was the New York-based financial representative for Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company (PDVSA), when Venezuela nearly doubled its oil production and became the United States’ leading oil supplier.
In the course of his work in the country, Ted experienced, first-hand, Venezuelan society, politics, and economy under six presidential administrations. His direct involvement with Venezuela ended shortly after the election of Hugo Chavez in 1999, so he lightheartedly refers to himself as the ‘first exile” of Hugo Chavez.
Arranged by Tom Lom
Mark Contreras, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Connecticut Public and a member of the board of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), will speak to us on the role of public television in the State of Connecticut.
David Genovese, who leads Baywater Properties, a privately held commercial real estate company serving Fairfield and Westchester Counties, will provide us with an update on the progress of the Corbin District Project, a major undertaking involving the development of a series of new buildings, shops, residential facilities and public community spaces in the heart of Darien that will forever transform and enliven the character of our Town.
DMA member and past president Sunil Saksena will speak to our group on the presidential election of 1876. That election was marred by claims of fraud, voter intimidation, arbitrarily changed vote counts and multiple sets of “certified” electoral college votes. It was followed by 4 months of chaotic negotiations and backroom compromises involving Congressional committees, Supreme Court Justices and campaign representatives. Finally, just 2 days before Inauguration Day, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner by 1 electoral vote over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, who won the popular vote by a huge margin.
Vanessa Maczko is a Partner in Wiggin and Dana’s Private Client Services Department in the Greenwich, CT office. She will brief our group on important recent developments in federal and Connecticut trusts and estates laws that affect estate planning, wills and trusts, distribution of assets to beneficiaries and charitable giving.
John Lindback will speak with our group on the topic of elections administration, voter registration and the possibilities of voter fraud. John first entered the field of elections administration in 1995 and has made it his personal goal for the past 27 years to make voter registration and voting work better for both voters and election officials.
DMA member Flemming Heilmann will discuss his recently released translation of Halfdan Lefevre’s book entitled The Men in Denmark’s Freedom Council. This seminal work, first published in Danish in 1945, is the story of Denmark’s resistance leaders, their underground movement during Nazi occupation and how they coordinated the nation’s freedom fighters to mount military confrontation of the enemy. Their 11-member Freedom Council went on to form a government-in-waiting in anticipation of liberation to run the country pending restoration of democratic elections. Each member’s family background and career are vividly depicted. Lefevre, from the start of World War II, had documented the genesis and evolution of the resistance movement and its struggle against Nazi occupation since April 1940. He was the recording scribe for the underground Freedom Council and author of illegal leaflets and news communiques distributed by the resistance. His scholarly account offers details of the German invasion, the government’s quick surrender, and then the emergence of the resistance movement, which led to the establishment of the crucial Freedom Council. Flemming has carefully translated this book into English so a broader audience can appreciate the sacrifices these brave men made for their country.
Bobbi Phelps Chapman will speak to us on her latest book, Darien Waters, which describes historical facts and dramatic details of the ‘40s, ‘50s and early ‘60s. In her narrative of growing up in Darien, she writes of wealth, secrets, schemes, and intrigue in our beautiful waterside town.
