Speaker programs at Wednesday DMA Meetings
Darien experienced extensive flooding in 2021. Craig Flaherty has been an advisor to Darien government on water management, serving as chairman of Darien’s Sewer Commission and advising on flood mitigation strategy. Craig is President, Senior Engineer and Principal at the firm of Redniss & Mead, Inc., in Stamford. He graduated with a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University.
Arranged by Gary Banks
Slides used in the presentation: Darien Mens Presentation Flaherty
Mamundi Subhas, a senior vice president at Neuberger Berman, became a volunteer guide at Grant’s tomb on the West Side of Manhattan, where he has now spent more than 500 hours interacting with visitors. In his talk, Subhas will discuss 11 lessons he learned from studying the life of General Grant. Additionally, his research cast doubt on biographies that claimed Grant had problems with alcohol. This seemed incongruous with the character of the man and led Subhas to research Grant’s symptoms and then to write an article in the August 2020 issue of Civil War News. What seemed to observers at the time to be Grant’s “drunken behavior” was probably instead symptoms characteristic of those who suffer from migraine headaches. Subhas will also provide a guide to the architecture of Grant’s tomb, which is a gem.
Please check out the video in which I point out some of these features. https://fb.watch/6s27BPeW5R/
Basil Hero is an award-winning former investigative reporter with NBC News television stations. For his book, “The Mission of aLifetime: The Men Who Went to the Moon,” he interviewed the twelve remaining lunar explorers. They talk at length about the real right stuff, the true source of courage, leadership, and the quiet patriotism that it took to risk their lives going to the moon. Their voyages led them to the most incredible discovery of all: our home planet and its precious place in the universe. They fear for earth’s future and offer sensible solutions to its mounting crises and the path to future space exploration.
Arranged by Charles Salmans
Marty Yellin received a Bachelors and Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from CCNY. In 1965 he joined Perkin-Elmer in Wilton, Ct. and they helped support his doctorate in Bio Medical Engineering at NYU applying engineering solutions to medical issues. At Perkin Elmer he became involved with a Top Secret program to design and build the largest spy satellite ever to be flown in space. In his last 10 years at Perkin Elmer he helped design and manage the Hubble Space Telescope which has been the most productive space instrument ever built. After retirement in 1998 he resumed taking courses at NYU in the fields of genetics and cell biology.
David Montieth is a past World Champion in the High Jump in the 70 to 74-year age group, having won that title at the World Championship Master’s Track and Field meet in Perth, Australia. He has been ranked number one in the world in his age group for 6 of the last 16 years, and has won 28 U.S. National Championship meets during that same time period. He currently holds both the U.S. indoor and outdoor high jump records in the 70 to 74 age group and was named “Athlete of the Year” by the National USA Track and Field organization for that age group.
While David high jumped during his years at Wabash College he did not jump again until he was almost 60 years old when he realized he had to take better care of his body. His presentation emphasizes the importance of maintaining one’s health and fitness if we want to enjoy an active and fulfilling life as we age.
Prior to retiring in 2011 David enjoyed a 40-year career in Human Resources where he was Head of HR for divisions of Target Stores and Macy’s Department Stores and for his last 20 years was head of Human Resources for Dress Barn, Inc. Since his retirement he has been very active in consulting and Board work for two volunteer organizations as well as his local church.
Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, David and his wife Karen have lived in Ridgefield for the past 30 years.
Peter Gogolak and his family escaped from Communist Hungary during the 1956 revolution. Within 8 years of arriving in America, he was making football history. He introduced soccer-style place kicking in both college and professional football. At Cornell University, he made 54 consecutive extra points, a college record.
In 1964 he was overlooked by the NFL but drafted in the last round by the AFL Buffalo Bills. The Bills won the 1964 and 1965 AFL Championships and Peter made the Sporting News All AFL Team. He was the first to switch from the AFL to the NFL, sparking the “war between the leagues” when he signed with the New York Giants, which led the the eventual merger of the two leagues.
Peter is still the all-time leading scorer of the New York Giants and in 2010 he was inducted into the Ring of Honor at Giant Stadium. In 2006 he was asked by the White House to be the US Citizen Representative in Budapest at the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution.
After his playing career, Peter was a long-time sales executive with the financial printing firm RR Donnelly.
Ambassador Thomas “Tom” M.T. Niles was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1939. Upon graduating from Harvard College in 1960 he joined the U.S. Foreign Service. After assignments in Belgrade, Moscow (twice), and the United States Mission to NATO in Brussels, as well as assignments to the Department of State in Washington, he was named by President Reagan to be Ambassador to Canada in 1985. In 1989, he was named by President George H.W. Bush to be Ambassador to the European Union in Brussels. In 1991 he was reassigned to the Department of State as Assistant Secretary for Europe and Canada. In 1993 he was named Ambassador to Greece by President Clinton. He retired from the Foreign Service in 1998 and became President and CEO of the United States Council for International Business in 1999, a position he held until 2005.
Bruce Putterman is publisher and CEO of The Connecticut Mirror, a digital-only, nonprofit, non-partisan news organization. At a time when traditional newspapers in Connecticut are disappearing or sharply cutting reporting staff (part of a national trend), the Connecticut Mirror’s mission is to produce original journalism that informs Connecticut residents about the impact of public policy, holds government accountable, and amplifies diverse perspectives. Some 88% of the Connecticut Mirror’s revenues come from reader donations. Before joining The Connecticut Mirror in 2017, Bruce owned and operated a West Hartford-based consulting practice for 16 years, providing strategic planning and marketing services to more than 50 nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, public agencies, private equity firms, and other for-profit clients. His interest in journalism dates back to his college years when he worked in commercial radio and TV news. Bruce served as an elected member of the West Hartford Board of Education from 2003 through 2015, including three years as chair of the board. He has a Bachelor of Arts in History and an M.B.A. in Marketing from Cornell University
Dr. Antonio “Tony” Dajer will speak about “Covid-19 and Darwin: Why Does it Keep Surprising Us?” Dr. Dajer, who has been a New York City emergency room physician for 30 years, will relate the strain on emergency department staff as Covid outbreaks peaked, what physicians have learned to reduce death among those hospitalized and, as Darwin would have predicted, how we still face uncertainties about controlling Covid mutations and other viruses that may yet appear.
Dr. Dajer has treated patients at the height of the Covid crisis — both at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York and at Stamford Hospital. At the time of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, he was the assistant Emergency Department director at New York Presbyterian – Lower Manhattan Hospital and the attending physician on shift, leading the team that treated hundreds of individuals who were injured. Dr. Dajer was born in New York City, raised in Puerto Rico, and received his BA degree at Harvard. He received his medical degree from NYU and was Medical Director of New York Presbyterian Hospital from 2005-2018. Dr. Dajer was interviewed in the March 26, 2020 issue of The New Yorker about the lessons of 9/11 while treating patients as the height of the pandemic. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-manhattan-er-doctor-recalls-the-lessons-of-911-while-treating-coronavirus-patients
Arranged by Charles Salmans
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