Category: Speaker Announcements (Page 18 of 30)

Professor Charles Yarish received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1976 and then joined the faculty at the University of Connecticut where he is in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and The Department of Marine Sciences. He has also been an adjunct Professor of Marine Sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, visiting Scientist at the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland, Germany, a visiting Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and a Guest Professor at Shanghai Fisheries University, China. He has served with many organizations including the International Executive Service Corps’ Aquacultural Project (Kenya), the Organizing Committee & the Executive Secretariat for the Vth International Phycological Congress, Qingdao, China, and as a member of the RCN for the US National Science Foundation genome project on Porphyra. Professor Yarish has been an invited participant in many international invited symposia and meetings in Canada, Chile, Cuba, Germany, Ireland, Japan, People’s Republic of China, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, The Netherlands and the USA, which have dealt with the ecophysiology, biogeography and aquaculture of seaweeds. At UCONN, he developed an internationally known Seaweed Marine Biotechnology Laboratory for seaweed R&D. He is intimately involved in the development of the global seaweed aquaculture industry and in particular in the USA. He has published extensively, and edited several books. In addition to receiving a number of awards over the course of his career, in 2019 Professor Yarish received the Phycological Society of America’s Award of Excellence for his sustained scholarly contributions in, and impact on, the field of phycology over his career.

Arranged by Bryan Hooper

Bryan’s summary of the talk:

Professor Charles Yarish of UConn educated and enlightened members with his talk on the ecological and economic benefits of seaweed, and the development of the aquaculture industry both globally and locally.

Worldwide, the industry produces 66 billion pounds of product, representing around $11 billion in value. The market has grown at an average annual rate of 8% since 1970, with Asian countries leading the growth driven by a shortage of agricultural land. China represents 48% of world production, with the US virtually nowhere. Main uses for seaweed products include food, animal feed, fertilizers and biomass for fuels. A major extracted class is phycocolloids such as alginates, carrageenans and agars, products that are used, for example, in texturizing, thickening, and emulsifying, as well as a range of medical uses, including antivirals and anti-fungal agents. The US imports almost 16 million pounds of dry seaweed and produces another 85-95,000 pounds via aquaculture and wild-grown. Prices for derived products range from 50¢ a pound for commodity colloids up to $2,000 for specialties for pharmaceutical uses.

Professor Yarish has been working on developing the growth of kelp in Long Island Sound for over thirty years, coping with the obstacles raised by environmental regulations, license requirements and recreational needs. He explained that seaweed farming requires no fresh water or fertilizer, helps reduce carbon dioxide and nitrogen levels, and complements the shellfish industry. Two key products are grown, gracilaria (red seaweed) in the summer months and saccharine (sugar kelp) as a winter crop.

There are currently three open water seaweed farms in the Sound, in the Bronx, Branford and Fairfield. Across the country, from a zero base ten years ago, there are now over 70 farms, with most centered in Maine, Connecticut and Alaska. The industry is considered an opportunity for workforce growth, and the Algae Technology Educational Consortium was established to promote this initiative. The potential for development of biomass as an energy resource has been recognized by the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy of the Department of Energy through funding research on microalgae to examine scalable, cost competitive and sustainable biomass production.

Projects being worked on by Professor Yarish include:

• Mechanized production and harvesting of tropical seaweeds in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea
• Scalability of coastal/offshore production in Alaska and Connecticut to grow sugar kelp
• Selective breeding technologies for scalable offshore farming to increase productivity 10-20% per generation
• The further development at UConn of kelp breeding technology

However, perhaps the greatest global benefit from current seaweed research projects might come from studies underway between Penn State and UConn on the use of the macroalgae Asparagopsis in cattle feed. It has been demonstrated to reduce methane emissions from cows by up to 99% in some cases, and if widely applicable and adopted could lead to a major reduction of this carbon pollution source.

Presentation video: https://youtu.be/jFnVv3aXD3s

Donald Anderson, Darien’s Chief of Police, will be talking about a subject of current interest, policing in the year 2020 and beyond. Chief Anderson has been a member of the Darien Police Department since 1983. He was promoted to the rank of Sergeant in 1999, Lieutenant in 2000, and to his previous rank of Captain in 2013. Before his promotion to Chief of Police in 2019, he held the position of Captain of the Administrative Services Bureau. He holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Sacred Heart University and a master’s degree in criminal justice from Iona College. He is also a graduate of the 245th session of the FBI National Academy, is a state-certified Motor Vehicle Accident Investigation Instructor, and also served as a member of the Detective Division and the Specialized Accident Investigation Team.

 Arranged by Bob Fiske

Bryan Hooper’s summary of the talk:

Don Anderson, Darien Chief of Police, joined the force in 1983 and rose through the ranks to become Chief in 2019, following in the footsteps of his father, Bruce Anderson, who was Chief of Police in the years 1988-1993.

Chief Anderson stressed that the Darien Police Department closely follows the guidance from the State of Connecticut regarding training and oversight of officers. Darien also achieves its exemplary record through good hiring policies which ensure the town has professional, competent personnel. He stated that all incidents involving use of force must be reported: last year, Darien had only thirteen cases, and none of them involved “excessive force.” Similarly, officers must report occasions when a taser is pulled out, and no tasers have been used in the past four to five years. All interactions with the public are recorded by a body or a dash-camera for mutual protection of the public and the police, and to maximize transparency.

Moving to the national situation created by concerns about cases of police brutality, Chief Anderson addressed some of the points raised by Campaign Zero in their suggested steps to address policing via the “8 can’t wait” tenets:

• DPD banned the use of chokeholds and strangleholds 25 years ago, with the caveat that they could be used to defend yourself in extreme situations. For the same length of time, the force has been training officers in cases involving positional asphyxia or excited delirium to cope with “can’t breathe” situations.
• De-escalation of domestic violence and mental health confrontations are another part of existing training, and the DPD involves professionals in both areas whenever possible.
• Warning before shooting is already applied, and Chief Anderson emphasized that weapons are to be used only as a last resort.
• Duty to intervene is also laid down as a standard to apply if officers see a colleague using excessive force, and was enforced in the DPD even before it became part of the recent Connecticut police reform bill.
• Shooting at moving vehicles is barred by the DPD.
• Comprehensive reporting is already required by the DPD.

Chief Anderson also commented on the part of the Connecticut legislation that eliminated “qualified immunity” for police officers, and said that it will remove the safety net that police had when resolving incidents effectively through taking rapid action, and could lead to more lawsuits against them. He is hopeful the legislature will modify this part of the bill in the future to avoid the loss of some professionals.

He addressed a number of questions from the membership for 45 minutes, and these can be viewed with the rest of his talk by clicking on the following URL link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMeIalgfKxQ&feature=youtu.be.

Chief Anderson said that he is “always available to answer any questions or offer follow-up on Darien Police Department operations.” Finally, in light of the increase in car thefts from driveways, he made a plea to his audience to “Lock your car everywhere, every time!”

Mark Nunan was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1953. At an early age, he moved to Homewood and then Hoover, Alabama. In 1971, he graduated from Indian Springs High School, where he was editor of the school newspaper and literary magazine, member of the Student Judiciary group and played in the soccer team. Mark graduated from the University of Alabama in 1976. He continued his education at Stanford University, where he was awarded a master’s in 1979 and a Ph.D. in 1983. During that same period, he was a George Lurcy Fellow at L’École normale supérieure and at the University of Paris-Sorbonne in Paris as part of his Ph.D. program. He was a member of Pi Kappa Phi academic honor society and participated in medical research in one of the largest blood pressure and cardiovascular disease research studies in the United States.

Mark started his career with COS, Inc. in 1982 in Palo Alto, Calif., and then transferred to Paris and New York City in 1980, where he retired as a senior vice president in 2018. COS is a private firm that provides business and economic development services, assisting companies and governments in researching, developing and implementing new business expansion opportunities, mainly in North America and Europe. Mark and his partner Isabelle live in Darien and have one son and a daughter-in-law and two grandsons living in Europe. He belongs to the Stanford Alumni Association, A-Ulm: Association des Anciens Élèves de L’École normale supérieure, and Phi Kappa Phi. His leisure activities include reading, investing, walking, hiking, travel, music and spectator sports – specifically, soccer and college football.

Following his detailed and informative talk earlier this year on Robert Moses, Mark will be speaking about another major influence in the history of the city of New York, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

Arranged by Bryan Hooper

Bryan’s summary of the talk:

Mark Nunan described in his meticulous and thoroughly-researched presentation the incredible life and achievements of Fiorello La Guardia. Born in New York City in 1882, La Guardia was a second generation Italian American who was later brought up in Arizona where his father served in the US army. He went back to Trieste with his father in 1898, and worked for the US Consulate in Croatia before returning to New York in 1906, where he became an interpreter at Ellis Island, putting to good use his language skills – he was fluent in German, Italian, Croatian and French. He attended NYU Law School, graduated in 1910, and was admitted to the New York bar the same year.

Following an initial career as a labor lawyer, La Guardia was persuaded to run for Congress and succeeded at the second attempt in 1916. He voted against prohibition, and for the establishment of the military air service. This unbelievably talented man then volunteered to join that service, becoming a major and commanding officer of the American Combat Division in Italy, and followed up by working with the Italians to improve their aircraft manufacturing industry, for which he was recognized and honored by King Victor Emmanuel.

After his time in Italy, La Guardia went for a second act in national politics, becoming a congressman again in 1922, and remaining in Washington until 1933. His major achievements there involved setting up much of the New Deal legislation with the FDR administration, key anti-injunction legislation to provide more even treatment of labor by government, and the successful repeal of prohibition.

His third act involved becoming the 99th mayor of New York. He failed in 1929, but was nominated in preference to Robert Moses as a candidate by the Republicans and the Fusion parties in 1933, and won the election. By the time he took office, his collaboration with FDR’s enablers, Hopkins and Ickes, had snagged for New York 20% of the country’s new jobs created by the Civil Works Administration. La Guardia installed a talented group of commissioners and set about reform projects, including the establishment of the first public housing developments, and pursued the criminal mob with vigor.

One of his popular successes was to win the artichoke war, breaking the mob’s monopoly of the supply and distribution of the vegetable, and enabling retail prices to be slashed by 30 to 40%! He won 72 out of 73 indictments brought against the mob.

Working closely with FDR, he ensured money flowed to support New York infrastructure projects, and developed both La Guardia and Idlewild (now JFK) airports. He won a third term as mayor in 1941, and was also nominated by Roosevelt to head the Office of Civil Defense for the country, splitting his time between New York and Washington.

La Guardia did not run for a fourth term, had a brief stint at the United Nations in 1946 as a director general, and died in 1947. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx (a site that was visited this week by the Happy Wanderers).

Mark’s presentation slides chronicle the innumerable accomplishments of this talented, indefatigable and caring man, and they can be found at https://dariendma.org/wp-content/uploads/FINAL-La-Guardia-DMA-Nunan.pdf, and the videotape of the session can be accessed at https://youtu.be/lcmP27mHZGA

Michael J. Critelli grew up in Rochester, New York. He graduated from Bishop Kearney High School in 1966 and the University of Wisconsin with a B.A. in political science and communications in 1970, then graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. cum laude in 1974.

Prior to joining Pitney Bowes as a Counsel in 1979, Mike was an associate at two Chicago law firms. At Pitney Bowes, he became the Company’s General Counsel in 1988 and added responsibility for its human resources functions in 1990, functions he jointly led until 1993. Mike became the Company’s CEO in 1996 during a period in which the Company and the mailing industry underwent transformational change. Under him, Pitney Bowes was named one of America’s most ethical companies, and was ranked as one of America’s most innovative companies and in the top 200 of patents issued. During his tenure Pitney Bowes exited its office systems and external finance businesses and completed over 80 acquisitions to build strength in software, services and international operations. Through a combination of acquisitions and organic investments, the Company diversified into adjacent “mail stream” market spaces.

Mike was directly engaged in the development, release and marketing of Relia-Vote, Pitney Bowes’ voting-by-mail offering, and advocated its use with election officials in many states. He was awarded one patent on a feature that detected ballot fraud. He also acquired and helped develop a Company business that scanned and recognized handwritten documents and envelopes at high speed.

Between 2001 and 2005, Mike co-led the Mailing Industry Task Force, along with Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan, to enable the U.S. Postal Service to work with the private sector on a variety of initiatives, and was heavily used as an industry spokesperson during the 2001 anthrax bioterrorism incidents. He also chaired the Mailing Industry CEO Council, which was an advocate for comprehensive postal reform, an effort resulting in the passage of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006.

Mike retired from his position as Executive Chairman of Pitney Bowes in 2008. He currently is the CEO and co-founder of MoveFlux Corporation, and is a member of the advisory boards of RAND Health, the TH Chan Harvard School of Public Health, and Wellville, a non-profit focused on getting innovative population health initiatives deployed in five communities. He has been a member of the Board of Eaton Corporation, a leading global power management company, since 1998.

Mike joined the DMA in 2019, and with his wide experience and knowledge of the mailing industry it is appropriate that he will address and discuss one of the major issues being faced in this election season – voting by mail.

Lori Swetlin currently holds a tenured Sales Executive and Consulting position at Bluecrest Inc., formerly the Document Messaging Technologies Division of Pitney Bowes. She will join Mike in discussing some of the newer technology tools she has successfully deployed with cutting-edge election administrators and her work with the  Postal Service on products of particular value for voting-by-mail.

She currently leads BlueCrest nationally in implementing “soup to nuts” processing and tracking of mail pieces and is an expert in vote-by-mail solutions.  During the current Covid-19 pandemic, Lori has been helping municipalities and states implement vote-by-mail systems; acquire necessary equipment and software;  and manage the dynamic political, social, environmental, health, cultural and regulatory environment.

Lori earned her degree from Bowling Green State University.  She resides outside of Akron Ohio with her husband Tom. In her free-time, Lori enjoys traveling, gardening, lake activities, reading and any time with family.

Arranged by Gary Banks and Bryan Hooper

Bryan’s summary of the talk:

Mike Critelli and Lori Swetlin addressed the currently hot topic of voting by mail. What started as a means of enabling Union soldiers to cast a vote in 1864 has grown to the point where the coronavirus pandemic is driving many voters away from voting in person and to considering this alternative. The situation across the United States is complex because access to absentee voting varies by state, with five states having converted 100% to postal voting, some allowing choice, and others insisting on voters affirming why they are unable to vote in person.

Additionally, the rules and processes for managing the election vary by state: in Connecticut, the Secretary of the State sets most of the rules. There are a number of stakeholders involved in the process, including the US Postal Service, stationery manufacturers, equipment vendors and state and local election officials. Key components of the process require establishing voter identification and residential qualification, advising voters of the rules to follow, printing and mailing of ballots, tracking the ballot mailing and returns, verification of signatures, and tabulating the votes. Tracking has been raised as a major concern and the “Intelligent Mail Barcode” has been developed to provide the ability to trace the ballot envelopes at each stage of the mailing pathway. Once signatures have been verified by election officials, counting of the votes is carried out and an end-to-end audit trail is established that complies with the states’ laws and regulations for validating votes.

It all sounds fraught with a potential multitude of problems, but Mike asserted that the systems in place work extremely effectively, if not always with 100% efficiency. For instance, the USPS is presently hampered by the reduction in the number of commercial flights which are the main conduit for transporting mail over 1000 miles, and by a shortage of truck drivers who are responsible for delivering mail on journeys under 1000 miles. His major concern is ballot harvesting, which involves third parties, such as volunteers, state party loyalists, or contract workers outside the Postal Service distributing and/or collecting ballots. He believes ballot harvesting should be banned because:

• Ballots can be lost in the collection and return process
• Some voters can be coerced into supporting the ballot harvester’s preferred candidate
• Harvesting, especially if the harvester directs the voter not to sign the ballot, lends itself to fraud.

For the question and answer session, Mike and Lori were joined by Denise Merrill, Connecticut Secretary of the State, and Susan Gray, a Darien Registrar of Voters, and we are most grateful to them for providing more detailed information specific to Connecticut and Darien.

Mike slides: Voting by Mail Presentation

Video of presentation

Vote by Mail Part 1

Vote by Mail Part 2

Hugh Seaton is the General Manager at the Glimpse Group, a virtual reality and augmented reality company based in New York, NY, and a lifelong technology marketer. Prior to Glimpse, Hugh founded and grew Aquinas Learning, an e-learning software company that leveraged virtual reality and artificial intelligence, which he sold to Glimpse in 2019.  Before Aquinas, Hugh – a fluent Mandarin speaker – spent 5 years in Shanghai, was a senior marketing executive with BBDO running Pepsi’s advertising, and founded his first company, specializing in social media. He has also held various senior positions at Sony Electronics, AOL Time Warner, DraftFCB and Havas.

Hugh holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, has been an adjunct professor at NYU, and is the author of the Construction Technology Handbook (Wiley, 2020).

Arranged by Douglas Campbell and Bryan Hooper

Bryan’s summary of the talk:

Hugh Seaton cast some light for us on the arcane subject of artificial intelligence – intelligence demonstrated by machines and applied to a variety of situations to augment human activities. Hugh stressed that the highly advanced computers cannot think like humans and that the tasks AI machines perform are based on the use of vast amounts of data acted upon by algorithms, so it comes down to mathematics. That said, he identified the advances made in AI in recognizing and classifying data, determining patterns, producing designs, managing language functions and carrying out tasks via robotics. Performance of the activities carried out by AI improves as the machines are fed more data, either by experience or from an outside agent. Hugh cited Siri and Alexa as uses of AI that have been improved through experience. Human designers focused on enhancing the applications’ abilities by concentrating on accomplishing fewer tasks more successfully, rather than by a broader brush approach that resulted in a poorer response following the instruction to the machine. He pointed out the difficulties in designing self-driving autos, where significant progress has been made, but not enough to allow the general use of these vehicles on the open road at present: predicting an introduction date is hard since making further progress toward the autonomous auto is exponentially more difficult.

Hugh described the AI experience in the construction industry in maintaining a record of work accomplished throughout the process to assist in planning subsequent building stages, rapidly finding specification documents, and defining realistic schedules. He described a practical example of using AI in the development of machines that can manage the tying together of rebar used for reinforcing concrete, resulting not only in performing the tasks efficiently but also alleviating the problem of labor shortages to carry out this specialized function.

Link to the video of his talk: https://youtu.be/7q0FePlJQqI

Art Gottlieb is a local historian on subjects from political and military history who has frequently given talks to the DMA over the past few years. He was formerly a professional curator of naval history and the Technical Director of Exhibits at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in NYC. In these roles, Art worked regularly with veterans of all services towards the creation of exhibits accurately illustrating the history of 20th century warfare.

From 1989 through 1997, Art coordinated with all branches of the armed services and National Guard towards the preservation of historic ships, aircraft and armor from around the world, and has facilitated the recovery of scores of artifacts from warships slated for demolition from reserve fleets.

For the past fifteen years Art has refocused his professional efforts towards reaching out and addressing the growing needs of aging veterans and their families.  He maintains a private practice as a Counselor and Certified Senior Advisor in Norwalk, CT, and offers pro-bono counseling services to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Art served as an Auxiliary Officer of the United States Coast Guard for 17 years and for 4 years was Commander of Flotilla 7-2, 1^st District (Southern Region), Sector Long Island Sound North.

His last talk to the DMA in February was about US Pacific fleet submarines, and this week he will be relating the epic story of the desperate six-year struggle between allied forces and the German navy to control the sea-lanes between America and the British Isles – a battle that, had it been lost, would have profoundly changed the course of World War II.

Arranged by Bryan Hooper

Bryan’s summary of his talk:

Art Gottlieb made his 16th appearance before a DMA audience. The subject was the role played by U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II, a battle that lasted the entire length of the war from September, 1939, until May, 1945. The talk highlighted the contrast between the relatively low-tech environment of the submarine and the increasingly effective use of high-tech countermeasures against the deadly raiders. We learnt that the U-boat of that era was essentially a surface attack vessel that could escape detection by its ability to quickly submerge and maneuver under water; that life on board was an endurance test of various stages of wet discomfort; and, that optically-advanced binoculars frequently helped make up for a lack of radar to find and identify targets.

The conquest of France in mid-1940 opened the door for Admiral Karl Dönitz to operate his growing U-boat fleet from five bases with direct access to the Atlantic. As their attacks became increasingly effective, the need for more and better protection for convoys of goods to the UK and USSR became essential. This was achieved through lend-lease arrangements authorized in 1940 which gave the UK use of 50 previously mothballed US destroyers, and the introduction of destroyer escorts once the USA entered the conflict in 1941. Additionally, the use of huff-duff, the quaint name for high-frequency direction finding technology, coupled with the decryption of the Enigma-coded German radio communications with the submarines significantly aided in locating the U-boat wolf packs. The introduction of longer-range air support, improved depth charges, and the hedgehog weapon with its array of mortars added even more effectiveness to the countermeasures, and by late 1943 the battle had turned in favor of the Allies.

The statistics Art provided about the Battle of the Atlantic are sobering:

• 2900 ships were destroyed, totaling 12 million tons of Allied shipping

• 141 escort vessels were sunk

• Almost 800 U-boats were destroyed

• 28,000 U-boat crew members died

• At 75% this was the highest casualty rate of the German armed services.

Video link to Art’s presentation:  https://youtu.be/Mwh61wlXAnQ

Robert Whitby grew up in the city of Salt Lake City, Utah, and holds an economics degree from Yale College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He has had a diverse business career spanning some 40 years, primarily in the investment banking and management consulting sectors, working in senior executive positions at Arthur Anderson, Ernst & Young, Booz Allen Hamilton, Citicorp and Thyssen-Bornemisza Group. He has lived and worked in the United States and several countries in Western Europe.

Robert is a past Board Member of the Inner Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich and The Explorers Club. He has served as Board Chairman of The Mountain Institute (TMI), a world-wide NGO established to preserve mountain habitats and to help mountain people achieve sustainable mountain livelihoods. He has led TMI Board expeditions to visit their project sites in Peru/Bolivia and Nepal/Tibet/Bhutan.

Robert is currently a director of several not-for-profit organizations and an active leader of Community Partners, a service auxiliary of Harvard Business School alumni. Through Community Partners, he has led substantial pro bono consulting engagements for the Explorers Club, the Hispanic Federation of New York, the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Catholic Charities of Connecticut, and Armstrong Chamber Concerts. He has lived in Greenwich since 1981.

A world-wide mountain-climber, Robert set out in his 50s to climb the highest peak on each continent, a feat known as “The 7 Summits.” He successfully climbed six of the seven, but failed on an Everest climb in 1994 and required medical evacuation. Robert will talk about each of his Seven Summits climbing adventures.

Arranged by Bryan Hooper

Bryan’s summary of his talk:

Robert Whitby exemplified the calm, stoical, persevering character you need to be to climb any mountain, and the toughness, experience and boldness you need to attempt climbing the seven major peaks in each continent in the world. Robert’s upbringing in Utah led him to start climbing mountains at the age of ten, beginning in the Rockies and moving on to the Grand Tetons, the Alps, Mount Washington and Mount Katahdin in Maine as preparation for setting out to meet the challenge of scaling the seven key peaks in the mountaineering lexicon.

Commencing with climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and ending at Mount Kosciuszko in Australia, his story is fascinating to hear, not only for the description of the details of each ascent, but the intriguing relationship he developed with Rob Hall, a professional guide who encouraged and inspired Robert in the scariest climb of the seven, Mount Aconcagua in South America. Hall was leading another expedition at the time Robert was attempting Everest, when Hall’s wife, Jan Arnold, a doctor, helped keep Robert alive after he contracted salmonella poisoning on the mountain. Sadly, Hall himself succumbed on Everest a few years later after staying overnight to tend to one of his client climbers near the summit. The event is described in Jon Krakauer’s book, “Into Thin Air.” Robert and a friend attended the memorial service for Hall in New Zealand, and as a tribute climbed the peak in Australia at the end of that visit.

Robert’s advice to those wishing to emulate his feats are to take the dangers of altitude seriously by undergoing intensive endurance training – and never to underestimate the importance of an ice axe!

Here are his slides:  _SIX ½ SUMMITS Darien Men_’sAssoc.

Here is the link to his talk: https://youtu.be/boX9wpmm3Ac

DMA member Jim Cameron has spent over 40 years in broadcast journalism. While at NBC News, he received a George Foster Peabody Award. In conjunction with INC. Magazine, he also wrote and hosted the syndicated radio series, Minding Your Business. For 12 years Jim ran JFORUM, the pioneering online service for journalists and communications professionals worldwide, on CompuServe.

In 1982 Jim transferred his journalism experience into a new career:  training people to deliver their messages effectively to the media and the public. His media-training clients have included hundreds of CEOs, scientists and authors. He has trained every kind of spokesperson imaginable—from athletes to marketing experts, from celebrities to farmers. His trainees have appeared on 60 Minutes, 20/20, The Today Show, CNN, CNBC and hundreds of radio stations. They’ve been quoted in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, trade journals and lifestyle magazines. Additionally, his clients have testified before Congress, made presentations to financial analysts and given speeches at major symposia. He has dealt with environmental crises, food tampering scares, insurance reform, employee healthcare, and workplace safety issues.

Jim taught broadcast journalism in Tunisia and the Philippines under the auspices of the U. S. State Department. Born and reared in Toronto, he speaks English and French. He graduated cum laude from Lehigh University with a BA in sociology in 1972.

A resident of Darien, Jim is founder of the Commuter Action Group, using social media to advocate for mass transit in Connecticut.  He is also an elected member of the Representative Town Meeting and program director of the town’s government access channel, Darien TV79.

Jim currently writes a weekly column, “Getting There,” for the eight daily and 14 weekly newspapers published by Hearst CT Media across Connecticut. In 2020 Jim published OFF THE RECORD: Confessions of a Media Consultant, sharing true stories about training the famous and the infamous.

Jim Cameron will be updating us on the future of transportation in Connecticut in the wake of the Covid-19 virus.

Arranged by Bryan Hooper

Bryan’s summary of his talk:

Jim Cameron, media consultant and DMA member, covered the transportation situation in Connecticut with a well-researched set of data and considerable enthusiasm for his subject. Jim took his audience back to the good old days when the New Canaan branch line sported its own private railcar for the select few on the commute to New York, but brought us down to earth and back to reality with statistics on the current ridership situation on MetroNorth, which was last counted as 218,000, compared with 3.1 million in March this year – a drop of 93%.

The MTA is projecting a deficit of $16 billion by 2024, and in 2020 alone the fare shortfall from reduced ridership will be approximately $4.2 billion. Currently, there seems to be no way out of the dire financial situation given the movement of commuters out to the suburbs, increased use of the roads, and a lack of urgency on the part of legislators to take action to remedy the situation either now or in the longer term. There is little appetite in an election year to raise gas taxes 60% back to 1997 levels, or to reinstate tolls in an effort to refund the State’s Special Transportation Fund; also, exacerbating the position, Federal spending on infrastructure is woefully low and unlikely to increase in the short-term. Overall, a sorry situation for which Jim sees no relief in sight.

Here is a link to a recording of his talk:  https://youtu.be/veanWAofvUY

Judge Myron H. Thompson is a United States District Court Judge for the Middle District of Alabama. He was nominated to that seat in September 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. He served as Chief Judge of the Court from 1991 to 1998.

Judge Thompson is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School. He served as Assistant Attorney General of Alabama from 1972 to 1974. He was the first African-American Assistant Attorney General for the State of Alabama, the first African-American bar examiner for the State, and the second African-American federal judge in the State. Judge Thompson was in private practice from 1974 until 1980.

Over the course of Judge Thompson’s 40-year career, he has presided over many challenging cases, including those involving separation of church and state, employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, voting rights and racial discrimination in the appointment of polling officials, policing practices and the use of deadly force, racial diversity of Alabama’s post-secondary education system, redistricting issues in the City of Montgomery, gay and lesbian rights, restrictions on abortion, racial diversity in the ranks of state troopers, and troubled conditions in the Alabama prison system.

Throughout his life, Judge Thompson has represented an extraordinary combination of courage and integrity. One of the last generation of children exposed to polio, he was stricken at an early age, bedridden or confined to a wheelchair at first, but fought back, ultimately being able to walk with only a minor limp. Judge Thompson has said that the challenges of polio, as well as growing up in the Jim Crow South — going to segregated schools, using segregated water fountains, and being treated as sub human — made him who he is.

In 2017, for having made a substantial contribution to public service and the legal profession, Judge Thompson received the Yale Law School Award of Merit, the highest award the law school may give to a graduate and faculty member. He was also named a 2017 Alabama Humanities Foundation fellow in honor of his noteworthy achievements and commitment to the advancement of the humanities in Alabama. In 2015, Judge Thompson received the National Public Service Award from Stanford Law School, in recognition that his “work on behalf of the public has had national impact.” In 2013, he was awarded the Thurgood Marshall Award by the National Bar Association’s Judicial Council in recognition of his “personal contributions and extraordinary commitment to the advancement of civil rights and for being a role model for members of the bench and bar.” And he received the 2005 Mark De Wolfe Howe Award from the Harvard Civil Rights – Civil Liberties Law Review “for his Unyielding Commitment to Advancing the Personal Freedoms and Human Dignities of the American People.”

Judge Thompson and DMA member Tom Igoe, who were roommates as undergraduates at Yale, will engage in a wide-ranging dialogue about (1) their fundamentally different backgrounds and evolving life-long friendship; (2) Judge Thompson’s perspectives, developed in his early years, that shaped the course of his life; (3) his return to Alabama to practice law and appointment to the bench as the youngest Federal judge in the US; (4) his experience as a jurist serving in a Southern state; and (5) his abiding philosophy on the importance of public service.

For some perspectives on the import of Judge Thompson’s judicial opinions, click on the following link: Judge Myron Thompson — Selected Judicial Opinions.

Arranged by Tom Igoe

Speaker summary by Bryan Hooper:

Our speaker’s virtual podium was graced by Judge Myron H. Thompson from Alabama in conversation with DMA member, Tom Igoe. This was an incredibly honest, open and frank discussion of a bi-racial friendship that started at Yale, developed when they became roommates, strengthened as each became the other’s best man, and deepened further over the years since. It is impossible to convey the genuine emotion and intellectual content of that discussion in these notes, but you can get a much better idea from the recorded conversation and subsequent question and answer session posted on the DMA website in the speaker section.

In particular, you will gain an impression of Judge Thompson’s humanity, honesty and humor. As you watch and listen to that video, you will observe some of the judge’s life attitudes which were conveyed with such conviction and applied in his judgments, particularly the two cases discussed involving promotions within the ranks of state troopers, and the removal of the stone monument listing the Ten Commandments from the Alabama supreme court building:

• You don’t have to be white to be a snob (learnt from his mother!)

• Show courage and do the right thing

• It’s a question of respecting the rule of law.

We received more comments than usual about this session, and they reflect the emotional impact on the audience:

“You don’t too often see two men share such deep personal reflections, thoughts and feelings in front of so many strangers … I felt privileged to be a part of such a group.”

“The genuine depth and intensity of their friendship really came across.”

“Simply one of the best speakers/presentations!”

“Today’s discussion was just amazing and very timely given what’s happening in the country.“

Here is a video of the Zoom meeting: https://youtu.be/lpOZfNfum4o

Here is the transcript along with some additional material:  Darien Men’s Association — Judge Myron Thompson Talk with Tom Igoe

“Person-to-Person: Creating Economic Stability for Vulnerable Residents During the Pandemic.”

Nancy Coughlin, CEO of Person-to-Person, and Juri Garone, Manager of Volunteers & Community Relations, will be speaking to us about the organization and its mission. They will discuss food insecurity and poverty issues in Fairfield County and how P2P is addressing them.  Additionally, they will talk about the role of volunteers and how the community helps P2P meet its mission, and suggest ways people can get involved.

Nancy Coughlin joined Person-to-Person in June of 2019, bringing expertise and experience in food insecurity, anti-poverty, and women’s and children’s issues. Prior to joining P2P, Nancy served for seven years as the Executive Director at Neighbor to Neighbor, a Greenwich-based organization dedicated to providing food and clothing to low-income families and children. She began her career in human services as an advocate for battered women and their children, and later practiced law in civil and employment litigation at Baker McKenzie.  Ms. Coughlin received a BA in psychology from the University of New Hampshire, and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School.  She resides with her husband and four children in Darien, where she co-founded the annual July 4^th “Push-n-Pull Parade” and was active in her children’s schools.

Juri Garone joined Person-to-Person as Manager of Volunteers and Community Relations to recruit volunteers for the local non-profit. Before starting with P2P last September, Juri worked in the Library Learning Commons at Weston High School for 7 years. She spent a decade in broadcast journalism, working as an Emmy Award-winning television news anchor and reporter in Westchester, New York and Bergen County, New Jersey. She has won numerous television industry awards from the Associated Press and the Society of Professional Journalists among others. Juri and her husband, Christopher have two children, Lilly and Renzo, and a dog named Luna. They live in Weston.

Person-to-Person

Arranged by Bryan Hooper

Bryan’s notes from the talk:

Nancy Coughlin, CEO, and Juri Garone, Manager of Volunteers and Community Relations, spoke to us on the operations of Person-to-Person and how the novel coronavirus has forced them to adapt to new conditions to manage fulfilling the mission.

P2P was founded over 50 years ago by the director of St. Luke’s parish in Darien following the assassination of Martin Luther King, and was intended as a commitment to enhance understanding of civil rights issues and to respond to the needs of the less economically fortunate members of the community. It was originally established to provide food and clothing (and, according to DMA member Bob Baker, not heavy furniture!) to low income people, but has since expanded its remit over the years to include financial assistance to needy families, scholarship and mentorship to aid students to obtain better and higher education, and camperships to help children attend camp during the summer months. Additionally, it has expanded geographically beyond Darien and Stamford to include Norwalk, New Canaan, Weston, Wilton and Westport. There are over 4000 volunteers helping P2P complete its tasks.

The arrival of the virus and the attendant shutdown of many activities in Connecticut created severe problems. Unemployment in the State hit 19% and demand for P2P food services doubled; 90% of P2P volunteers were forced to stay home; and social distancing standards made it impossible to operate meals-on-wheels service. Also, the price of healthy fruits and vegetables rose 10% forcing some families to switch to less healthy carbohydrates, corn-based products and other processed products. Food banks ran out of food as surplus supplies from groceries and other sources diminished, and packaged goods that became available due to lower restaurant food demand had to be re-packaged into smaller sizes.

In the face of these multiple challenges, the response from P2P has been remarkable:

•  180,000 meals, with 9000 people being fed per month
• Financial assistance to needy families has doubled
• Four times as much rental assistance provided compared to last year

In the 2020-2021 period, P2P expects to provide almost $1 million in financial aid; one-third of those now seeking financial support have never been to P2P before.

P2P, at this critical time, has been engaged in a dedicated effort to prevent people from becoming homeless. In this context, the immediate future presents a continuing threat, particularly the potential wave of evictions expected this fall, the inevitable dispersion of many needy families to other geographic areas and the consequential loss of P2P’s contacts with these families. Much uncertainty remains regarding a return to normalcy and P2P still needs volunteers to help with its Door2Door food delivery service, and, of course, more money to meet the increased expenses. Door2Door provides contactless food deliveries to 3500 clients.

Here are the slides used in the presentation:  Person-to-Person 2020 for DMA 7.15.20

Video of their presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSSsH-2EqLs

Sam Hornblower joined 60 Minutes in 2006 and is the winner of three Peabody awards, a DuPont-Columbia award, and two Emmy awards for outstanding investigative journalism. He has reported on stem cell therapy charlatans in “21st Century Snake Oil,” fabricated clinical trial data in “Deception at Duke,” fraudulent hospital billing in “The Cost of Admission,” and excess formaldehyde levels in flooring in “Lumber Liquidators.” More recently, he has been producing an award-winning investigative series on the opioid epidemic and is covering the Covid-19 pandemic.

Before CBS, he was with PBS broadcast Frontline, with reporting credits including the 2004 documentary “Is Wal-Mart Good for America?”, about the impact of China and big box retail on manufacturing and jobs in America’s heartland.

Sam will be speaking with our group about the current opioid crisis and is urging that DMA members look at some of his prior work as background to his talk and watch “60 Minutes” appearing on Sunday June 21 (7 pm Eastern time) to see the first part of two episodes giving the latest on the opioid crisis. The following links provide a synopsis of the project so far:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-opioid-epidemic-who-is-to-blame-60-minutes-2019-08-25/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pharmaceutical-sales-exec-lack-of-conscience-key-to-success-in-selling-opioids-60-minutes-2020-06-18/

Arranged by Alex Garnett

Bryan Hooper’s notes from the talk:

Sam Hornblower, a producer at CBS, took us through the key points of several episodes of “60 Minutes” covering a long-time investigative series into the opioid crisis.  Hornblower pointed the finger at the drug manufacturers and distributors, and highlighted the incentives to sales representatives to increase revenue through payments to doctors to write prescriptions for more patients and to increase the dosages prescribed for patients. He identified the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Justice and the pharmaceutical lobbyists as bearing responsibility for going too easy on the opioid industry and expanding the availability of ever more powerful synthetic versions of the drugs, such as fentanyl, which is 100 times more powerful than morphine. The illustrations from some of the “60 Minutes” episodes included several trials of major producers and distributors that resulted in prison sentences for senior executives and multi-billion dollar settlements. You can see these episodes by logging on to the CBS News website and searching the subject.

As a welcome change to the grim stories told by Sam, his father, Ray Hornblower, formerly a lawyer in the Justice Department who then took up a second career as an opera singer, treated us to an aria from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” The subject of that aria was, fittingly, planning vengeance for an untimely death!

Jayme Stevenson will update us on Darien’s plan to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

She has been first selectman since 2011 and has been a member of the Board of Selectmen since 2009. Jayme is vice-chair of the Western Connecticut Council of Governments, having served as chairman from 2017 until 2020, and has been chairman of the Southwestern Region Metropolitan Planning Organization since November, 2016. She is a board member and second vice-president of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, and board member and chairman of that organization’s municipal risk insurance agency, the Connecticut Inter-Local Risk Management Agency. Jayme has served on a variety of Darien nonprofit boards, including The Depot, the Darien Nature Center and the First Congregational Church Nursery School. She also was co-chair of the Parents’ Association for Royle Elementary School and co-president of the DHS Parents’ Association. She has been a member of the board of The Center for Sexual Assault and Crisis Counseling since 2017. Jayme and her husband have lived in Darien for 29 years and have five children and one grandchild. Her husband grew up in Darien and is a graduate of Darien High School.

Arranged by Mike Heitz

Bryan Hooper’s notes from the talk:

Two important subjects are currently top of mind for Jayme Stevenson, First Selectman of Darien, and she reviewed the current situation on covid-19 and policing, and her plans for both areas going forward.

The first US death from Covid-19 was determined to be on February 6^th in California, and the first case in Connecticut was diagnosed on 3/8/20 after the patient returned from a trip to California. By March 10^th, Governor Lamont had shut down the State, and three days later the President declared a national state of emergency. By 6/17/20 the USA had recorded 2.1 million cases, comprising 25% out of a worldwide total of 8.3 million, and 120 thousand have died out of a worldwide total of 440 thousand. Connecticut has had about 44,000 cases resulting in over 4,200 deaths. Darien cases total 202 to date with 5 deaths. The main cohort affected has been the 40 to 69-year-old age group: the last recorded case in Darien was 5/29/20.

Due to good adherence to health regulations and recommendations over the past three months, Connecticut now has around only 200 patients hospitalized and lockdown restrictions are gradually being eased in a coordinated manner between state and local governments. In fact, 6/17/20 marked the introduction of phase 2 that allows for opening of non-essential businesses with some restrictive guidelines in effect. Jayme thanked Mike Heitz, Gary Banks, Bob McGroarty and Bert von Stuelpnagel for their help working with smaller businesses in town to cope with shutdown and the re-start.

The First Selectman also pointed out the progress made in providing testing facilities at Darien High School, ensuring assisted living facilities were included in enforcing healthy protocols, and announced the opening of a new testing facility around 7/4/20 that will administer tests for both covid-19 infection and antibodies to the virus. Phase 3 of the re-opening of the State is scheduled for mid-July to open more establishments (including bars), but is conditional on continued progress being made with the earlier relief phases. The details of school openings remain unclear at this point and are dependent on improvements being maintained. Overall, vigilance is essential to monitor the situation and react appropriately.

Jayme was very positive on the policing front. She stated that Darien has a zero-tolerance policy for bad policing. The town administrators and the police department have already identified and implemented a number of best practices over time. As a result, they are regarded as being leaders in effective policing oriented to more tolerance and understanding of different cultures. Jayme’s future approach is to continue listening to ensure problems can be treated pre-emptively and to partner with the YWCA, religious communities and other interested parties to address racial inequalities.