2019 LUNCHEON SPEAKERS

Meeting: November 20, 2019

Speaker: Marc Berman, California Assemblymember

Topic: Update from Sacramento

Marc Berman was elected to the California Assembly in November 2016 to represent the 24th District, which includes southern San Mateo County and northern Santa Clara County in the heart of Silicon Valley.

In the Assembly, Marc serves as chair of the Committee on Elections and Redistricting and the Select Committee on the Census. He also chairs the Select Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education in California, which is taking a methodical review of the 1960 Master Plan to ensure that California’s higher education system works for students in the 21st century economy.

Marc has authored legislation in the Assembly covering a diversity of issues, including climate change, education, housing, and mental health. In the 2017-18 legislative session, 31 of Marc’s bills were passed by the Legislature and sent to the Governor.

Meeting: October 16, 2019

Speaker: Michael McFaul, Former Ambassador to the Russian Federation

Topic: From Cold War to Hot Peace

Ambassador Michael McFaul served for five years during the Obama administration in various national security roles and as Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012-2014. He is currently on the faculty at Stanford University serving as the Ken Oliver and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science. He is also a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

He makes frequent appearances as an analyst on NBC and is a contributing columnist for the Washington Post. His current research interests include American foreign policy, great power relations, and the relationship between democracy and development. He has written several books on international affairs. Most recently he has written a New York Times Bestseller, From Cold War to Hot Peace, An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia.

Ambassador McFaul has both a BA and MA from Stanford and as a Rhodes Scholar earned his Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.

Meeting: September 18, 2019

Speaker: Jason Largey, Senior Estate Planning Strategist, Personal Capital

Topic: Estate Planning Changes in the New Federal Tax Era

Planning for the distribution of our assets requires that we periodically review both our plans and recent changes in the tax laws. Our September speaker, Jason Largey comes to us from Denver with an outstanding background in estate planning and wealth management. He will address several issues including changes in the gift and estate tax laws, optimizing step up in basis through Community Property, leveraging Prop 13 laws, and charitable giving opportunities.

Jason is an estate planning lawyer and senior estate planning strategist at Personal Capital, an online financial adviser and personal wealth management company. Previously, he was a wealth strategist at Charles Schwab and a trust and estate attorney at Messner Reeves LLP, a premier national law firm.

Meeting: August 21, 2019

Speaker: Jason Baker, VP Silicon Valley Leadership Group

Topic: Facing Our Transportation and Traffic Challenges

Jason Baker is the Vice-President of Transportation, Housing & Community Development for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. In this role, he works with both public and private leaders throughout the region in order to shape decision-making related to transportation infrastructure, housing and related funding initiatives.

Prior to joining the Leadership Group, Jason served as Mayor of Campbell and on its City Council for eight years. As an elected official with a regional focus, Jason served on a dozen regional boards and commissions, including serving on the Boards of the Valley Transportation Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, The Santa Clara County Housing Task Force, and as board member and President of the Cities Association of Santa Clara County. He has worked to make the environment better, libraries more accessible, our first responders more respected and better prepared. In 2016-2017, Jason served as District Director for State Assembly member Hon. Evan Low.

Jason earned a BA in Political Science from UC Davis, and a JD Cum Laude from Santa Clara University School of Law.

Meeting: June 19, 2019

Speaker: Josh Selo, Executive Secretary, West Valley Community Services

Topic: Poverty, Hunger & Homelessness
in Silicon Valley

In the highly affluent communities where we live, few of us are aware of the number of our neighbors who struggle to afford the most basic necessities of life. In Santa Clara
County, there is a network of nonprofit organizations who work together to respond to these needs. Josh Selo is the Executive Director of one of these safety net organizations, West Valley Community Services, where he has served since 2016.

Josh has over 17 years of experience in nonprofit development, management and fundraising. Following earning his undergraduate degree from UC Santa Barbara, he obtained graduate degrees in both education and finance. He is an active member of Rotary and Kiwanis and is the current President of the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Silicon Valley.

He will provide us with information about the challenges in addressing these issues and tell us about the work that is being done in our communities to support those in need.

Meeting: May 15, 2019

Speaker: Tim Byars

Topic: Medical Cannabis for Elders

Our speaker for May will be Tim Byars, CEO of Radicle Health. Byars is co-founder of The Agathist Collective, a consulting and cannabis delivery service for seniors, and a founding member of Radicle Health, an organization dedicated to helping patients access medical cannabis. He worked for nearly 15 years for Oracle and PeopleSoft as an information architect, technical writer, and curriculum developer.

The goal of Radicle Health is to ensure that every cannabis patient receives medical advice from a knowledgeable and experienced health care practitioner. The company also works to empower the cannabis retail industry to provide the type of non-medical support that patients need to navigate the complexities of cannabis treatment.

During his presentation Tim will provide a brief overview of the history of cannabis use and the legal issues that drove it underground. He will explain how it works and the science behind medical applications of cannabis. He will share information on a number of specific age-related and chronic illnesses that are reduced or alleviated with medical cannabis.

Meeting: April 17, 2019

Speaker: Ed Wendler

Topic: Hospice Care – What You Need to Know

After serving four years in the Navy, Ed Wendler joined IBM where he experienced what he calls “The University of IBM”. During his 30 years at IBM, Ed got to experience leading edge technology development as it applied to IBM products and services.

For the last ten years, Ed has volunteered his time as an ambassador for Hospice of the Valley. He has found his most satisfying experiences have happened when he has been assigned to visit with military veterans during their final days. Listening to their stories and helping them relive favorite memories is a part of the way hospice caregivers provide support during difficult times.

What is hospice care? Who is eligible? Who pays for it? How does hospice care work? These are the questions that Ed will answer for us on April 17th.

Meeting: March 20, 2019

Speaker: Mitch Juricich, Bay Area Radio Celebrity

Topic: Hooked on Golf and Hooked on The Niners

Whether you are a golfer or not, be prepared for lots of laughs and merriment as Mitch shares his stories and antidotes from over twenty-five years of radio and TV broadcasting of major golf tournaments and Niner football shows. He promises to save plenty of time for your questions and his priceless answers. Mitch’s passion is golf, and to that end he created and wrote the concept for Hooked On Golf, a program seen on Fox Sports Net Bay Area, as well as heard in Northern California on radio’s KNBR 680. Sports Illustrated called the radio program ‘the most successful of the few golf radio shows in existence.’ Hosted by Mitch and John Abendroth, the show shared lots of inside information on the game of golf, its big names and a healthy dose of light-hearted fun. Hooked on The Niners, hosted by Mitch and friends, talked Niner football with the “we’ve never played or coached approach.”

Mitch holds memberships in the California Golf Writers Association, the Northern California Golf Association, the United States Golf Association, the Football Writers of America, and the local chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In 2001 he, along with his partner John Abendroth, was honored at the annual California Golf Writer’s Dinner at Pebble Beach with the prestigious “Good Guy Award”. In 2002, the Northern California Section of the PGA recognized Mitch and John as their “Media Representatives of the Year”.

Mitch currently lives on the peninsula with his wife of thirty-five years and their two children. Mitch has a 7.9 NCGA index and his favorite saying is: “That’s the way life was headin’ west”.

Meeting: February 20, 2019

Speaker: Stephen Wu, Attorney

Topic: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

Artificial intelligence and robotics will cause sweeping changes to society. Our speaker,
Stephen Wu, will cover the promise and threats of these technologies to business, jobs, personal lives, and society. He will also discuss the role of law and policy to support new these initiatives and, at the same time, to mitigate the potentially profound legal risks AI may cause and preserve fundamental legal values in the United States and worldwide.

His program will end with action steps that SIR members can take to stay current on AI and robotics, to follow technology changes in the news, to exercise leadership in the community, and to guide future generations of youth.

Stephen Wu is an attorney and shareholder with Silicon Valley Law Group
in San Jose. He advises clients on matters regarding the latest technologies
such as robotics, artificial intelligence, automated transportation, the
Internet of Things, and Big Data. His litigation practice includes resolving
information technology and intellectual property disputes. Steve graduated
from Harvard Law School and has served as the Chair of the American Bar
Association Section of Science & Technology Law. The American Bar
Association recently published his seventh book, A Guide to HIPAA Security
and the Law, Second Edition.

Meeting: January 16, 2019

Speaker: Bob Simon, SIR Honorary Life Member

Topic: Fleeting Rhyme – Poetry for the Rest of Us

A member of Branch 35 since 1999, Bob Simon has reacted poetically to the world around him for the last 50 years. His victims -uh, subjects – have included co-workers, family members, and local VIPs along with the rich and famous. A published poet, Bob’s verses currently appear regularly in the Los Altos Town Crier.

As our first speaker in the New Year, Bob will kick off 2019 with an assortment of poems that will reflect the interests—and foibles—of our members. He promises to recite his most dangerous poem, along with those found to have had the most appeal in his presentations to more than 100 audiences since the publication of his first (and only) book of poems in 2000. Bob admits to a willingness to rise to the occasion whenever he’s asked to put pen to paper for a good cause—be it to honor leading local volunteers or to seek poetic justice in the defeat of an offensive (to him) ballot measure. He currently shares Branch 35 speaker-topic parody responsibilities with David Skurnick. When asked what led him into a life of rhyme, Bob is at a loss. He was an Econ major in college and went on to earn his MBA and to serve as a pilot in the US Air Force. Now a library volunteer, he lives in Los Altos with his wife of 63 years and the two cats who have adopted them.

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