Members of the year

Guenter is the true American Dream. He immigrated to the United States in 1951 from Hanover, Germany where he finished his education and began his entrepreneurial path. In 1971 he opened Mutual Tool & Design Co. where he produces, until this day, plastic parts for gauging. Guenter prides himself on the reputation he has built for his business over the past, almost 50 years in regards to craftsmanship, quality standards and excellent customer service. He believes very strongly in working closely with his customers to create the highest standard of product. Guenter has a fascinating hobby of genealogy that he readily uses to trace his family's lineage. He has been able to successfully trace his family, as well as his lovely wife's family, back to the 1500's. Guenter speaks at genealogical societies and libraries on his vast experiences with this as well as the process and proper recording of the documents. He fluently speaks German and English and this has helped him in his successful tracking of records of his family history.

Carole J. Kuhn, Ph.D is a Fairfield Senior High School Retired Foreign Language Teacher. Dr. Kuhn received her Ph.D from Miami University. Her career with Fairfield Senior High spanned from 1958 to 1992. During that time she acted as the Head of the Foreign Language Department and taught English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Dr. Kuhn also holds a Certificate in Library Science. She began traveling in foreign countries in 1958 and completed 45 trips throughout Europe, the Far East, and Africa. In 2013, she published a book entitled "Memoires of a Travelholic,” which entails many of her travels as a foreign language teacher. In 2014, she revised the book, adding more detailed information. When she retired in 1992, Dr. Kuhn took up knitting and specialized in Modular Knitting. She had 9 of her modular knitwear designs published in InKnitters Magazine, until it went out of business. She then turned her attention to decorating ready-made purses by attaching her modular designs to them and  published her newly decorated purses in a book, "Pursnicketies - A Modular Knitwear Experience." She now gives workshops on how to use modular knitting to its best advantage. Dr. Kuhn volunteers at The Institute for Learning in Retirement, Miami University, as well as Berkley Square, teaching foreign language to children in kindergarten, teaching French to adults, and teaching knitting. You can purchase your copy of "Memoires of a Travelholic" by following the link: http://bookstore.authorhouse.com/AdvancedSearch/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=MEMOIRES%20OF%20A%20TRAVELHOLIC

Carol Cox is an experienced Treasury Management/Solutions Sales VP. She assists organizations with streamlining their accounts payable and account receivable process. Carol's main goal is to work with clients and move them toward greater automation of invoices, receipts and payments. Carol frequently speaks at conferences,seminars, webinars and podcasts. She enjoys international travel and classifies herself as a history buff. Fort Worth Association of Financial Professionals; Junior Achievement; TEXPO 2016 Fort Worth Treasurer; Dallas Association for Financial Professionals, National Automated Clearinghouse (NACHA) and Southwest Automated Clearinghouse (SWACHA); National Association of Financial Professionals (AFP); Alliance for Children; Certified Treasury Professional (CTP)

Rebecca Bales is the Senior Vice President at The Camden Group, a healthcare management and consulting company. Ms. Bales currently specializes in hospital operations and transactions, focusing on hospital turnarounds, interim management, labor management, and operations improvement. She enjoys sharing her extensive experience on improving hospital operations by leading seminars for multiple hospitals as well as publishing articles on the topic. In addition, Ms. Bales has become an expert in Health Care Finance and Appraisals. Not only is she an Accredited Senior Appraiser in the American Society of Appraisers and a member of the Institute of Business Appraisers and the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts, but she has also taught a graduate level course on Health Care Finance. Ms. Bales possesses a true passion for health care and has become an expert in her field.

Bernardo has an immense amount of experience in the IT industry. For almost 25 years Bernardo has successfully run High Tech Computer Solutions. He has focused his business mainly on the IT service industry but over the last 10-12 years has swayed over to the security aspect of technology. Bernardo has cornered his market in Mexico City offering top of the line home security equipment. Over the next 4-5 years Bernardo is looking to partner with a major camera manufacturer in efforts to develop a hybrid home camera security system. Bernardo has the drive and passion to accomplish any feat he puts his mind to.

After a long and award filled career as Project Manager and Project Director with ARCO and Fluor, Rick finds himself working with ABB, first in Houston and now in Zurich, Switzerland as Corporate Project Director - Large Projects. Rick says the key to his success has been his ability to stay flexible, while never turning down the new challenges that presented themselves in the ever evolving global world of energy management.

Demetrios Velis was born in Athens, Greece and qualified in Biology and Medicine in the United States of America. He received his postgraduate medical training in the US and in The Netherlands. Dr. Velis is a board-certified neurologist and clinical neurophysiologist, a member of the American Epilepsy Society, the Dutch Chapter of the ILAE, and of the Dutch Professional Societies of Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology. He is past president and currently member of the clinical neurophysiology section of the international League Against Epilepsy's Diagnostic Methods Commission (ILAE DMC.)

Kyle has been an Agency Director at the Denver, Colorado Liberty National Life Insurance office since August 2014. He started working for Liberty National Life Insurance in August 2013 and then got promoted to supervisor within a couple of months. He is interested in networking with other professionals in the Insurance industry. Kyle has a few goals in mind, within 12-18 months he would like to be the first to open an office in California for Liberty National Life Insurance and within 5 years he would like to open a 2nd office in California and expand to a different office. Kyle enjoys skiing in the mountains and exercising on his spare time.

Doug Abrahams is a man you should know. An accomplished actor with more than 133 film credits, he is also a Dialect Coach to the many of Hollywood's finest actors and actresses. Now a new vision for his dialect coaching is available thru Skype, Webinars and one on one training to become an effective speaker with no jitters to ever think about. Doug has worked on a great many Film and Television projects in Vancouver, Toronto, New York and LA both as an Actor and as a Dialect/Acting Coach. (Check IMDB for updates) Most recently coaching on 'Elysium'...a Matt Damon movie! The new 'Seventh Son' big budget feature starring Jeff Bridges, plus many more. On the Acting side he just finished an appearance in the new Nickolas Cage film, 'Army of One', and is currently working on a new movie called 'Christmas Truce'. Doug has been a professional actor since 1972. 133 Film credits bear his name. He is currently living and working in the Film & TV industry in Vancouver, BC. and is considered one of the top dialect coaches in Vancouver. He has had the honor of acting with or coaching many well known actors from around the globe. Doug can change the vision of how you appear in public. For the high profile public speaker this is the man to empower you to greatness. With a pedigree background as an actor he has the distinct advantage in making you what you should be in the public eye and give you the tools to make public speaking a way of life rather than a hindrance to your job function. To those that need a coach for public speaking get in touch with Doug and let him design a full empowering program that he can master through Skype or Webinars or one on one at any location.

Dr. Paul S. Steels is an extremely accomplished Renal Physiology expert and a distinguished Professor Emeritus of University Hasselt Belgium. Originally appointed in 1976, he became emeritus in 2010. When Dr. Steels started out, he was going to pursue a career in engineering, but decided to study medicine, the conduct lab research in physiology, and ultimately decided to go into the kidney field. He wanted to study medicine because of his interest in research in the medical world, and never actually saw patients, but went immediately into research. Indeed, Dr. Steels dedicated his research on renal physiology, then going onto Yale. At the time, the department was really well known in the transport of electrolytes, so his research evolved from there. He received his Post doctorate degree in Cell Physiology from Yale University School of Medicine in 1975, and graduated summa cum laude with his Doctor of Medicine (MD) in Cell Physiology at THE Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) in 1970. He continued there in Physiology until 1973, and then spent from 1973-75 at Yale. His primary of expertise is in Renal Physiology, and he has conducted extensive research studying the kidney function in different animals. Dr. Steels has taught about 3500 students, conducting quarterly examinations over his 34 years of teaching. His instruction included courses and lectures in human physiology and pathophysiology (cardiovascular, kidney and electrolytes, lung and GI tract) for medical and dentistry students, as well as for biomedical sciences. He has also mentored about 20 PhD students. Many of his students went into academics and became professors. Indeed, the education Dr. Steels received in Belgium, then in States, was very well-rounded. In the U.S., a different methodology was employed, including more discussions, several seminars, and he learned a lot from daily discussions. Dr. Steels has been published in several journals, including for the American Society of Nephrology, of which he is a member. He is also part of the American Physiological Society, the Kidney International Society, and the Belgium Society of Physiology and Pharmacology. Dr. Steels was also trained in electrophysiology of epithelial tissues (Necturus proximal tubule) by Dr. Emile Boulpaep, and was also involved in Multiple Sclerosis research using oligodendrocyte cultures and lymphocytes. He was also able to obtain grant with a friend in Germany, which enabled them to do other research projects through two universities in Germany, one in Spain, and one in Belgium, and specifically a science project with 4 labs on the transport of electrolytes in Malpighian tubulus of insect. A majority of his study has focused on the transport of electrolytes in insects, most significantly in the ant. He became interested in the difficulties of acute kidney failure, and focused as well on the electrolyte transfer in mitochondria in kidney cells. Dr. Steels served as a member of several committees in the faculty of medicine at the University of Hasselt and as Dean for 11 years, and was also a member of the National Medical Science Foundation of Belgium (French section) for 10 years. Going forward, Dr. Steels would like to network, especially with other doctors and researchers in America. He is also keen to continue working together with people at the clinic, as they're interested in heart failure, and he is interested in continuing work on epidemiology of heart. diseases , mainly heart failure, in Congo ( RDC ) as he has a project running to study the epidemiology of heart failure among black people, analyzing why some die around 50 years of age, which is far too early. Specifically, Dr. Steels wants to network with American people to get additional funding for that research. Dr. Steels lives in the Dutch speaking area of Belgium with his wife, who is also a medical doctor and dermatologist, and they have 3 children. Thus, they went back to Belgium so he could go into lab research, and she could focus on clinical work. As Hasselt was a small university, he had to start from scratch. Ultimately, it took him 10 years to start up everything, then he was able to resume his research in full. The languages Paul speaks fluently include Flemish, French, and English, and he also understands German. In his spare time, he enjoys swimming, biking, and reading, especially history and renal physiology. He and his wife love attending films and the theater. Dr. Steels is also a Lions member.

Christian Nwankwo is the medical director for Capital Primary Care, Inc for over 20 years. He is fluent in both English and Igbo. Eighty percent of Christian's job is patient care and the other twenty percent are administrative duties where he is running the day to day business of the medical practice. In addition, Christian has been an Associate Professor at Howard University Medical School for over 17 years. Christian has his father to thank for influencing him to go into the medical field as well as his childhood friend who took him off the streets of Nigeria and brought him into the Church where he joined the Choir and let his parents and God lead him in down the right path. In the near future Christian is looking forward to using his knowledge in Diabetes, Hypertension and Coronary Artery Disease to write books and articles to help other people to further understand these diseases. Christian is honored that his patients have put their trust and faith in him as a physician and have been coming to him for their medical help for over 15 years. In addition Christian is extremely proud of his three children who are following in his footsteps and are currently enrolled in medical school.

Steve A. Horn, BA, BLS, Dip. L.D., worked for the Yukon Government for 20 years as Chief Legislative Counsel & Senior Legislative Counsel demonstrating expertise in drafting over 100 pieces of legislation. Steven is a master of writing land legislation and enjoyed working on projects as a deputy registrar of land titles. He wrote considerable legal opinions, informed cabinet and government departments and designed and prepared a large number of enactments. Beside drafting and writing legislation, Steven is a published author, most notably, of "The Courtwatchers Handbook." He was appointed Justice of the Peace by the Yukon government and he served as Secretary of the Board of YKNet, the Yukon's first non-profit internet service provider. On his spare time, Steven enjoys land planning, playing bridge and gardening.

Robert Findlay has been practicing law for 39 years. Upon earning his LLB from Dalhousie University, he began his career working for an insurance company handling their defense. He soon realized that he would prefer to help the victim instead of the companies and form his own practice. Findlay Personal Injury Lawyers is a family oriented firm, which is a multidisciplinary law firm made up of lawyers and licensed members of provincial health disciplines dedicated to delivery of legal and health care services to injured persons. Robert's beliefs are that the client comes first and communication between the attorneys and clients is top priority. With the advent of new legal concerns within the Ontario insurance field, Robert is ahead of the game, and continues to modify how his firm conducts business, to assure that his clients are getting the best settlements. Each client is treated as an individual. As an attorney, Robert says that he is extremely proud of being involved in several ground breaking cases. One case is a trial that earned the highest punitive damage award in Ontario, at the time it was decided and another is when he successfully won the largest libel award for a non-named plaintiff in a non-trial case. Robert is a member of several professional organizations, including: American Association of Justice, Ontario Trial Lawyers Association and the Melvin Belli Association (which is an invitation only group). He is an avid skier and is a sponsor of the Canadian Football League's Tiger Cats. Robert is also a member of the John Howard Society. He has been published in several local publications and has presented at several conferences and seminars.

Roseanne Bell is a graduate of Kean University and the president of Bellwether Design LL of Tulsa, Ok, a successful, high-quality interior architect and design company, who specializes in high-tech corporate environments. While doing business in the US, UK, El Salvador, China and India, Roseanne's award winning designs focus on the needs of corporate briefing centers and customer-facing space that incorporates Audio Visual design. She realized early in her career that her unbeaten contributions resulted from her ability to learn and comprehend a different design set by artfully implementing the 'concierge' mentality. Throughout any given year, she frequently lectures for the Association of Briefing Program Managers and for the American Society of Interior Designers. On her spare time she enjoys cooking and being involved in animal welfare.

Michael started his education by studying theatre and film. Michael then discovered he was interested in the history of science, systems theory, and the brain. He distinctly remembers the moment he decided that mathematics would change and enlighten his life, while reading the book "Brains, Machines and Mathematics" by Michael A. Arbib. Michael's curiosity and passion to learn inspired him to pursue his extensive education of mathematics. After obtaining his PhD, Michael worked in the labs of two Nobel laureates at Rockefeller University, researching computational neuroscience and computational biology. His studies of complexity theory led him to move from academia to Wall Street, where he worked as a quantitative strategist until the crisis of 2008. At Credit Suisse, Michael works in "People Analytics", building predictive models to better understand the human capital portfolio. Michael is frequently asked to speak at conferences as an expert in this area, most recently in Singapore and London. Michael has also authored and published a book of poems, "The Rise And Fall Of The Mind", and has written two Off-Broadway musicals.

Craig has amassed a wealth of experience in the government and military sector. He has worked in the U.S. Air Force/California Air National Guard, and as a Judge for Superior Court of California, General Counsel for California Department of Fish and Game, Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife & Parks for U.S. Department of the Interior, Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, Senior Policy Advisor for Hunton & Williams and in other fields. Craig attributes his success to his hard work and dedication and his ability to preserve through hard times. He now enjoys helping the environment and maintaining the earth we all live on from sea to sea.

Dr. Arlene Mazak's responsibilities prioritize listening closely to clients and helping them cope with the various professional concerns and relational issues they may be experiencing. She does this through offering management consulting, coaching, and psychotherapy, in person and in telesessions. In her global management consultancy, Dr. Mazak brings together her training in organizational development and transformation with her expertise in South Asian civilizations, East-West cultural psychologies, global diversity and inclusion, integral models, intercultural communications, world religions, and extensive experiences in Europe and Asia. In her business Innercall, Dr. Mazak offers life, career and relationship coaching, spiritual direction, and psychotherapy. She not only uses the principles of psychodynamic psychotherapy, but is also skilled in transpersonal psychotherapy which is a method of helping her clients to heal and transform themselves utilizing their personal spiritual values as part of their therapy. She is naturally empathetic and intuitive, sensitive to the needs of her clients, which assists in helping her guide them to the solutions and healing they seek. She is also an Interfaith/ interspiritual Spiritual Director or Spiritual Companion. This gives her the ability to aid and listen to the spiritual journey of her clients, who may not have mental health issues, but may just need someone with whom to share their spiritual journey, especially if it crosses traditions and cultures or has disturbing energetic experiences included in it. Dr. Mazak's own spiritual journey has crossed several religious and cultural lines which enables her to be non-judgmental as she listens to the spiritual experiences of a client base with various backgrounds that cross religious and cultural divides. In June, 2016 Dr. Mazak will be ordained by One Spirit Interfaith Seminary. She intends to marry her experience as a coach, graduate school professor of psychology and world religions, psychotherapist and intercultural communications trainer to bring her ministry to issues of social justice, and to work in various ways as a conscious activist for a better world. She will also be available to global corporations for facilitating visioning and long-range planning retreats based on the principles of conscious capitalism and shared higher values bridging religious and cultural spheres of influence. Dr. Mazak will also be a cross-cultural mediator, facilitate conflict resolution and promote peace building techniques, first in her home area in L.A. County, CA that is rich with immigrant communities, and then globally. Dr. Mazak seeks to network with her esteemed colleagues and to share with them opportunities for growth and development both personally and professionally through the various successful techniques she employs. One of the techniques she is particularly fond of is utilizing three professional-level astrology systems for gaining insight into psychotherapy and coaching issues. As Carl Jung discovered, carefully developed astrological analyses can be quite accurate despite the skepticism which some may have of this particular methodology. One of her proudest accomplishments is the fact that she has obtained either a full tuition scholarship or fellowship from the time she entered high school to the point where she earned her Ph.D. She is quite grateful for the investment people made in her throughout her educational career. Another profound aspect of her life is her amazement by the anomalous experiences which occurred with saints while living and traveling in India. "It really altered my perceptions of reality" she expressed when asked the question of what she was most proud of professionally. Dr. Mazak is an extremely accomplished individual who continues to seek higher heights and deeper depth through her never-ending study of the methodologies available to help her fellow humans, not only on a professional level but also for their spiritual development She endeavors to help heal wounded individuals and guide them to becoming whole individuals thorough her efforts. She has profound respect for every culture and spirituality, and reaches out to understand her clients by opening herself up to actually discover the cause of their distress and help them to transform it.

Dr. Brown is a highly recognized psychiatrist and Psychopharmacologist who specializes in offering patients diagnostic and psychopharmacological evaluations and consultations. A sought-after psychopharmacological consultant to other physicians, psychiatrists, and non-M.D. mental health practitioners across the country, she also provides ongoing medication treatment for patients throughout the United States and abroad. With more than twenty years of experience as a clinical Psychopharmacologist. She has published and presented over 100 scientific papers, book chapters, and books. Currently, Dr. Brown maintains two offices in Connecticut, one in Milford and the other in Westport. Closely affiliated with the medical community, she also works collaboratively with individual non-M.D. psychotherapists in treating patients. A significant component of her practice also involves providing diagnostic evaluations and second opinion assessments. She has considerable experience with developing effective medication/treatment regimens for treatment-refractory patients living in the tri-state area and beyond. Dr. Brown earned her Bachelors Degree from Reed College, her M.S., M. Phil. and Ph.D. from Yale University, her M.D. from University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and completed her medical training (internship, residency, and biological scientist training program fellowship) at the Yale University School of Medicine. On her spare time she enjoys raising show horses.

Barbara B. Kavanagh, MSW, is the Founder and CEO of the Arizona Myeloma Network (AzMN), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, started in 2004 as a grassroots cancer awareness, education and advocacy organization to support patients like Barbara's husband, so they do not have to fight this disease alone. Multiple Myeloma is a rare and often misdiagnosed bone marrow cancer that strikes 2200 people in the U.S. each year. It is not curable, but thanks to earlier diagnosis and new research, many patients will live longer and have a better quality of life. In 2005, AzMN held the first Annual Living with Myeloma Conference and Research Roundtable in Arizona. This free conference now attracts over 350 patients and families, as well as leading myeloma researchers, clinicians, and healthcare professionals. Under Barbara's leadership, AzMN has developed a number of new cancer education programs, including: ? Tissue Donor Awareness Program, TDAP

In 1951, the Korean war was beginning. I was forced by my parents to change my application to Cornell from Bachelor of Arts to Engineering, because they feared that I would be drafted. I endured three terms of Mechanical Engineering and left school. I returned in the fall as a student in the Unclassified Division. After about two months of that I realized that I had not the slightest idea of what I was doing at Cornell, so I made a decision for myself, probably the first decision of my life, that I was going to quit school and VOLUNTEER TO BE DRAFTED, which I did and entered the service in March 1954. I served two years and returned to Cornell in Jan 1956, taking advantage of an "early release" program that the Army had for those students who wanted to leave the service to attend college or get into some seasonal employment. I was fortunate that I was sent to Europe, only because a friend of mine, took my spot, which would have sent me to the Far East, because he lived in the state of Washington and would be able to visit home, which he could not have afforded to do, otherwise, even though it meant that he would be sent on to Korea. FATE was playing on my side, because while at Cornell in Jan 1956 I met the girl who was to be the "love of my life" in 1993, when I married her after earlier being married in 1961 and later divorced in 1983. FATE once again played on my side. In 1958, after graduating from Cornell, I entered the family business, which I had always felt I was going to do. However, another member of the family just a little older than me, had already begun working in the business and after a while, I felt that there was no real future there for me, so I quit and went to the financial business, as many other young guys were doing. It was a "growth" business, then, even though the "growth" aspect has become much less apparent, more recently. So for the last 50 years or so, I have been in the financial arena. Wow, it doesn't seem that it has been that long, but it has been. So through good and bad, mostly good, I have managed to get where I am. My business partner and I, (a terriffic female partner), have managed to make compliance, administration and financial affairs in the brokerage industry a very interesting and satisfying endeavor. We now have our own brokerage firm and are pursuing opportunities in the area of companies which are creating new sources of fuel, power and energy and at the same time, conserving resources and helping the environment. It is very exciting to be on the leading edge of this new industry.