Monthly Meeting

April Meeting Topic: Beyond Bitcoin … Blockchain

Finola Annibella

Speaker:  Matt McClintock

Topic:  Beyond Bitcoin, Sorting through the Hype and Hope of Blockchain

Matt is a founding partner of Evergreen Legacy Planning, LLP, a national law firm based in Evergreen, Colorado. He helps affluent individuals and families manage their affairs privately in protective, tax-efficient structures. His practice focuses on innovative legal solutions for entrepreneurs, individuals with complex or unusual assets, and families seeking to preserve and protect wealth for future generations. He is a leader in designing and implementing creative legal solutions to maximize protection and privacy and minimize tax liability. Matt is admitted to practice law in Colorado, Wyoming, and Alaska, and often works with other attorneys as co-counsel for complex matters. (www.EvergreenLegacyPlanning.com). Matt was selected by his peers as a “Super Lawyers Rising Star” for his contributions to excellence and innovation in practice.

Matt especially enjoys working with individuals with unusual assets like closely-held businesses, cryptocurrency and other valuable digital assets, and other unique assets. His practice includes linking strategies from the most effective jurisdictions to give clients the best, most protective, tax efficient, and private structures available. A 20-year veteran of the estate planning and trust administration industry, Matt designs and implements creative legal strategies that help individuals preserve, protect, and ultimately pass on the stewardship, values, and humanity of who they are along with their financial wealth, however great or modest. His practice emphasizes long-term trust design & implementation,
asset protection, and strategic business planning and succession.

Matt is a member of the Colorado, Wyoming, and Alaska Bar Associations, WealthCounsel, and the Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners (STEP-Wyoming chapter). Matt speaks and writes frequently on a wide range of strategic legal topics. He volunteers his time as a member of the Governor’s Blockchain Council and as a member of the board of directors for Team Evergreen, a nonprofit cycling club that has donated more than $2 million to nonprofit organizations in Colorado and beyond.

Matt holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (Political Science) from the University of Central Oklahoma and a Juris Doctor from the University of Oklahoma College of law (2000). Matt lives in beautiful Evergreen, Colorado. He is married, and has two grown (and amazing) daughters who are pursuing their own dreams helping those who cannot help themselves. Matt is an avid cyclist and reader.

February Meeting Topic – Soles of a Survivor

Finola Annibella

Nhi Aronheim stands at only four feet, nine inches tall, but her story is immense.

Several anthologies including KENTUCKY WOMEN: TWO CENTURIES OF INDOMITABLE SPIRIT AND VISION, and the PBS documentary, VIETNAM 101, have profiled my harrowing journey as a child refugee who escaped war-torn Vietnam in search of the American dream.

Speaking very little English when Nhi arrived in Kentucky, she excelled in school and became valedictorian her senior year. She later earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Centre College in Danville, and a Master of Science degree in Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Nhi worked for four years as a telecommunications consultant for Lucent Technologies, during which time she met and married a Jewish man, and converted to Judaism in 2004. She has two beautiful children who she has raised to embrace Vietnamese and Jewish cultures.

After transitioning to sales and marketing in the mortgage industry—where she worked for over sixteen years—she retired from Citywide Home Loans as a marketing specialist, at the age of forty-one.

Next to her family, Nhi’s passion is to make a positive difference in people’s lives. She volunteers as a mediator for courts and the Better Business Bureau in Colorado, in addition to being an interpreter.

In 2013, Nhi earned a Black Belt in Taekwondo, fulfilling a promise she made to her birth mom—who wanted Nhi to learn karate before she left Vietnam—in the event she came under attack during her escape, she could protect herself.

Having come full circle from prosperity to poverty and back, Nhi hopes to encourage others to believe that in spite of overwhelming odds, they can survive any situation with a desire for improvement and the willingness to grasp opportunities in front of them.

NARRATIVE OVERVIEW

The soles of my feet still bear the scars of my horrific escape from Vietnam—where I trudged through the jungles of Cambodia at the age of twelve with a group of strangers. No experience, however, has influenced or enriched my life more than being adopted into a Christian family and later becoming a Jew.

In SOLES OF A SURVIVOR, I share my story of survival, resilience, hope, and faith in my quest to achieve the American dream.

Various articles, academic papers, and literary anthologies have focused on the experiences of Vietnam Boat People, but many of the one million refugees who fled my country’s oppressive communist regime find it too painful to share their stories in depth. I too refused to relive my traumatic experiences for almost three decades—until now.

Through SOLES OF A SURVIVOR, I fill an essential gap for understanding the adversity Vietnam refugees endured from the perspective of a young child; the experience of being adopted into a household of a different culture; and the joys of interfaith marriage.

September Speaker: Jeff Weist, Lobbyist

Carey Madsen

Jeff Weist is a professional lobbyist who has spent 20 years assisting his clients in all aspects of government relations, including strategic planning, lobbying, political fundraising, coalition building, grassroots and communications.

Jeff believes he has the best job in the world, turning his passion for crafting public policy into a lifetime profession helping his clients navigate the often byzantine maze of government.   

Jeff has been interested in public policy since high school. He continued those pursuits in college at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he majored in Political Science, and acted as Managing Editor of the Georgetown Guardian newspaper.

During his tenure in Washington, DC, Jeff served as Legislative Director for U.S. Representative Dan Schaefer (R-CO).  He advised the Congressman on economic, telecommunications, budget, utility, tax and banking issues and had the privilege of playing a leading role in the first major re-write of the nation’s telecommunications laws in 60 years, as well as crafting groundbreaking utility regulation and tax reform legislation.

After coming home to his native Colorado, Jeff was Director of State Government Affairs for AT&T Broadband, the nation’s largest cable television company, as well as its predecessor company, Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI). In that role, he oversaw legislative affairs and coordinated lobbying efforts region and nationwide.

From AT&T, he graduated to contract lobbying in 2002, and is proud to have cultivated more than decade-long relationships with many of his clients. From major corporations, medium and small businesses, trade associations to nonprofits, Jeff understands the needs of business owners and membership driven organizations alike.

Despite his passion for his work, Jeff tries hard to lead a balanced life that centers on his two teenage boys. Together, they enjoy a wide range of very fun hobbies, including: fly-fishing, shooting, skiing and high-powered rocketry.  Jeff is a Boy Scout Assistant Scoutmaster, and former Cub Scout Cubmaster.  Jeff has also volunteered on numerous boards including the Denver Art Museum Asian Art Association and the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry.

May Speaker – Andrew Wien, The Dynamic Leadership Center

INTRO TO MINDFULNESS
Modern science has shown that the brain is malleable. What we think, do, and pay attention to changes the structure and function of our brains. Mindfulness is a way to change the wiring of our brains for the better. With training, you can improve focus and productivity, strengthen communication and relationships, better manage difficult experiences, and increase resilience. Come learn what mindfulness is and how it can help you do just that!

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
What mindfulness is and the latest neuroscience supporting it  How your brain typically performs at work, and whether or not that is effective  Quick, simple exercises to start incorporating mindfulness into your routines

ABOUT ANDREW
Andrew founded the Dynamic Leadership Center to help his generation be more productive at work. He believes that small tweaks in how we use our brain can fundamentally change our work performance, effectiveness of relationships, and overall fulfilment. (Oh, and make companies more profitable too).

Andrew’s background makes him uniquely suited to have an impact. He …
* is a millennial — he grew up during 9/11, does not carry cash, and is dependent on a charged cell phone
* has a depth of business experience — he excelled at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he saw a stark contrast between how BCG and their clients motivated and engaged their workforce
* is active in shaping the mindfulness community — he collaborates with leading experts to create content, facilitates sessions in companies and his community, and has a dedicated practice of his own.

In his free time, Andrew seeks out endurance/adrenaline sports (i.e. setting hard goals for no apparent reason) and meditation (i.e. sitting in excruciatingly uncomfortable positions for mind numbing lengths of time).

TESTIMONIALS
“It so easy to lose perspective in the workplace, like these deadlines or emails…. And it was a good way to regain perspective.” 

“It helps you make better decisions, and those decisions led to better outcomes.”

“It has made me more patient, more empathetic, more able to see things through other’s eyes.”

March Speaker: Rosalie Chamberlain, Dimensions of Diversity

Rosalie Chamberlain is the Director of Rosalie Chamberlain Consulting & Coaching. She is skilled leadership and executive coach and consultant, having worked with a broad range of corporate, government, and private industries, both national and international. Additionally, she is a nationally recognized speaker and program facilitator. Rosalie has more than 18 years of coaching experience working with individuals and groups on leadership development, team building, talent management, career transitions, and helping organizations become successful and inclusive environments.

She specializes in helping leaders obtain leadership mastery and enhance or develop critical skills that maximize the talent of the workforce of their organization, as well as identify and understand any potential blocks and beliefs that hinder progress.

Rosalie specializes in leadership assessment and effectiveness, multicultural competencies, leadership influence, talent management, organizational culture and managing and leveraging diverse talent. She has unique experience with respect to organizational culture, having worked with multicultural organizations with complex diversity and inclusion challenges to develop and implement strategies, behaviors and best practices for building inclusive organizations.

She is the author of Conscious Leadership in the Workplace: A Guidebook to Making a Difference One Person at a Time (2016). Rosalie is a contributor to The New York Times, HR News Magazine (International Public Management Association for Human Resources), Strategic HR Review, Talent Executive, Chief Learning Officer, ABCNews.com, Onward Nation, Strategy Driven, Recalculating: 97 Experts on Driving Small Business Growth, Center Valley Business Times, American Diversity Report, as well as multiple national and international blogs.