ABOUT BRIAN
Here are some things about me.
I was born in Manhattan Hospital in April
of 1956.
I am a vegetarian, practice Bhakti Yoga and believe in reincarnation.
I grew up in the township of Huntington,
Long Island and moved to Dobbs Ferry, New York when I was 12.
Thanks to my Dad, I shook hands with Senator
Robert Kennedy at the FAO Schwartz toy store on 5th Avenue.
I was a campaign volunteer for Eugene McCarthy
for President in 1968 when I was 12.
I got my first job in 1971 at Blimpies
sandwich shop on Delancy Street in NYC and also worked as a Fuller
Brush salesman in Manhattans garment district.
I have spent 5 years living in Boston and
5 years living in Buffalo.
On May 1, 1977 I was one of 2,000 Clamshell Alliance activists, trained in
nonviolent civil disobedience and organized in "affinity
groups that occupied the Seabrook, N.H. nuclear power plant
construction site. 1,414 of us were arrested. I spent 12 wonderful
days in the Somerset National Guard armory until the state could
not afford to hold us anymore.
In 1980, I was a member of the Studio 10
Rock Coop on Bleecker Street in NYC and an organizer with Rock
Against Racism USA.
I have an award from the Red Cross for
helping to save a life using their CPR training.
In 1986 I finished the San Francisco Marathon
in 4 hours and 4 minutes.
In May of 1986 I ran in Sport Aid, a massive event with 20 millions
runners across the five continents, 78 countries and 274 cities.
$100 million was raised for famine relief in Africa, with $45
million brought in from a global television special that reached
750 million people.
I have developed a social business plan
inspired by Sport Aid called Human Race Day.
In 1987, I graduated from the Delancey Street Foundation. I was the top
salesperson in their School of Marketing. For example, I sold
400,000 buttons and balloons for the launch of the California
Lottery, 500,000 buttons, flags and arm bands for Hands Across
America, and promotional advertising / gift products for Bank
of America, Kaiser Permanente, Winterland Productions and Bill
Graham Presents.
I was a volunteer with the Rock
Medicine Unit of the Haight Asbury Free Clinic for 5 years.
I am a clean and sober person
that works for drug policy reform and to end marijuana prohibition.
I worked for Bill Graham as the Greeter
at the Fillmore until it was closed by the earthquake in 1989.
I was once the manager for Chester D.,
a left handed from Louisiana 80-year-old bluesman.
I got Chester recorded by Blue Jazz Records, and booked at the
Fillmore twice where he opened the shows for Greg Allman and
John Mayhall.
I was one of the producers of the 1988
Soviet American Peace Walk Concert in Golden
Gate Park to commemorated the end of a coast to coast U.S.-Soviet
peace walk.
I have organized, trained and deployed
hundreds of Safety Monitors for security at Peace
Jobs and Justice marches and rallies of 75,000 to 150,000
people in San Francisco between 1986 and 1991.
In 1991 I was a founding member of Business
Partnership for Peace, hired as the first full time sales person
for Give
Something Back, and started the East Bay chapter of Business
for Social Responsibility.
In 1992 I started organizing with RESULTS on creating global political will
to end extreme poverty. I organized annual press conferences
for UNICEFs State of The Worlds
Children Reports (several
with Nancy Pelosi) as part of a ten-year campaign to achieve
the goals of the 1990 UN World Summit for Children.
In 1994, working with Joseph Goldin and the Unity Foundation, I
organized a live two-way television Space Bridge
between artist festivals in Sarajevo and San Francisco. This
was part of a series of videoconferences focused on citizens
peace building initiatives to the city of Sarajevo, which was
under the siege of war.
In 1995 I organized a technology expo as
part of the UNITY95 International Culture and Technology Festival
for the 50th Anniversary of the UN in San Francisco. We showcased
the World Wide Web using 28.8 modems, Witness human rights videos,
IBM AutoCAD software rebuilding the Dresden Cathedral, a PictureTel
videoconference to Cape Town South Africa and a Buckminster Fuller
flys eye dome.
In 1996 working for Ken Margolis, I proposed
and sold the first beyond the banner Internet advertising
campaign to Microsoft for the Launch of Office 97. It linked
to a behind-the-scenes page with the publisher and editor of
Gampen.com using Office 97 for their web publishing business.
In 1998 I was the Corporate Relations Manager
for the Association
of Internet Professionals.
During the Internet boom days in San Francisco
from 1997 to 2001, I organized the monthly SF
Web Business Mixer, and the Internet and Music Business Mixer.
I produced 415TECH
a large regional IT networking event from 1999 to 2001 and published
the San Francisco's Dot Com Directory
in August of 2000.
For many years I worked with Premium Network,
the Save Earth Foundation and major market radio stations to
produce a nationwide live on-air Earth
Day Auction of autographed guitars from the world's most
well known rock artists.
In 2004 I produced a report
on the U.S. concert industry and concert-rally opportunities
for the Dean for America campaign. Working for Music
for America I arranged for voter registration and information
tables to be set up at over 50 nightclub shows in ten states
during the Super Tuesday democratic primaries.
In 1992 after candidate Bill Clinton said
in his Rolling Stone interview that Muhammad Yunus, founder of
the Grameen
Bank and RESULTS board member, should be given a Nobel
Prize, I started working with RESULTS leaders to make it
happen. I got the got the original how to information
on the Nobel Committee process from the Norwegian Consulate for
the RESULTS Board. Presidents and national government leaders
are among the few that can make Nobel prize nominations year
after year. When President Clinton left office, Senator Hillary
Clinton took over the annual nomination submission. In 2005 I
got Professor Yunus booked on to the Charlie Rose Show for a
full hour interview. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 2006
jointly to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank.
In 2005 I started organizing with the ONE
Campaign and the Make Poverty History white band movement. From
2006 to 2010 I organize annual Stand Up events for the UN Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) in San Francisco. In October 2009, we joined 173,045,325
citizens gathered at 3,000 events in 120 countries standing up
and demanding that their governments eradicate extreme poverty
and achieve the MDGs. The Stand Up holds the Guinness World Record
as the largest mobilization of human beings in history.
Since 2006 I have been organizing the annual
National
Labor-Community Awards summit in San Francisco.
In 2009 I became a founding member of the
Impact Hub
in both Berkeley and San Francisco.
In 2008 and 2010 I organized Green Labor-Capital Forums at Delancey Streets
Town Hall focused on using public employee pension funds and
union pension funds to create green jobs and a better world.
I am now developing this into a high-level two-day conference
focused on using the power of Labor's Capital, Capital Strategies,
Impact Investing and Union Coops for a better world.
In 2014 and 2015 I provided strategic services
to the Mission Housing Development Corporation for their successful
bid to develop 1950
Mission Street as green afforable housing.
I am the founder and general manager of
Better World Associates
a small agency focused on connecting world class professionals
and clients to build a better world.
My world view is based on Buckminster Fuller's
philosophy of using personal commitment and design science for
problem solving and the sustainable success of humanity.
The 1-415-243-8900 is my mobile phone number.
I always have my phone with me and answer it if I am not in a
meeting, at the movies, in the shower or sleeping.
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