RE LOG - Spring 2017

52 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2017 Class Meg Daly and a host of RE friends won $50 million in promised support from the City of Miami last September for an urban trail and parks project known as The Underline, bringing it closer to its goal of breaking ground in the fall of 2017. Daly, the President and CEO of Friends of The Underline, has spearheaded the project that is intended to turn the land below Miami’s Metrorail from Dadeland South Station to the Miami River into a 10-mile linear park, urban trail and living art destination “This is a huge demonstra- tion of public support for this transforma- tive project,” Daly said. “From the county, state, cities and DOT, we are overwhelmed by the positive feedback and support.” Many RE alums have contributed; among the most notable: Debi Wechsler ’78 , board member and chair of art advisory for Friends of The Underline; Arden Karson ’80 , executive committee board member and development chair for Friends of The Underline; Georgia Penn Noble ’74 , development committee member; Rudy Prio Touzet ’76 , chair of the RE Board of Trustees and Banyan Street Capital, Brickell Backyard Founder; Leslie Miller Saiontz ’77 , donor; and Raymond Fort ’06 , Friends of The Underline Young Professionals. Shari Sirkin Kaplan writes, “I’ve been in volunteer administration for the past 30 years and currently am directing an exciting and extremely meaningful program at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York called C.A.R.E. (Care and Respect for Elders in Emergencies). I’ve just hit our five-year anniversary, and have countless heartwarming stories to share. Moreover, the program has received much national and international interest. In brief, I am a social worker with expertise in geriat- rics and train primarily young student volunteers to work bedside with geriatric (65 years and above) patients who are making emergency department visits. We’ve published our preliminary findings, and know that simple person-to-person comfort can help prevent many avoidable complications typically associated with Notes elder visits to the ED (falls, delirium, anxi- ety, inappropriate medication). In countless cases, we have seen how a person actually can be more powerful than medication (e.g., a patient who declines pain medication after being comforted by a C.A.R.E. volunteer). The program has been so successful, Mount Sinai has just given major hospital funding so we can replicate the program on inpa- tient units. And I’m going to UNC-Chapel Hill (where my son is in medical school) to present the C.A.R.E. model there. I began volunteering while at RE (tech- nically, at Everglades – visiting with St. Alban’s children) and it has become the central focus of my career. I went on to Northwestern where I became a student volunteer and then headed up the NCAA- sponsored Big Brother Big Sister program and went on to do this in my professional life, beginning as a Big Brother Big Sister Coordinator – and eventually Director of Volunteer Services – for a major mental health and social service agency in NYC.” 1979 Jeffrey Miller welcomed 500 friends and supporters of Breakthrough Miami to his home on Sept. 17, 2016, for the organization’s 4th-Annual Support-a- Scholar Celebration. Head of School Penny Townsend, RE Board Chair Rudy Prio Touzet ’76 and other prominent members of the RE community attended the event, which highlighted Breakthrough’s incred- ible work while honoring its generous donors. Guests sampled paella, sushi and gourmet pizza while enjoying entertain- ment provided by dueling pianos. Two RE graduates founded Breakthrough Miami under another name decades ago; it now assists more than 1,200 under-resourced students annually on six campuses through- out Miami-Dade, including at Ransom Everglades. Read more about Breakthrough Miami on page 4. Christopher Pearson writes, “After exciting careers in public relations and law enforcement, I am dedicating my time to making Miami teens the best defensive drivers in the country (in a city where it’s needed). As president of DrivingCoachChris. com, I’ve recently taught a bunch of RE stu- dents, including Paul Lobree ’18 , Carter Freeland ’19, Erin Bakes ’18, Dylan Glottmann ’20, Jonas Janette ’18 and Samson Bienstock ’19 , among others.” John S. Trabold lives in Dallas, Tex., where he is Managing Director and Partner at VMG Health. He was nominated as a finalist for the National Healthcare Executive of the Year by HREI in 2016. He and his wife, Kelly, have raised two young men, Baxter, an employee of Duff & Phelps in Austin, and Brooks, an employee of VMG Health. Kelly and John love empty nesting (sort of), skiing in Telluride and fishing in the Keys. 1980 Clarence Cryer was in Miami from Feb 18-25, 2017, to promote the book entitled Health Disparities, Diversity and Inclusion: Context, Controversies and Solutions, First Edition , by Dr. Patti Rose. He is a contribut- ing author on this publication and attended the release/book signing at Books & Books in Coral Gables and the subsequent private event. Nancy Jacobson is founder and chief executive officer of No Labels, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit whose purpose is to bring Republicans and Democrats together so bi-partisan action can occur. The or- ganization offers a non-partisan National Strategic Agenda: create 25 million new jobs over the next ten years; secure Social Security and Medicare for the next 75 years; balance the federal budget by 2030; make American energy secure by 2024. No Labels has a congressional caucus of 40 members, half from each party. Joe Lieberman and Jon Huntsman are co-chairs. Jacobson, the sister of Mindfultime owner Alice Lash ’78 , founded the group in 2010. You can find more information here http://Nolabels.org . Arden Karson went from senior vice presi- dent at South Florida’s largest condominium developer to the head of the region’s largest commercial brokerage. In January, CBRE Group lured Karson from Related Group to leads its South Florida office as senior managing director. CBRE ranked No. 1 on the South Florida Business Journal’s list of largest Commercial Real Estate Brokerages with $4.9 billion in sales and leases in 2015.