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Dates in blue are date story posted, NOT date of event
 
February 12

Ax draws a happy crowd despite snow storm in NYC
 
New York Times
Music Review | Emanuel Ax

A Snowy Celebration of Schumann and Chopin

Published: February 11, 2010
 
New York music lovers can be an intrepid bunch. Despite Wednesday’s snowstorm, a sizable audience made it to Carnegie Hall for a recital by the estimable pianist Emanuel Ax, the second in a series of three programs celebrating the 200th birthdays of Chopin and Schumann. In no time Mr. Ax banished thoughts of winter as he played the stately, solemn opening chords of Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie, an elusive late work, more fantasy than polonaise. Mr. Ax played this haunting music with uncanny dramatic timing and melting sound. During the opening section, as the sound lingered after each statement of the chord motif, a lacy hint of a melodic line trailed slowly up the keyboard with eerie calm.
 


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February 09

Richard Cutler, CEO of Sustainable Power Corp.
 Sustainable Power Corp. is an international green energy total service provider focused on environmentally safe biofuels' manufacturing and power generation. The company has the exclusive rights in the United States to develop and manage a portfolio of green energy plants utilizing the "Rivera Process," a biocrude discovery, a renewable fuel source able to be produced from non-food feedstock.

The focus of Sustainable Power Corp. during its research and development phase has been the production of biofuels which are (i) cost efficient beyond anything previously achieved with ethanol or other biofuels and (ii) not reliant on food crops or other viable bio materials for fuel. In addition to use as fuels, Sustainable Power's biofuels products can then be utilized in power plants to generate electricity. Sustainable Power Corp. has achieved these objectives and much more. SSTP is now looking at expansion by placing plants throughout the United States.

M. Richard Cutler, Esq.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Member of the Board of Directors
M. Richard Cutler joined Sustainable Power as President and Chief Executive Officer in September 2008. Mr. Cutler was previously legal counsel for SSTP and is the principal and founder of Cutler Law Group which he formed in 1996. Mr. Cutler has practiced in the general corporate and securities area since his graduation from law school, representing dozens of public companies. Mr. Cutler is a graduate of Brigham Young University (B.A., magna cum laude, 1981); and Columbia University School of Law (J.D. 1984). Mr. Cutler is a member of the State Bar of Texas and the State Bar of California. After law school, Mr. Cutler joined the national law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue where he practiced in the corporate, securities and mergers and acquisitions departments. Mr. Cutler subsequently spent five years in the corporate and securities department of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, a Dallas law firm. After moving to the west coast, Mr. Cutler was with the Los Angeles office of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hayes & Handler, a New York based law firm, where he continued his general business and securities practice. In 1991, Mr. Cutler founded the law firm of Horwitz, Cutler & Beam, where he practiced corporate and securities law for five years before forming his present business, which he moved to Augusta, Georgia in 2002.



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Dr. John Byrne at UT Medical School
Houston Chronicle: Neurobiologist at UT Medical School in Houston, 2010-Jan-29, by Flori Meeks
Dr. John Byrne, who heads the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, leads a research team devoted to discovering the neurobiology of learning and memory. “We're trying to understand the nuts and bolts of how memory works,” said Byrne, who also is the June and Virgil Waggoner chairman of the department. ...
 

In 1999, Byrne received the Presidential Scholar Award, the highest academic honor a faculty member can receive at the University of Texas-Houston. Peter Davies, vice president of research at University of Texas Medical School at Houston, describes Byrne's research as “simple but elegant experiments.” “I think the thing that characterizes Jack's work is the study of relatively simple animals to research complex processes,” Davies said. “Working in Eric Kandel's lab taught him to study at the molecular level how processes are organized and built to develop learned behavior.”

Byrne's original goal for himself was bioengineering. During his graduate studies at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, he took a job with the department of physiology that called for working in the neuroscience lab. Over time, Byrne felt drawn to the research being conducted there. “It was the excitement of learning how the brain works,” he said. “I thought my training and expertise in engineering could help me understand it.”

Byrne went on to pursue a thesis project in invertebrate neurobiology at New York University Medical School. “It turned out, the lab I joined, my mentor and boss, turned out to be Eric Kandel, a Noble Peace Prize winner,” he said. Kandel, a psychiatrist, neuroscientist and professor of biochemistry and biophysics, was the 2000 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Byrne later spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow with Kandel at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.



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January 19

Recap of Business Breakfast 2/19/10 (from TQ)
Only three people appeared at the Business Breakfast this morning: Jerry Davis, Theresa Quintanilla and David Ali. And yet it was one of the most enjoyable I've attended. Actually, they've all been wonderful because they're small and we're all getting to know each other so well. David and I got Jerry to tell stories about the early days of Houston, and I'm going to get him to tell more for the newsletter. David (CC 07) just dropped out of law school and is looking for a job in finance. He has a wide education, and would be a great asset to any organization that needed finance with an eye to the broader social, management implications. Sadly, Jerry and I did not try to sell him on business school. Maybe one of you other alums should take him out to lunch and give him the religion.
 
At other Business Breakfasts, I've enjoyed reconnecting with Ron Klein, who's become an entrepreneur (www.def-express.com), Rich Dodds, Vik Gundoju, Kellie Jenks, and others. Vik has a background that includes both marketing and strategic planning, and he's also on the loose these days. Kellie has a job in real estate finance, but is very open to new opportunities. And we all wish you'd come and give us some stock tips!


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January 09

Veterans at Columbia
New York Times: From Battlefield to Ivy League, on the G.I. Bill, 2010-Jan-8, by Lisa W. Foderaro

More than 300,000 veterans and their dependents are enrolled in American institutions of higher education, their numbers swelling as a result of a new, more generous version of the G.I. Bill that Congress passed in 2008. The veterans and their federal benefits are being embraced by community colleges and huge campuses like the University of Texas, as well as by online schools like the University of Phoenix.

They are bringing to the esoteric world of academia the ballast of the most real of real-world experiences, along with all the marks of the military existence, from crew cuts to frayed nerves to a platoon approach to social life.

Perhaps nowhere is this new wave more striking than at Columbia, which more than any other Ivy League institution has thrown out a welcome mat for returning servicemen and women. There are 210 veterans across the university, integrating a campus whose image-defining moment in the past half-century was of violent protests against the Vietnam War. ...

Over the years, with the ebb and flow of wars, the School of General Studies embraced a wider range of students who had taken time off from academia — ballet dancers, professional athletes, even veterans from other countries.

“I call them tutus and Uzis because they’re all dancers or kids from the Israeli Army,” said the school’s dean, Peter J. Awn.

But with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continuing, the military presence at Columbia is again on the rise. The school now counts 88 veterans with G.I. benefits among the 1,330 students. The rest of the veterans at Columbia are spread across more than a dozen graduate and professional schools.

The campus still tilts heavily to the left, with many students displaying the arty, jaded aura befitting their Manhattan surroundings. But now, students largely welcome the vets, who are both admired and considered something of a curiosity.

The veterans in the undergraduate program attend classes side by side with fresh-faced 18-year-olds, but do not often socialize with them, preferring to gather instead at their own watering hole. In contrast to their classmates, many — though certainly not all — lack stellar high school records, which is what propelled some of them to the military in the first place.



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