Podcasts about Hurricane Andrew

Leigh Occhi was 13 years old when she disappeared on August 21, 1992. According to her mother, Vickie Felton, Leigh was left alone at home while Vickie went to work that Thursday. Upon arriving at work, Vickie learned about Hurricane Andrew heading towards their hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. Vickie attempted to call her daughter to inform her of the approaching storm, but Leigh did not answer the phone, causing Vickie to worry. She drove back home to check on Leigh, only to find the garage door open and blood smeared in multiple locations throughout the house. Leigh has not been seen since.Contact us at: weeknightmysteries@gmail.comInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/weeknightmysteriesTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@weeknightmysteries

My guest today has truly lived an extraordinary life. He began his journey with Club Med in 1989, working until 1992, before taking a 22-year hiatus and returning in 2014 for another two memorable years until 2016. His first season was at Club Med Sandpiper, where he started as a Bar G.O. Over the years, he wore many hats, including Excursions, Traffic, Choreographer, and Entertainment Manager, showcasing his versatility and creativity. A standout moment in 1990 happened when he met Serge Trigano, who remarked that he was the only Panamanian G.O. he had ever met—a testament to his unique place in the Club Med family. A graduate of Valley Forge Military Academy and the University of Tampa, where he earned a BS in Marketing, my guest hails from Panama but now calls Germany home. Please join me in warmly welcoming the one and only, Aldo Mata! Aldo has led an extraordinary life, and this episode highlights his unique journey to Club Med, the variety of roles he held during his time there, and his firsthand account of what it was like to be a Traffic G.O. at Club Med Paradise Island in 1992 during Hurricane Andrew—a devastating Category 5 storm. Please enjoy this episode with Aldo! **My First Season podcast has always been ad-free and free to listen to and is available to download on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Samsung Podcasts, Podbean App, Podchaser, Spotify, Amazon Music/Audible, TuneIn + Alexa, iHeartRadio, PlayerFM, Pandora and Listen Notes. And if you like what you hear, please leave a review on Apple podcasts. 

The period between Hurricane Andrew and the 1994 Election saw a period in Florida politics characterized by flux and a GOP surge- which would carry us into a 1995 Legislative Session at parity between the parties.

To donate to people in need in Los Angeles, visit these links: World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org Los Angeles Food Bankhttps://www.lafoodbank.org/ Los Angeles Fire Department Foundationhttps://supportlafd.org/ Summary This episode of "Coping" covers the devastating fires in Los Angeles and their impact on the community. Kathy and Kevin discuss both the physical and emotional toll of these fires, sharing a personal account from an Altadena resident affected by the Eaton fires. The conversation explores themes of loss, grief processing, and eventual renewal. They emphasize the importance of acknowledging grief, seeking support, and finding opportunities for renewal and community connection in times of crisis. The episode concludes with practical advice for those affected and a prayer for those impacted by the fires. Highlights Introduction to LA Fires Discussion Kathy and Kevin introduce the episode's focus on the Los Angeles fires, acknowledging both the physical destruction and emotional impact on the community. They emphasize the need for compassion and resilience during this crisis. Personal Account from Altadena Resident A detailed firsthand account is shared from an Altadena resident affected by the Eaton fires, describing their evacuation experience and the stark contrast between sunlight and smoke-filled darkness. The account highlights the sudden nature of evacuation and the devastating reality of not being able to return home. Hosts' Personal Experiences with Natural Disasters Kathy and Kevin share their own experiences with natural disasters, including Kevin's childhood experience with Hurricane Andrew in Miami, which involved months without power and school. They discuss how past traumas can resurface during current crises. Processing Grief and Finding Support The conversation continues with the importance of properly processing grief rather than compartmentalizing it, referencing Mindy Caliguire's book 'Ignite Your Soul'. They emphasize the importance of seeking support through counseling, therapy, or trusted friends. Community Response and Renewal The discussion concludes with observations about the Los Angeles community's positive response to the crisis, highlighting how residents are supporting each other despite negative online narratives. The episode ends with a prayer about devastation and renewal, emphasizing hope for those affected by the fires.

This is our last episode of 2024.This time we are discussing The Dead Files “The Aftermath” (Season 4 or 5 depending on the platform) which aired July 12, 2014. We also talked about Hurricane Andrew and other weather events. We veered off a little on TV shows and examined some Zombie D pics.So, leave behind your Current Emotional Muck, pour some shots and be ready to take one each time Megan mentions TikTok, and join her, Amy and Smirky Piersak where… The Activity Continues.Remember, never waive an inspection.  Content Warning:In this episode we mention hurricanes so trigger warning for those who need it. Also, we swear.Also, while Amy and Steve's swears are bleeped on TV, ours are not. The Activity Continues is a paranormal podcast where soul friends, Amy, Megan, and AP chat about pets, true crime, ghost stories, haunts, dreams, and other paranormal stuff including the TV show, The Dead Files. We also sometimes interview interesting people, whether it be a paranormal professional, a Dead Files client, or a listener with spooky stories. This episode was recorded on November 18, 2024, and released on December 19, 2024. Chapter Markers00:00:00 Intro00:00:39 Hello & Content Warning00:01:49 Housekeeping00:07:23 Overview00:08:52 Segment One00:29:39 Segment Two & Three – (we jumped around a lot)00:44:01 Movie/TV discussion00:45:18 Back to Segments 2 and 301:00:25 Sketch (in the reveal)01:06:40 Next week01:07:21 Outro Episode LinksThe Aftermath on The Dead Files Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Kr1U90JEQfXRWIP9qOHIV?si=3a9db51901674f92The hot chocolate we like: https://amzn.to/3OR5wUm*Amazon links could give TAC a small commission at no expense to you.Disclaimer:This podcast is in no way affiliated with Warner Brothers, HBOMax, the Travel Channel, Painless TV, or the TV show The Dead Files or any of its cast or crew. We're just fans that love the show and want to build a community of like-minded people who would enjoy hanging out and discussing the episodes and similar content. Credits:Hosted by: Amy Lotsberg, Megan Simmons, and Amy PiersakProduction, Artwork, and Editing: Amy Lotsberg at Collected Sounds Media, LLC.Theme song. “Ghost Story” and segment music by Cannelle https://melissaoliveri.comAI artwork by Fotor https://www.fotor.com/referrer/1ygaknya Visit us at https://www.theactivitycontinues.com/  Affiliates/SponsorsPlease see our Store page for all the links for all our current affiliates. https://www.theactivitycontinues.com/store/ Thank you for listening, take care of yourselves. We'll see you next week!Become a Patron, join our Ghosty Fam! https://www.patreon.com/theactivitycontinuesJoin our Ghosty Fam over on Patron, https://www.patreon.com/theactivitycontinues/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/tac/exclusive-content

In the wake of Hurricane Andrew's devastating tear through the state of Florida in the early 90's, the Miami Herald newspaper invited Landon Saunders to visit with its team. Today's episode is Part 2 of his presentation -- "How to Survive in a World That Breaks Everyone."

Jeff Dudan started his first business in college, painting apartments to pay the bills. The business grew beyond his expectations, allowing him to support his younger brother and create jobs for other college athletes. Years later, he moved to South Florida to help with disaster recovery after Hurricane Andrew struck. Having learned to see opportunity in adversity, he started AdvantaClean, which eventually grew into a national franchise. In this episode, Jeff talks to Ilana about spotting hidden opportunities in crises and the mindset shifts that helped him build a successful franchise business to empower others. Jeff Dudan is a franchise executive and the CEO of Homefront Brands. He brings decades of experience in funding, building, and scaling franchises to help others succeed in the industry. As a published author and host of The Homefront Podcast, Jeff also appeared on CBS's Undercover Boss. In this episode, Ilana and Jeff will discuss: - Starting a business in college   - Pushing past your limitations - Grabbing opportunities as they come - Building Homefront to help franchise owners - Lessons from his father's business challenges - Setting clear roles to make partnerships work - Creating a unique franchise model - Figuring out the right time to start franchising - Leading franchisees with patience  - Why businesses are high-class assets - Using real estate to fund his business - The CEO's role in setting standards   - Saying “yes” to chances for visibility - Aligning your values with your business - And other topics… Jeff Dudan is the CEO of Homefront Brands, a published author, and a franchise executive with 25 years of experience building and scaling franchise businesses. He founded AdvantaClean in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, growing it from a disaster recovery business to a franchise with over 240 locations before it was acquired. Jeff is a Forbes contributor and host of The Homefront Podcast, where he explores the world of franchising and leadership. He has also appeared on CBS's Undercover Boss. He has worked with organizations like Novant Health, the IFA Franchisor Forum, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Connect with Jeff: Jeff's Website: https://jeffdudan.com/  Jeff's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffdudan/  Resources Mentioned: Jeff's Episode on Undercover Boss: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6432766/  Jeff's Books: Discernment: The Business Athlete's Regimen for a Great Life through Better Decisions: https://www.amazon.com/Discernment-Business-Athletes-Regimen-Decisions/dp/1544508506  Hey, Coach! https://www.amazon.com/Hey-Coach-Jeff-Dudan/dp/1511990570  Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training

In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murray discuss the growing trend of four-point inspections in Minnesota with guests Eric Houseman and John Bolton. They explore the history and origin of four-point inspections, particularly in Florida, and the challenges homeowners face in securing insurance. The conversation delves into the implications of these inspections on home buying and selling, the differences between four-point inspections and traditional home inspections, and the importance of educating consumers about the inspection process. The episode concludes with insights on navigating the evolving landscape of home inspections and insurance requirements.TakeawaysFour-point inspections are becoming more common in Minnesota.The history of four-point inspections dates back to Hurricane Andrew in 1992.Insurance companies in Florida are increasingly selective about coverage.Homeowners face significant challenges in obtaining insurance due to inspection results.Four-point inspections focus on plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and roofing systems.There is a growing trend of using four-point inspections as a substitute for full home inspections.Consumer education is crucial to avoid misconceptions about inspection reports.The insurance landscape is changing, making it harder for older homes to get coverage.Home inspectors must navigate pressure from agents and consumers regarding inspection results.The future of home inspections may involve more detailed requirements from insurance companies.Chapters00:00 Introduction to the Show and Guests02:08 The Rise of Four-Point Inspections in Minnesota08:44 History and Origin of Four-Point Inspections11:41 Insurance Challenges in Florida16:12 The Impact of Four-Point Inspections on Home Insurance22:20 The Future of Home Inspections and Insurance29:11 Comparing Four-Point Inspections to Traditional Home Inspections37:27 Consumer Education and Misconceptions46:19 Navigating the Challenges of Inspections and Insurance55:20 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The "Special Report: Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff" series is brought to you by the Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast. Expert Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ discusses the implications of the upcoming 2025 law requiring Florida condo associations to set aside reserves to prevent disasters like the Surfside condo collapse. The podcast features Miami Condo Expert Peter Zalewski interviewing Jose Pazos of A-Smart CAM LLC property management in Miami. Pazos' property management firm handles the administrative responsibilities of more than 6,000 residences condo and homeowners associations in Miami-Dade and Broward counties in South Florida. It is an anxious time to be a property manager who advises, guides and provides support for condo associations in Florida. With less 90 days to go until condo associations are forced to adhere to a series of new administrative and financial measures instituted by the Florida Legislature, property management companies are scrambling to prepare for what is expected to be a volatile 2025. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. In response to the Surfside disaster, Florida is requiring associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin funding the necessary repairs by January 2025, ending the practice of deferring work and costs. People are dubbing this moment as the 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff as it expected to result in significantly higher costs for unit owners. Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market through the end of 2024 and into next year. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates. Bearish investors contend that condo prices are too high from the run up in work-from-home buyers during the pandemic years and likely to collapse in the months ahead if the economy slows and these transplants leave South Florida. To stay abreast of the volatile South Florida condo market, we would encourage you to join the newly launched Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ at PeterZalewski.substack.com. The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida. The Club is ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can rely on our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. For South Florida condo resale information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com

The "Special Report: Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff" series is brought to you by the Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast. Expert Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ discusses the implications of the upcoming 2025 law requiring Florida condo associations to set aside reserves to prevent disasters like the Surfside condo collapse. The podcast features Zalewski interviewing Carlos Villanueva, a veteran chief building engineer who has overseen the operations of condo towers, office buildings and retail centers in South Florida for more than 30 years. Villanueva, principal of SeeWhyConsultingLLC.com, said many condo buyers, owners and board members often obsess about cosmetic details, such as lobby flower arrangements, air fresheners and staff courtesy. As important as these measures may be to a condo association's vibe, they are unlikely to affect the big ticket items that directly impact a tower's life safety measures and special assessments in the runup to the Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. In response to the Surfside disaster, Florida is requiring associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin funding the necessary repairs by January 2025, ending the practice of deferring work and costs. People are dubbing this moment as the 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff as it expected to result in significantly higher costs for unit owners. Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market through the end of 2024 and into next year. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates. Bearish investors contend that condo prices are too high from the run up in work-from-home buyers during the pandemic years and likely to collapse in the months ahead if the economy slows and these transplants leave South Florida. To stay abreast of the volatile South Florida condo market, we would encourage you to join the newly launched Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ at PeterZalewski.substack.com. The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida. The Club is ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can rely on our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. For South Florida condo resale information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com.

All public school teachers are not created equal. They have different talents, teaching styles, and skills. They have different backgrounds and purposes that drive them. Jim Curtis is one of those supreme educators with his students and colleagues in mind. He served during the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 with us, because his students were going and he wanted to be apart of what they were doing. That is waaaaay over the required work of a teacher! We slept on the floor of a church and served in harsh conditions during an impossible situation. In this episode, Jim shares he and his wife's experience during our missions trip to South Florida to assist the people of that area that were affected by this natural disaster. He is one of those teachers I loved to be around. I had the privilege of sitting in his classroom on many occasions and was captivated each and every time. Jim is also an avid world traveler... the long time Geography educator and visionary living and experiencing what he teaches on! We also dive into his many world travels and experiences that fueled his passion for the educational teaching path he chose. Enjoy this episode as we navigate through Jim's incredible life experiences, as well as, his personal take on past and present education within the school systems. _______________________________ Looking for a new student ministry resource? You can read my book “Burn Up Not Out: A Student Ministry Fire Builder's Guidebook” here: https://amzn.to/3PtBTIy Listen to more episodes from the Youth Worker On Fire Podcast here: https://bit.ly/3saDyYq _______________________________ EPISODE CREDITS Email us at: youthworkeronfire@gmail.com Hosted by: Doug Edwards Theme Song: "The One and Only" by The 808 : Listen to more at https://bit.ly/3FTYIAJ Intro/Outro Voiceover: Michael Helms : https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelTheSoundGuy  Edited by: Secret Roots Music House

Shoot us a Text.Welcome to Tuesday, the most productive day of the week! Today we're talking about the anticipation that Florida is facing with Hurricane Milton and how dealers and EV owners can be prepared. Plus, we see some unexpected kindness between Kia dealers and learn how Cybertruck owners are having their insurance policies canceled.As Hurricane Milton looms, Florida dealerships across Tampa Bay and the Gulf Coast prepare for impact. The storm, expected to hit Category 3 by landfall, still poses significant threats.Dealers like the Morgan Auto Group and Potamkin Automotive are closing stores early and initiating staff safety protocols and storm preparation.CEO Teddy Morse of Ed Morse Automotive Group is preparing for significant damage from Hurricane Milton, expecting it to be severe, saying “This isn't a scenario where you say, ‘Wow, I hope everything's OK.' It's not going to be OK.”Morse emphasized  ensuring every eligible vehicle is floorplanned, because “if they're not on the floorplan, they're not insured.”Meanwhile, after Hurricane Helene destroyed 672 of Ken Ganley's Kia inventory, Raul Gomila, GM of City Kia in Orlando stepped up, selling 100 new and 25 pre-owned vehicles to assist.Gomila, who survived Hurricane Andrew in 1992, understands the devastation and felt compelled to help, despite not knowing Ganley personally."That kind of kindness just doesn't happen," Ganley said. "It just doesn't exist. I mean, I'm blown away.”"It's the right thing to do when a store is in need," Gomila said. "Sometimes even a little help goes a long way."For EV owners, hurricanes pose a unique set of uncertainties to navigate. Whether they stay or evacuate, here's some tips to protect vehicles and keep options open.Avoid parking EVs in areas prone to flooding or standing water, as saltwater can damage batteries.Relocate EVs to higher ground and shelter, with many counties offering free public garage access.Cybertruck owners have faced multiple challenges in 2024, including cleaning their new trucks, rusting issues, and five recalls. Now, insurance complications are adding to their woes as some drivers report policy cancellations.Geico confirmed some Cybertruck owners received non-renewal notices due to the vehicle not meeting underwriting guidelines.Geico cited the Cybertruck's heavy weight and challenges with repair part availability as reasons for some policy cancellations.Issues seem concentrated in New York and Kansas, though other regions report smoother experiences.Geico is seemingly still willing to insure the vehicles under commercial plans, saying “Some customers may have received notices stating that Private Passenger Automobile insurance would not be renewed for this vehicle. However, policies for this vehicle have always been available through our commercial insurance division.”Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle MountsierGet the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/ JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/ Read our most recent email at: https://www.asotu.com/media/push-back-email

The "Special Report: Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff" series is brought to you by the Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast. Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ discusses the implications of the upcoming 2025 law requiring Florida condo associations to set aside reserves to prevent disasters like the Surfside condo collapse. This is a clip from a podcast with Richard Alfonso, the Director of Specialty Products at U.S. Century Bank in Miami. Alfonso provides insight into how monthly condo fees increase with a special assessment loan in Florida. Bank financing is an option for some Florida condo associations that are facing hefty special assessments to comply with the revisions of the Florida Condo Law. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. In response to the Surfside disaster, Florida is requiring associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin funding the necessary repairs by January 2025, ending the practice of deferring work and costs. People are dubbing this moment as the 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff as it expected to result in significantly higher costs for unit owners. Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market through the end of 2024 and into next year. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates. Bearish investors contend that condo prices are too high from the run up in work-from-home buyers during the pandemic years and likely to collapse in the months ahead if the economy slows and these transplants leave South Florida. To stay abreast of the volatile South Florida condo market, we would encourage you to join the newly launched Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ at PeterZalewski.substack.com The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida, The Club is ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can rely on our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. For South Florida condo resale information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com

The "Special Report: Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff" series is brought to you by the Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast. Expert Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ discusses the implications of the upcoming 2025 law requiring Florida condo associations to set aside reserves to prevent disasters like the Surfside condo collapse. This is a clip from a podcast with Richard Alfonso, the Director of Specialty Products at U.S. Century Bank in Miami. Alfonso provides a description of the steps necessary for a Florida condo association to successfully obtain a special assessment loan. Bank financing is an option for some Florida condo associations that are facing hefty special assessments to comply with the revisions of the Florida Condo Law. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. In response to the Surfside disaster, Florida is requiring associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin funding the necessary repairs by January 2025, ending the practice of deferring work and costs. People are dubbing this moment as the 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff as it expected to result in significantly higher costs for unit owners. Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market through the end of 2024 and into next year. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates. Bearish investors contend that condo prices are too high from the run up in work-from-home buyers during the pandemic years and likely to collapse in the months ahead if the economy slows and these transplants leave South Florida. To stay abreast of the volatile South Florida condo market, we would encourage you to join the newly launched Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ at PeterZalewski.substack.com The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida, The Club is ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can rely on our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. For South Florida condo resale information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com

This is a clip from a recent episode of the "Special Report: Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff" podcast series from the Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast. Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ discusses the implications of the upcoming 2025 law requiring Florida condo associations to set aside reserves to prevent disasters like the Surfside condo collapse. This is a clip of Richard Alfonso, the Director of Specialty Products at U.S. Century Bank in Miami. Alfonso said Florida condo associations are addressing the reserve requirements mandated by the Florida Legislature but are facing challenges with skyrocketing insurance rates. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. In response to the Surfside disaster, Florida is requiring associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin funding the necessary repairs by January 2025, ending the practice of deferring work and costs. People are dubbing this moment as the 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff as it expected to result in significantly higher costs for unit owners. Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market through the end of 2024 and into next year. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates. Bearish investors contend that condo prices are too high from the run up in work-from-home buyers during the pandemic years and likely to collapse in the months ahead if the economy slows and these transplants leave South Florida. To stay abreast of the volatile South Florida condo market, we would encourage you to join the newly launched Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ at PeterZalewski.substack.com The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida, The Club is ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can rely on our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. For South Florida condo resale information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com

On Wednesday, September 11, 2024, Capitol Weekly hosted the California Ballot Forum: 2024 Election Preview. Through spirited discussion and reasoned debate, proponents for each side explored the strengths and weaknesses of the proposals in a conversation moderated by a journalist. Today's episode presents: Proposition 32 - RAISES MINIMUM WAGE. INITIATIVE STATUTE. If passed, Proposition 32 would raise minimum wage as follows: For employers with 26 or more employees, to $17 immediately, $18 on January 1, 2025. For employers with 25 or fewer employees, to $17 on January 1, 2025, $18 on January 1, 2026. Fiscal Impact: State and local government costs could increase or decrease by up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. State and local revenues likely would decrease by no more than a few hundred million dollars annually. The "Yes" side was presented by Saru Jayaraman Saru Jayaraman is the President of One Fair Wage and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley. After 9/11, together with displaced World Trade Center workers, she co-founded the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), which grew into a national movement of restaurant workers, employers and consumers. She then launched One Fair Wage as a national campaign to end all subminimum wages in the United States. The story of Saru and her co-founder's work founding ROC has been chronicled in the book The Accidental American, and the story of the One Fair Wage campaign has been profiled in the new film Waging Change. Saru is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The "No" side was presented by Jot Condie Jot Condie is the President and CEO of the California Restaurant Association. Before joining CRA, Jot was the legislative director for the California Manufacturer's Association, where he lobbied on behalf of California's Fortune 500 companies. He also served as the chief lobbyist for the Southern California Air Quality Alliance, a consortium of aerospace, manufacturing and high-tech companies with an interest in air quality regulation issues. Before joining the Manufacturer's Association, Jot worked in the State Capitol as staff director for Assistant Assembly Majority Leader, directing a staff of policy consultants and legislative aides. Prior to serving as staff director he was a legislative director for the Assembly Minority Whip and managed political campaigns in state legislative races. The moderator was Phil Willon of the Los Angeles Times Phil Willon is an assistant editor based in the Sacramento bureau of the Los Angeles Times and guides coverage of California politics and assists with state capital coverage. He previously covered Gov. Gavin Newsom, the 2018 governor's race and the 2016 U.S. Senate race. Before heading north, Willon covered Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and roamed Southern California's mountains and deserts as the newsroom's state correspondent in the Inland Empire. Prior to joining The Times, Willon served as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for the Tampa Tribune. At the Tribune, Willon also covered Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, Hurricane Andrew and the investigation leading to the arrest of serial killer Danny Rolling. He began his newspaper career as the Kent Island correspondent for the Capital in Annapolis, Md. Willon grew up in Southern California and graduated from UC San Diego. Capitol Weekly is a 501c3 nonprofit created to inform, enlighten and educate Californians about public policy and state governance, and to provide a nonpartisan platform for engagement with public officials, advocates and political interests. Thanks to our underwriters for this event: BICKER, CASTILLO, FAIRBANKS & SPITZ PUBLIC AFFAIRS, THE TRIBAL ALLIANCE OF SOVEREIGN INDIAN NATIONS, WESTERN STATES PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION, PHYSICIAN ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA; LUCAS PUBLIC AFFAIRS, KP PUBLIC AFFAIRS, PERRY COMMUNICATIONS, CAPITOL ADVOCACY, THE WEIDEMAN GROUP, CALIFORNIA PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS, THE NO ON 33 CAMPAIGN, and THE YES ON 34 CAMPAIGN

The "Special Report: Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff" series is brought to you by the Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast. Expert Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ discusses the implications of the upcoming 2025 law requiring Florida condo associations to set aside reserves to prevent disasters like the Surfside condo collapse. The podcast features Miami Condo Expert Peter Zalewski interviewing Andy "Daro" Rotondaro, a Realtor and North Bay Village Commissioner. The conversation examines why Rotondaro is paying $50,000 in condo special assessments instead of selling his two units in the runup to the Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. In response to the Surfside disaster, Florida is requiring associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin funding the necessary repairs by January 2025, ending the practice of deferring work and costs. People are dubbing this moment as the 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff as it expected to result in significantly higher costs for unit owners. Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market through the end of 2024 and into next year. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates. Bearish investors contend that condo prices are too high from the run up in work-from-home buyers during the pandemic years and likely to collapse in the months ahead if the economy slows and these transplants leave South Florida. To stay abreast of the volatile South Florida condo market, we would encourage you to join the newly launched Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ at PeterZalewski.substack.com. The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida. The Club is ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can rely on our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. For South Florida condo resale information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com

The "Special Report: Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff" series is brought to you by the Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast. Expert Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ discusses the implications of the upcoming 2025 law requiring Florida condo associations to set aside reserves to prevent disasters like the Surfside condo collapse. The podcast features Miami Condo Expert Peter Zalewski interviewing Andy "Daro" Rotondaro, a Realtor and North Bay Village Commissioner. The conversation examined strategies for owners facing condo association special assessments in the runup to the Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. In response to the Surfside disaster, Florida is requiring associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin funding the necessary repairs by January 2025, ending the practice of deferring work and costs. People are dubbing this moment as the 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff as it expected to result in significantly higher costs for unit owners. Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market through the end of 2024 and into next year. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates. Bearish investors contend that condo prices are too high from the run up in work-from-home buyers during the pandemic years and likely to collapse in the months ahead if the economy slows and these transplants leave South Florida. To stay abreast of the volatile South Florida condo market, we would encourage you to join the newly launched Miami Condo Market Investing Club™. The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida, The Club is ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can rely on our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. For South Florida condo resale information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com

In August 1992, Hurricane Andrew was predicted to be the worst storm system to hit Florida in the state's history. If the preparation wasn't enough, Palm Beach County Sheriff's office received a request for a wellness check. Upon arrival, law enforcement found the bodies of Lisa and Rita Bado. It would be a race against Mother Nature to secure and solve this crime. Unfortunately, this case would go cold for over a decade. Thanks to advancements in DNA technology, the killer was identified but it was never someone on police's radar.

This is a Special Report series from the Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast focusing on Florida's 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff. Peter Zalewski from the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ discusses the implications of the upcoming 2025 law requiring Florida condo associations to set aside reserves to prevent disasters like the Surfside condo collapse. The podcast features Richard Alfonso, the Director of Specialty Products at U.S. Century Bank, who explains condo association financing options. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. In response to the Surfside disaster, Florida is requiring associations that govern older condo projects to study the structural integrity of all buildings on their properties and begin funding the necessary repairs by January 2025, ending the practice of deferring work and costs. People are dubbing this moment as the 2025 Condo Association Financial Cliff as it expected to result in significantly higher costs for unit owners. Industry watchers are at odds as to the direction of the South Florida housing market through the end of 2024 and into next year. Bullish investors are predicting housing demand will reignite once the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates. Bearish investors contend that condo prices are too high from the run up in work-from-home buyers during the pandemic years and likely to collapse in the months ahead if the economy slows and these transplants leave South Florida. To stay abreast of the volatile South Florida condo market, we would encourage you to join the newly launched Miami Condo Market Investing Club™. The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida, The Club is ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can rely on our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. The podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. For South Florida condo resale information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com

This episode of WeatherBrains features multiple special guests for Show 971. Tonight's Guest WeatherBrain is a suggestion of Friend of the Podcast Ryan Stinnett.  This WeatherBrain has a rich background in meteorology, including a very profound childhood experience with 1992's Hurricane Andrew in South Florida.  She earned her Bachelor's Degree with a from the University of Miami.  She currently resides in Missouri at KQ2-TV in St. Joseph, Missouri.  She has previously worked at The Weather Channel and is an active member of the AMS and NWA.  Vanessa Alonso, it's an honor to have you on with us tonight. Guest WeatherBrain No. 2 is also a very special guest we are excited to chat with on episode 971.  She works in the NOAA Weather Program Office as an Observations Program Coordinator and is here to preview sessions at the NWA Annual Meeting 2024.  Sandy LaCorte, welcome to WeatherBrains. Our email officer Jen is continuing to handle the incoming messages from our listeners. Reach us here: email@weatherbrains.com. NWA Annual Meeting 2024 (12:30) Looking back at 1992's Hurricane Andrew (19:00) Importance of internships in college (40:45) What is astraphobia?  (46:30) Shared experiences in Double Majors in college (47:00) Experiences with 2011 Joplin tornado (01:02:30) AMS Digital Meteorologist Seal (01:17:30) Efforts to recruit Spanish speakers in CBM program (01:25:00) The Astronomy Outlook with Tony Rice (01:33:00) This Week in Tornado History With Jen (01:35:00) E-Mail Segment (01:36:00) and more! Web Sites from Episode 971: Meteorologist Vanessa Alonso on Facebook NWA 2024 Annual Meeting Picks of the Week: Vanessa Alonso - How Texas chocolate maker survives the summer heat: WFAA TV Dallas on YouTube James Aydelott - Microburst Footage from McConnell AFB Airshow Jen Narramore - TornadoTalk Podcast On Spotify Rick Smith - ChickFilA Cows Thunderstorm Neil Jacobs - Out Troy Kimmel - NOAA/NWS IDSS Prototype Forecast Points Kim Klockow-McClain - "The Fifth Risk" by Michael Lewis Bill Murray - Hurricane Carla Hits Texas AKA Hurricane Carla (1961) James Spann - Weathernerds ECENS Data The WeatherBrains crew includes your host, James Spann, plus other notable geeks like Troy Kimmel, Bill Murray, Rick Smith, James Aydelott, Jen Narramore, Dr. Neil Jacobs, and Dr. Kim Klockow-McClain. They bring together a wealth of weather knowledge and experience for another fascinating podcast about weather.

Join us on our with our special guest, 37 year veteran, retired Miami Dade Fire Chief, Dave Downey. Tune in as we take you through his career that began when he joined the fire explorer program with the City of Lauderhill many years ago. He was hired in August of 1982 as a Firefighter with the City of Sunrise and just grew from there.Certified as a paramedic - Became a Haz May Technician - Certified as a Driver Operator - Met my future wife. She had 1 year seniority on me. Married in 1986 - January 1988 – Hired by Metro Dade (now Miami-Dade Fire Rescue) as a Firefighter/Paramedic -Assigned to Station 11 in Carol City (now Miami Gardens). - May 1991 Promoted to Lieutenant - One of the original members of FL-TF1 (USAR Task Force) - Deployed to various Hurricanes, earthquakes, and the AA plane crash in Columbia - Worked at Station 11 during Hurricane Andrew (1992) - Assigned to Station 7 as well as working relief on Air Rescue. - Developed Flashover Training programs in Palm Beach, Coral Springs and the Broward Fire Academy - Taught various technical rescue training programs - November 1999 promoted to Captain - Assigned to Special Operations- Tasked with implementing a second full-time Air Rescue operation - Became the US&R Bureau OIC - Deployed as part of FL-TF1 to the WTC post-September 11th - May 2002 promoted to Battalion Chief - August 2003 appointed Division Chief, North Operations, Responsible for 4 Battalions in the northeast part of the County - August 2004 assigned as Chief of EMS - April 2005 assigned as Chief of Training and Safety (My dream job!) - Deployed to New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina - No training facility but tasked with an aggressive hiring program. Trained 400 firefighters in 18 months - Responsible for the final design and oversaw construction of the $25M Training Facility - March 2010 appointed Assistant Chief and assigned Technical Services Fire Prevention, Communications, Logistics, and Training - Deployed to Hait Earthquake - May 2011 appointed Chief of Operations - February 2013 appointed as the 12th Chief of Department - Challenging first couple of years with budget. Faced with laying off 59 firefighters in my first year. - Retired June 2019 - Hired by State Fire Marshal to coordinate disaster response - Deployed to Surfside building collapse. Coordinated US&R operations for 19 days.We look forward to hearing his journey. Join us at the Kitchen Table on the BEST FIREFIGHTER PODCAST ON THE INTERNET! You can also Listen to our podcast ...we are on all the players #lovethisjob #GiveBackMoreThanYouTake #Oldschool #miamidadefirerescueBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gettin-salty-experience-firefighter-podcast--4218265/support.

Injustice and Grief: Three Profound Lessons with Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D. PMHNP Founder and Creator of The Mentally STRONG Method Have you ever felt your pain was too much to bear? Have you experienced the heaviness of sorrow, and asked, “Why me?” Are you ready to discover a hidden purpose in your suffering? Cristi Bundukamara fearlessly shares her remarkable journey of resilience and transformation. She will show you how to find purpose after loss. Here at Mentally STRONG I want you to be empowered by our model of providing psychoeducational counseling through the Mentally STRONG Method. https://mentallystrongacademy.com/ I have been a psychiatric nurse practitioner since 2000, with extensive experience with clients of all ages. My career began as an Army Medic before attending Florida International University (FIU) nursing school. I have worked in various nursing positions, including missionary work in Jamaica, Mexico, and Peru. I continued at FIU and obtained a master's in nursing as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, then continued to Nova Southeastern for my Doctorate. With a deep desire to serve my country again, I was commissioned in the US Navy Reserves, where I still do. I am originally from Miami, FL, where I accepted Christ after the devastating Hurricane Andrew. My husband and I have seven children, two biological and five adopted from the foster care system. My husband and two biological children have a devastating, rare, and difficult-to-diagnose disease that struck us unexpectedly, challenging our view of life and faith in God. Life is filled with joy and pain in varying degrees for different people. We have had our share of both, and we recognize that people are immensely resilient and are never given more than they can handle. We also appreciate that while we have experienced heart-wrenching setbacks through the years, our family has relied on each other for comfort and support. Supporting each other is undoubtedly one of our family's greatest strengths. Find out more about Dr. B here: Website: www.cristibundukamara.com Instagram: instagram.com/cristibundukamara Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristi-bundukamara-ed-d-pmhnp-bc-dr-b-713432b0/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/cristibundukama Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mentallystrongacademybyDr.B/ Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/drbmentallystrong Call In and Chat with Deborah during Live Show: 833-220-1200 or 319-527-2638 Learn more about Deborah here:  www.lovebyintuition.com

We talk about palm tree tattoos, what makes a flamingo from Miami, and tattooing a hurricane on you. (00:00) Welcome to the Miami Comedy Podcast (00:21) Iconic Miami Tattoos: Palm Trees (01:28) Flamingo Tattoos: A Miami Staple (03:03) Pit Bull Tattoos: Defying the Ban (03:44) Portrait Tattoos: Love and Commemoration (04:19) Hurricane Andrew and 305 Till I Die (05:35) Miami Dolphins Tattoos: Fan Dedication (06:44) Unique Miami Tattoo Ideas (07:35) Pop Culture Tattoos: Bad Bunny and Scarface (08:43) Conclusion and Viewer Interaction Follow us for all things Miami Comedy! (Live comedy shows, podcasts, livestreams, memes, and more...) Live Comedy Shows ⮕ https://miamicomedy.com Instagram ⮕ https://instagram.com/miamicomedy Facebook group ⮕ https://miamicomedy.com/group Facebook ⮕ https://facebook.com/miamicomedydotcom Twitch ⮕ https://www.twitch.tv/miamicomedy Twitter ⮕ https://twitter.com/miamicomedycom Tik Tok ⮕ https://www.tiktok.com/@miamicomedy Merch ⮕ https://shop.miamicomedy.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/miami-comedy-podcast/support

This is a 10-minute clip from the beginning of the August 2024 Monthly Meeting. To watch the entire video, you will have to sign up for he Club by clicking this link. What's the future of vintage condos - units at least 25 years old - in the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach? This topic was discussed at the fourth Monthly Meeting of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ that was hosted online on Aug. 14, 2024. Club founder Peter Zalewski - who is a former business journalist, Wall Street consultant, expert witness and licensed Florida real estate buyside broker - explained the three ways to differentiate condos - New, Used and Vintage - for resale purposes. After comparing the resale stats for each category based on age, Zalewski also discussed some of the key 2024 revisions to the Florida Condo Law. The topics are generating increased media attention as units in older condo projects are expected to face greater scrutiny in 2025. A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992 and led to more stringent building code requirements in South Florida. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. Zalewski also discussed the findings of a seven-part series examining how Florida condo living could change in 2025. This is a 10-minute clip from the beginning of the August 2024 Monthly Meeting. To watch the entire video, you will have to sign up for he Club by clicking this link. The objective of the Club is to create a community that shares realtime, actionable information on the latest real estate trends, opportunities and service providers in South Florida, Besides real estate professionals, developers and lenders, the Club is also ideally suited for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) condo buyers who can utilize our latest statistics, expert opinions and access to consulting services. We encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. Additionally, the podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. As a reminder, we are always available for consulting, expert witness work and buyside brokerage services just as we have been since 2006. If you want more information on condo resale units, please visit CondoVulturesRealty.com or call the office at 305.865.5859. This information is believed to be accurate and complete but cannot be guaranteed or warranted. Copyright © 2024 Condo Vultures®, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

What does it take to stay safe during a hurricane in coastal Florida? Discover the invaluable insights from Kathy Perkins, Director of Pinellas County Emergency Management Services, who brings over three decades of experience, including her firsthand involvement in Hurricane Andrew. Kathy helps us navigate the unique challenges that each storm brings, from storm surges and high winds to inland flooding. Learn why it's crucial not to get fixated on the "cone of uncertainty," and hear Kathy's expert advice on staying informed and understanding the broader risks.Ever felt "hurricane fatigue"? We tackle this critical issue by reflecting on personal experiences with major storms like Hurricane Charlie, Ian, and Irma. Kathy shares the complexities of hurricane forecasting and stresses the importance of staying vigilant despite the unpredictable nature of these storms. We dive into the challenges of evacuation planning, especially for vulnerable populations, and discuss the necessity of preparing for best, mid, and worst-case scenarios. This segment aims to keep you ready for rapid changes in storm intensity and direction, emphasizing the dangers of complacency.Preparation is key, and that's why we focus on practical strategies for evacuation and hurricane preparedness in our final chapter. Drawing parallels to everyday safety measures, you'll get practical advice on creating a well-thought-out plan tailored to your family's needs, including pets and specific medical requirements. Learn about the importance of timely preparation and how to use resources like Alert Pinellas and the Ready Pinellas app. Kathy's insights will guide you through knowing your risk, making a plan, and staying informed to ensure your safety during hurricane season.

Watch the Club's Monthly Meeting for July 2024 that was hosted by Miami condo expert Peter Zalewski. Miami condo expert Peter Zalewski - who is a former business journalist, Wall Street consultant, expert witness and licensed Florida real estate buyside broker - discussed the opportunities and pitfalls for buyers and sellers due to the rapidly approaching 2025 Florida Condo Association Financial Cliff. Zalewski spoke for about 75 minutes at the third Monthly Meeting of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™ that was held at Noon (EST) on July 10, 2024. (Please note, this is a segment from the Monthly Meeting video. To watch the entire video, you have to be a member of the Miami Condo Market Investing Club™. To join, please visit: https://condovultures.com/membership/) A lot has changed since June 24, 2021 when the Champlain Towers South collapsed on the barrier island in Miami-Dade County. Nearly 100 people died and a $1 billion settlement was reached with the families of the victims. Some industry watchers have compared it to an inflection point on par with the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew that devastated South Miami-Dade County in August 1992. Since the 2021 collapse, older units are said to be tougher to sell, insurance prices are spiking year-over-year and association maintenance fees and special assessments are squeezing owners to the brink. The discussion also focused on the South Florida condo stats for the first six months of 2024, a new four-part video series that provides a narration of the Florida Condo Act and the outlook for the tricounty market. We crunch a lot of statistics each week and then publish the results byway of a series of reports posted on CondoVultures.com. If you want the reports emailed to you, just sign up for the Miami Condo Market Intelligence Report With Peter Zalewski™ newsletter at: PeterZalewski.substack.com Additionally, we encourage you to listen or view our podcast wherever you get podcasts. Additionally, the podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube. This information is believed to be accurate and complete but cannot be guaranteed or warranted. For more information, please call 305.865.5859 or visit CondoVulturesRealty.com Copyright © 2024 Condo Vultures®, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Every American who has a mortgage is required by their bank to have homeowners insurance, but getting it and keeping it is becoming a challenge. In this episode, hear the highlights of a Senate hearing examining the problems in the homeowners insurance market and why they might lead to much bigger problems next time disaster strikes. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Effects of Climate on Insurance Christopher Flavelle and Mira Rojanasakul. May 13, 2024. The New York Times. Chris Van Hollen et al. September 7, 2023. Chris Van Hollen, U.S. Senator for Maryland. Alice C. Hill. August 17, 2023. Council on Foreign Relations. Insurance Information Institute. Antonio Grimaldi et al. November 19, 2020. McKinsey & Company. Lobbying OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets. Heritage Foundation SourceWatch. Demotech William Rabb. April 15, 2024. Insurance Journal. Parinitha Sastry et al. December 2023. Fannie Mae Adam Hayes. May 17, 2023. Investopedia. Hurricanes National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Audio Sources Senate Committee on the Budget June 5, 2024 Witnesses: Glen Mulready, Insurance Commissioner, State of Oklahoma Rade Musulin, Principal, Finity Consulting Dr. Ishita Sen, Assistant Professor of Finance, Harvard Business School Deborah Wood, Florida Resident , Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation's Grover Hermann Center for the Federal Budget Clips 23:05 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): In 2022 and 2023, more than a dozen insurance companies left the Florida residential market, including national insurers like Farmers. Residents fled to Citizens Property Insurance, the state backed insurer of last resort, which ballooned from a 4% market share in 2019 to as much as 17% last year. If it has to pay out claims that exceed its reserves, citizens can levy a surcharge on Florida insurance policy holders across the state. Good luck with that. Particularly if the surcharge grows to hundreds or even thousands of dollars to depopulate its books. Citizens has let private insurers cherry pick out its least risk policies. Those private insurers may have problems of their own, as we will hear today. 25:10 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): The federal budget takes a hit because these insurers and their policies are accepted by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who either own or guarantee a large part of our $12 trillion mortgage market. This all sounds eerily reminiscent of the run-up to the mortgage meltdown of 2008, including a role of potentially captive or not fully responsible rating agencies. 25:45 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Florida is far from alone. A New York Times investigation found that the insurance industry lost money on homeowners coverage in 18 states last year, and the states may surprise you. The list includes Illinois, Michigan, Utah, Washington, and Iowa. Insurers in Iowa lost money each of the last four years. This is a signal that hurricanes and earthquakes, once the most prevalent perils, are being rivaled by hail, windstorms, and wildfires. 28:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): This isn't all that complicated. Climate risk makes things uninsurable. No insurance makes things unmortgageable. No mortgages crashes the property markets. Crashed property markets trash the economy. It all begins with climate risk, and a major party pretending that climate risk isn't real imperils our federal budget and millions of Americans all across the country. 33:45 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Insurance premiums are far too high across the board and may increase after the recent storms, including those very storms in my state of Iowa. Climate change isn't the primary driver of insurance rate hikes and collapse of the insurance industry isn't imminent. Although I'll have to say, Iowa had six property and casualty companies pull out of insuring Iowans. Climate change doesn't explain why auto insurance premiums in 2024 have increased by a whopping 20% year over year. It also doesn't account for the consistent failure of liberal cities to fight crime, which has raised insurance risk and even caused insurers to deny coverage. Expensive liberal policies, not climate change, are much to blame for these market dynamics. 39:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): The first witness is Rade Musulin. Rade is an actuary with 45 years of experience in insurance, specializing in property pricing, natural perils, reinsurance, agriculture, catastrophe, risk modeling, public policy development, and climate risk. Specifically, he spent many years working in Florida, including as chair of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Advisory Council during the time in which Citizens Property Insurance Corporation was established. 39:35 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Our second witness is Dr. Ishida Sen. Dr. Sen is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. Her recent research examines the pricing of property insurance and the interactions between insurance and mortgage markets. This includes the role that institutions and the regulatory landscape play and the broader consequences for real estate markets, climate adaptation, and our overall financial stability. 40:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Our third witness is Deb Wood. Ms. Wood and her husband Dan McGrath are both retired Floridians. They moved to South Florida in 1979 and lived in Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale for 43 years until skyrocketing insurance premiums became too much. They now reside in Tallahassee, Florida. 40:35 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Dr. EJ Antoni is a Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget. His research focuses on fiscal and monetary policy, and he previously was an economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Antoni earned his Master's degree and Doctor's degree in Economics from Northern Illinois University. 41:10 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Commissioner Glen Mulready has served as Oklahoma's 13th Insurance Commissioner and was first elected to this position in 2019. Commissioner Mulready started his insurance career as a broker in 1984, and also served in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. 42:15 Rade Musulin: Okay. My name is Ray Muslin. I'm an actuary who has extensive experience in natural hazard risks and funding arrangements for the damage and loss they cause. I've worked with many public sector entities on policy responses to the challenges of affordability, availability of insurance, and community resilience. This work included participating in Florida's response to Hurricane Andrew, which included the creation of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. The Cat Fund and Citizens can access different forms of funding than traditional insurance companies. Instead of holding sufficient capital or reinsurance before an event to cover the cost of potential losses, both entities use public sources of capital to reduce upfront costs by partially funding losses post-event through bonding and assessments. All property casualty insurance policy holders, whether in Citizens or not, are subject to its assessments. While the Cat Fund can also assess almost all policies, including automobile, this approach exposes Floridians to debt and repayment if large losses occur, and it subsidizes high risk policies from the entire population. These pools, others like them in other states, and the NFIP have contributed to rapid development in high risk areas driving higher costs in the long run. In Florida, national insurers have reduced their exposure as a significant proportion of the insurance market has moved to Citizens or smaller insurers with limited capital that are heavily dependent on external reinsurance. To date, Florida's system has been successful in meeting its claims obligations, while improvements in building codes have reduced loss exposure. However, for a variety of reasons, including exposure to hurricanes, claims cost inflation, and litigation, Florida's insurance premiums are the highest in the nation, causing significant affordability stress for consumers. According to market research from Bankrate, the average premium for a $300,000 home in Florida is three times the national average, with some areas five times the national average. A major hurricane hitting a densely populated area like Miami could trigger large and long lasting post-event assessments or even exceed the system's funding capacity. Continued rapid exposure growth and more extreme hurricane losses amplified by climate change will cause increasing stress on the nation's insurance system, which may be felt through solvency issues, non-renewals, growth of government pools, and affordability pressure. 44:55 Rade Musulin: Evidence of increasing risk abounds, including Hurricane Otis in 2023, which rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a cat. five hurricane and devastated Acapulco in Mexico last summer. Water temperatures off Florida exceeded a hundred degrees Fahrenheit last week. As was alluded to earlier, NOAA forecast an extremely active hurricane season for '24. We've seen losses in the Mid-Atlantic from Sandy, record flooding from Harvey, and extreme devastation from Maria, among others. In coming decades, we must prepare for the possibility of more extreme hurricanes and coastal flooding from Texas to New England. 46:50 Dr. Ishita Sen: Good morning Senators. I am Ishita Sen, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and my research studies insurance markets. In recent work with co-authors at Columbia University and the Federal Reserve Board, I examine how climate risk creates fiscal and potentially financial instability because of miscalibrated insurer screening standards and repercussions to mortgage markets. 47:15 Dr. Ishita Sen: Insurance is critical to the housing market. Property insurers help households rebuild after disasters by preserving collateral values and reducing the likelihood that a borrower defaults. Insurance directly reduces the risks for mortgage lenders and the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Mortgage Lenders therefore require property insurance and the GSEs only purchase mortgages backed by insurers who meet minimum financial strength ratings, which measure insurer solvency and ability to pay claims. The GSEs accept three main rating agencies AM Best, S & P and, more recently, Demotech. And to provide an example, Fannie Mae requires insurers to have at least a B rating from AM Best, or at least an A rating from Demo Tech to accept a mortgage. Now, despite having this policy in place, we find a dramatic rise in mortgages backed by fragile insurers and show that the GSEs and therefore the taxpayers ultimately shoulder a large part of the financial burden. Our research focuses on Florida because of availability of granular insurance market data, and we show that traditional insurers are exiting and the gap is rapidly being filled by insurers, rated by Demotech, which has about 60% market share in Florida today. These insurers are low quality across a range of different financial and operational metrics, and are at a very high risk of becoming insolvent. But despite their risk, these insurers secure high enough ratings to meet the minimum rating requirements set by the GSEs. Our analysis shows that many actually would not be eligible under the methodologies of other rating agencies, implying that in many cases these ratings are inflated and that the GSEs insurer requirements are miscalibrated. 49:20 Dr. Ishita Sen: We next look at how fragile insurers create mortgage market risks. So in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, homeowners with a policy from one of the insolvent Demotech insurers were significantly more likely to default on their mortgage relative to similar borrowers with policies from stable insurers. This is because insurers that are in financial trouble typically are slower to pay claims or may not pay the full amounts. But this implies severe economic hardships for many, many Floridians despite having expensive insurance coverage in place. However, the pain doesn't just stop there. The financial costs of fragile insurers go well beyond the borders of Florida because lenders often sell mortgages, for example, to the GSEs, and therefore, the risks created by fragile insurers spread from one state to the rest of the financial system through the actions of lenders and rating agencies. In fact, we show two reasons why the GSEs bear a large share of insurance fragility risk. First is that lenders strategically securitize mortgages, offloading loans backed by Demotech insurers to the GSEs in order to limit their counterparty risk exposures. And second, that lenders do not consider insurer risk during mortgage origination for loans that they can sell to the GSEs, even though they do so for loans that they end up retaining, indicating lax insurer screening standards for loans that can be offloaded to the GSEs. 50:55 Dr. Ishita Sen: Before I end, I want to leave you with two numbers. Over 90%. That's our estimate of Demotech's market share among loans that are sold to the GSEs. And 25 times more. That's Demotech's insolvency rate relative to AM Best, among the GSE eligible insurers. 57:15 Glen Mulready: As natural disasters continue to rise, understanding the dynamics of insurance pricing is crucial for both homeowners and policymakers. Homeowners insurance is a fundamental safeguard for what is for many Americans their single largest asset. This important coverage protects against financial loss due to damage or destruction of a home and its contents. However, recent years have seen a notable increase in insurance premiums. One significant driver of this rise is convective storms and other severe weather events. Convective storms, which include phenomena like thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hail, have caused substantial damage in various regions. The cost to repair homes and replace belongings after such events has skyrocketed leading insurance companies to adjust their premiums to cover that increased risk. Beyond convective storms, we've witnessed hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding. These events have not only caused damage, but have also increased the long-term risk profile of many areas. Insurance companies are tasked with managing that risk and have responded by raising premiums to ensure they can cover those potential claims. 58:30 Glen Mulready: Another major factor influencing homeowner's insurance premiums is inflation. Inflation affects the cost of building materials, labor, and other expenses related to home repair and reconstruction. As the cost of living increases, so does the cost of claims for insurers. When the price of lumber, steel, and other essential materials goes up, the expense of repairing or rebuilding homes also rises. Insurance companies must reflect these higher costs in their premiums to maintain financial stability and ensure they can meet those contractual obligations to policyholders. 59:35 Glen Mulready: I believe the most essential aspect of managing insurance premiums is fostering a robust, competitive free market. Competition among insurance companies encourages innovation and efficiency, leading to better pricing and services for consumers. When insurers can properly underwrite and price for risk, they create a more balanced and fair market. This involves using advanced data analytics and modeling techniques to accurately assess the risk levels of different properties. By doing so, insurance companies can offer premiums that reflect the true risk, avoiding excessive charges for low risk homeowners, and ensuring high risk properties are adequately covered. Regulation also plays a crucial role in maintaining a healthy insurance market. Policyholders must strike a balance between consumer protection and allowing insurers the freedom and flexibility to adjust their pricing based on the risk. Overly stringent regulations can stifle competition and lead to market exits, reducing choices for consumers. We've seen this play out most recently in another state where there were artificial caps put in place on premium increases that worked well for consumers in the short term, but then one by one, all of the major insurers began announcing they would cease to write any new homeowners insurance in that state. These are all private companies, and if there's not the freedom and flexibility to price their products properly, they may have to take drastic steps as we've seen. Conversely, a well-regulated market encourages transparency and fairness, ensuring that homeowners have access to the most affordable and adequate coverage options. 1:02:00 Dr. EJ Antoni: I'm a public finance economist and the Richard F. Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where I research fiscal and monetary policy with a particular focus on the Federal Reserve. I am also a senior fellow at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. 1:02:15 Dr. EJ Antoni: Since January 2021, prices have risen a cumulative 19.3% on average in the American economy. Construction prices for single family homes have risen much faster, up 30.5% during the same time. 1:03:20 Dr. EJ Antoni: Actuarial tables used in underwriting to estimate risk and future losses, as well as calculate premiums, rely heavily on those input costs. When prices increase radically, precisely as has happened over the last several years, old actuarial tables are of significantly less use when pricing premiums because they will grossly understate the future cost to the insurer. The sharp increase in total claim costs since 2019 has resulted in billions of dollars of losses for both insurers and reinsurers prompting large premium increases to stop those losses. This has put significant financial stress on consumers who are already struggling with a cost of living crisis and are now faced with much higher insurance premiums, especially for homeowners insurance. 1:05:10 Dr. EJ Antoni: The increase in claims related to weather events has undoubtedly increased, but it is not due to the climate changing. This is why the insurance and reinsurance markets do not rely heavily on climate modeling when pricing premiums. Furthermore, climate models are inherently subjective, not merely in how the models are constructed, but also by way of the inputs that the modeler uses. In other words, because insufficient data exists to create a predictive model, a human being must make wide ranging assumptions and add those to the model in place of real world data. Thus, those models have no predictive value for insurers. 1:07:40 Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): You say that this combination of demographics, development, and disasters poses a significant risk to our financial system. What do you mean by risk to our financial system Rade Musulin: Well, Senator, if you look at the combination, as has been pointed out, of high growth and wealth accumulation in coastal areas, and you look at just what we've observed in the climate, much less what's predicted in the future, there is significant exposure along the coastline from Maine to Texas. In fact, my family's from New Jersey and there is enormous development on the coast of New Jersey. And if we start to get major hurricanes coming through those areas, the building codes are probably not up to the same standards they are in Florida. And we could be seeing some significant losses, as I believe was pointed out in the recent Federal Reserve study. Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): And how does that create risk to the financial system? Rade Musulin: Well, because it's sort of a set of dominoes, you start with potentially claims issues with the insurers being stressed and not able to pay claims. You have post-event rate increases as we've seen in Florida, you could have situations where people cannot secure insurance because they can't afford it, then that affects their mortgage security and so on and so forth. So there are a number of ways that this could affect the financial system, sir. Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): Cascading beyond the immediate insurer and becoming a national problem. Rade Musulin: Well, I would just note Senator, that in Florida, the real problems started years after we got past Andrew. We got past paying the claims on Andrew, and then the big problems occurred later when we tried to renew the policies. 1:10:50 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): And you see in this, and I'm quoting you here, parallels in the 2008 financial crisis. What parallels do you see? Dr. Ishita Sen: So just like what happened during the financial crisis, there were rating agencies that gave out high ratings to pools of mortgages backed by subprime loans. Here we have a situation where rating agencies like Demotech are giving out inflated ratings to insurance companies. The end result is sort of the same. There is just too much risk and too many risky mortgages being originated, in this case backed by really low quality insurers that are then entering the financial system. And the consequences of that has to be born by, of course the homeowners, but also the mortgage owners, GSCs (Government Sponsored Enterprises), the lenders, and ultimately the federal and state governments. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): You say, this will be my last question. The fragility of property insurers is an important channel through which climate risk might threaten the stability of mortgage markets and possibly the financial system. What do you mean when you refer to a risk to the financial system? Dr. Ishita Sen: Well, as I was explaining the GSEs, if there are large losses that the GSEs face, then those losses have to be plugged by somebody. So the taxpayers, that's one channel through which you've got risk to the financial system and the GSE's serve as a backstop in the mortgage market. They may not have the ability or capacity to do so in such a scenario, which affects mortgage backed security prices, which are held by all sorts of financial institutions. So that starts affecting all of these institutions. On the other hand, if you've got a bunch of insurers failing, another channel is these insurers are one of the largest investors in many asset classes like corporate bonds, equities, and so on. And they may have to dump these securities at inopportune times, and that affects the prices of these securities as well. 1:12:45 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-AI): Dr. Antoni, is there any evidence to support the notion that climate change is the greatest threat to the insurance market? Dr. EJ Antoni: No. Senator, there is not. And part of that has to do again, with the fact that when we look at the models that are used to predict climate change, we simply don't have enough empirical data with which we can input into those models. And so as a result of that, we have to have human assumptions on what we think is going to happen based essentially on a guess. And as a result of that, these models really are not of any predictive value, and that's why these models for the last 50 years have been predicting catastrophic outcomes, none of which have come true. 1:14:45 Glen Mulready: This focus on the rating agencies, I would agree with that if that were the be all end all. But the state insurance commissioners in each 50 states is tasked with the financial solvency of the insurance companies. We do not depend on rating agencies for that. We are doing financial exams on them. We are doing financial analysis every quarter on each one of them. So I would agree if that was the sort of be all end all, forgive that phrase, but it's not at all. And we don't depend very much at all on those rating agencies from our standpoint. 1:22:15 Dr. Ishita Sen: On the point about regulators looking at -- rating agencies is not something that we need to look at. I would just point out that in Florida, if you look at the number of exams that the Demotech rated insurers, that by the way have a 20% insolvency rate relative to 0% for traditional insurers, they get examined at the same rate as the traditional insurers like Farmers and AllState get examined, which is not something that you would expect if you're more risky. You would expect regulators to come look at them much, much more frequently. And the risk-based capital requirements that we have currently, which were designed in the 1980s, they're just not sensitive enough to new risks like wildfire and hurricanes and so on. And also not as well designed for under-diversified insurance companies because if so, all of these insurers were meeting the risk-based capital requirements, however, at the same time going insolvent at the rate of 20%. So those two things don't really go hand in hand. 1:23:25 Dr. Ishita Sen: Ultimately what the solution is is something that is obviously the main question that we are here to answer, but I would say that it is extremely hard to really figure out what the solution is, in part because we are not in a position right now to even answer some basic facts about how big the problem is, what exactly the numbers look like. For instance, we do not know basic facts about how much coverage people have in different places, how much they're paying. And when I say we don't know, we don't know this at a granular enough level because the data does not exist. And the first step towards designing any policy would be for us to know exactly how bad the problem is. And then we come up with a solution for that and start to evaluate these different policy responses. Right now we are trying to make policy blindfolded. 1:23:50 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): So we've had testimony before this committee that we've already spent $5-6 trillion. That's 5,000 to 6,000 billion dollars trying to mitigate climate change. We haven't made a dent in it. Their estimates, it's going to cost tens of trillions of dollars every year to reach net zero. So again, this is not the solution for a real problem, which is the broken insurance market. I have enough Wisconsin residents who live on the Gulf Coast in Florida to know after Hurricane Ian, you got some real problems in Florida. But fixing climate change isn't the solution. 1:33:15 Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR): In looking at the materials I saw that Citizens Property Insurance Company, I gather that's Louisiana and Florida, that have a completely state backed program. Well, alright, so if the state becomes the insurer of last resort and they now suffer the same losses that a regular private insurance company is suffering, now the folks in the state are carrying massive debt. So that doesn't seem like a great solution. Dr. Ishita Sen: That's definitely a problem, right? The problem is of course, that whether the state then has the fiscal capacity to actually withstand a big loss, like a big hurricane season, which is a concern that was raised about Citizens. And in such a scenario then in a world where they do not have enough tax revenue, then they would have to go into financial markets, try to borrow money, which could be very costly and so on. So fiscally it's going to be very challenging for many cities and many municipalities and counties and so on. 1:36:40 Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): I wish there were something we could do that would reduce the climate change we're seeing and the warming of the planet. But I've seen absolutely nothing proposed by anyone that reduces CO2 emissions, methane gases and the heating of the planet. Climate change is going to happen because of the development in China and Indonesia and Brazil, and the only thing that actually makes any measurable impact at all is putting a price on carbon, and no one seems to be willing to consider doing that. Everything else that's being talked about on the climate — Democratic Senator: I got two bills. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): I know you and I are, but you guys had reconciliation. You could have done it all by yourselves and you didn't. So the idea that somehow we're going to fix climate and solve the insurance problem is pie in the sky. That's avoiding the reality that we can't fix climate because that's a global issue, not an American issue. Anyway, let me turn back to insurance. 1:38:30 Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): So the question is, what actions can we take? Fiscal reform? Yes, to try and deal with inflation. Except I want to note something, Mr. Antoni, because you're esteemed at the Heritage Foundation. 72% of federal spending is not part of the budget we vote on. So we talk about Biden wants to spend all this.... 72% we don't vote on; we only vote on 28%. Half of that is the military. We Republicans want more military spending, not less. So that means the other 14%, which the Democrats want to expand, there's no way we can reduce the 14% enough to have any impact on the massive deficits we're seeing. So there's going to have to be a broader analysis of what we have to do to reign in our fiscal challenges. I just want to underscore that. I would say a second thing we can do, besides fiscal reform and dealing with inflation, is stopping subsidizing high risk areas. Basically subsidizing people to build expensive places along the coast and in places that are at risk of wildfire. And we subsidize that and that creates huge financial risk to the system. And finally, mitigation of one kind or another. That's the other thing we can do is all sorts of mitigation: forestry management, having people move in places that are not high risk. But if you want to live in a big house on the coast, you're gonna have to spend a lot of money to insure it or take huge risk. That's just the reality. So those are the three I come up with. Stop the subsidy, mitigation, and fiscal reform. What else am I missing, Mr. Musulin? And I'm just going to go down the line for those that are sort of in this area to give me your perspectives. Rade Musulin: Well, thank you, Senator. And I'd agree with all those things. And I'd also add that we need to start thinking about future-proofing our building codes and land use policies. The sea levels are rising. If you're going to build a house that's supposed to last 75 years, you ought to be thinking about the climate in 75 years when you give somebody a permit to build there. So I'd say that's important. I'd also say that large disasters also drive inflation because it puts more pressure and demand on labor and materials. More disasters means supplies that could have been used to build new homes for Americans or diverted to rebuild homes in the past. So certainly doing things to reduce the vulnerability of properties and improve their resilience is important. And I do think, sir, that there are things we can do about climate change with respect over periods of decades that can make a difference in the long run. Thank you. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): Thank you. Yes. Dr. Ishita Sen: So before that, the one point about inflation that we are missing, which is without doubt it is a contributing factor, but the US has had inflation in the past without such an acute crisis in insurance markets. So whether that is the biggest cause or not is up for debate. I don't think we have reached a conclusion on inflation being the biggest contributor of rising insurance cost. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): It's just a big one. You'd agree It's a big one? Dr. Ishita Sen: I agree. It's a big one, but I wouldn't say it's the biggest one in terms of policy solutions. I completely agree with you on, we need to stop subsidizing building in high risk areas. That's definitely one of the things we need to do that. Mitigation, another point that you bring up. And on that, I would say not only do we need to harden our homes, but we also need to harden our financial institutions, our banks, and our insurance companies in order to make them withstand really large climate shocks that are for sure coming their way. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): Thank You, Ms. Wood. I'm going to let you pass on this just because that's not your area of expertise. Your experience was something which focused our thinking today. Mr. Mulready. Glen Mulready: Thank you, Senator. I would say amen to your comments, but I'll give you three quick things. Number one, FEMA has a survey out that states that every $1 spent in mitigation saves $6 in lost claims. It pays off. Number two, unfortunately, a lot of communities have to have a disaster happen. In Moore, Oklahoma, back a dozen years ago, an EF5 (tornado) hit, it was just totally devastating. After that, the city of Moore changed their zoning, they changed their building zoning codes, and then third, the city of Tulsa, back in the eighties, had horrible flooding happened. So they invested over decades in infrastructure to prevent flooding. Now we're one of only two communities in the country that are Class one NFIP rated. 1:45:40 Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): One way to address this, and I think it was discussed in a different matter, is the need to get the data and to get consensus on where the risks lie, which is why last year Senator Whitehouse, Senator Warren and I sent a letter to the Treasury Department, to the Federal Insurance Office (FIO), urging them to collect information from different states. I'm a supporter of a state-based insurance system for property and casualty insurance, but I do think it would benefit all of us to have a sort of national yardstick against which we can measure what's happening. So Dr. Sen, could you talk a little bit about the benefit of having a common source of insurance data through the FIO and how that could benefit state regulators and benefit all of us? Dr. Ishita Sen: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up. That's just the first order importance, I think, because we don't even know the basic facts about this problem at a granular enough level. The risks here are local, and so we need to know what's going zip code-by-zip code, census tract-by-census tract, and for regulators to be able to figure out exactly how much risk is sitting with each of these insurance companies they need to know how much policies they're writing, what's the type of coverage they're selling in, what are the cancellations looking like in different zip codes. Only then can they figure out exactly how exposed these different insurers are, and then they can start designing policy about whether the risk-based capital ratios look alright or not, or should we put a surcharge on wildfires or hurricanes and so on? And we do need a comprehensive picture. We just can't have a particular state regulator look at the risks in that state, because of course, the insurer is selling insurance all over the country and we need to get a comprehensive picture of all of that. 1:47:40 Sen. Chris Van Hollen: I appreciate that. I gather that the Treasury Department is getting some resistance from some state insurance regulators. I hope we can overcome that because I'm not sure why anyone would want to deny the American people the benefit of the facts here. 1:48:45 Rade Musulin: I will just note that sometimes climate change itself can contribute to the inflation we've been talking about. For example, there were beetle infestations and droughts and fires in Canada, which decimated some of the lumber crop and led to a fivefold increase in the cost of lumber a few years ago. So some of this claims inflation is actually related to climate change, and I think we need to address that. 1:49:35 Glen Mulready: If you didn't know, the NAIC, National Association of Insurance Commission is in the midst of a data collection right now that will collect that data for at least 80% of the homeowner's market. And we have an agreement with FIO (Federal Insurance Office) to be sharing that data with them. They originally came to us, I got a letter from FIO and they were requesting data that we did not actually collect at the zip code level, and they had a very stringent timeline for that. So my response, it wasn't, no, it was just, look, we can't meet that timeline. We don't collect that today. We can in the future. But from that is where this has grown the data called by the NEIC. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): So I appreciate, I saw that there had been now this effort on behalf of the....So has this now been worked out? Are there any states that are objecting, to your knowledge at this point in time, in terms of sharing data? Glen Mulready: I don't know about specific states. We will be collecting data that will represent at least 80% of the market share. Music by Editing Production Assistance

Join host Diana Moll in this episode of "Organizing with Ease," where she dives into the art of organization at pivotal times of the year. Diana talks about wrapping up the school year, embracing the adventures of summer, and preparing for hurricane season with confidence.Hear about Diana's personal experiences, from overcoming academic challenges in high school to spontaneous summer road trips and the lasting impact of Hurricane Andrew. Discover how organizing your study schedules, planning flexible summer activities, and creating emergency preparedness plans can transform your life and bring peace of mind.Whether you're a student, a parent, or someone looking to enhance your health and wellness through better organization, this episode offers valuable advice and inspiring stories. Tune in for a blend of personal experiences and actionable tips that will leave you feeling motivated and ready to tackle whatever comes your way.Connect with Diana:Business email: Diana@dsdeclutrr.comOur Instagram: @dsdeclutrrOur Facebook: @dsdeclutrrOur Websites: dsdeclutrr.com

Darrell Williams is a member of the White House Communications Agency Hall of Fame. He is also Chief, Military Personnel for Operations at the Defense of Defense (DoD). He serves as the human resources senior advisor on all military matters. He supports Joint-Service military personnel in their efforts to operate and defend the Department of Defense Information Network. He is part of the DoD Federal Coaching Network, serves as the Agency's Deputy Coaching Program Manager, and is a certified workshop facilitator. He routinely fulfills the role of an Assistant Chaplain when required. He was also assigned to the White House Communications Agency (WHCA), where he served as a Senior Human Resources Manager, Presidential Operations Lead, and Vice Presidential Communications Officer for over 500 Presidential and Vice Presidential missions. Career highlights include leading several short notice Presidential missions that included examining the effects of Hurricane Andrew in Florida and Tornado Damage in Arkansas; selection as the Staff Support Unit Manager of the Year; selection as a WHCA All-Star; as well as the White House Communications Agency Senior Manager of the Year. Additionally, he was selected as a DISA Outstanding Mentor and Human Resources Team of the Year.He received numerous professional awards to include the Presidential Service Badge. He is also a recipient of the Lacey B. Ivory Service Award; Roy Wilkins Renown Service Award; the National Louis University Reach Award; and the Strayer University Outstanding Alumni Award for his dedicated leadership in the DoD and community. Find out more at https://www.allianceseminars.org/

Dr. Vanessa Sinclair on her new novel Things Happen -- which recalls her days as a homeless grunge teen crashing at Miami's then-abandoned Hotel Mutiny after Hurricane Andrew broke her family apart. Today, Sinclair is a psychoanalyst based in Sweden.

I would like to introduce you to Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills. She had a decent childhood, for the most part. She was raped and also gang raped, but as she learned to be unstoppable and gained strength from these experiences, she grew into a fierce advocate for women and then later for other marginalized groups. Her story is quite amazing. To me, the most amazing thing is that she is quite willing to share her story if it will help others. She will tell us all about her philosophy on the subject.   For a time she worked in the insurance arena and then went into other endeavors. Over the past 20 years she has been a coach, trainer and consultant to over 2,000 companies and, as she says, she has assisted countless more in various ways.   Barbara's story and life lessons demonstrate how someone can make the choice to be unstoppable. She lives in Mount Loral, NJ with her family. If you ever meet her, don't mess with her as she is quite proficient in various martial arts styles as you can read in her bio. I hope you gain wisdom and knowledge from our conversation. Barbara Anne is a gem and a wonderful person to talk with. I hope you feel the same.   About the Guest:   Barbara Anne is a “Solutions Navigator” and servant leader who has directly assisted over 2,000 businesses in the past two decades and provided training, coaching, and technical assistance to countless more companies, teams, entrepreneurs, and individuals throughout her career. She is the founder and owner of Purpose-Filled Solutions and Evolutions LLC, a business consulting and leadership coaching company that partners with people, leaders, companies, and agencies to find their "why" (core purpose), identify resources, navigate challenges, change mindsets, and develop and implement plans to achieve their visions of success, with an emphasis on civility, inclusion, equity, and diversity (CIED), her unique alternative to current DEI approaches. Barbara Anne also serves as Director of Compliance & Engagement for Cooperative Business Assistance Corporation (CBAC) in Camden, NJ, and hosts “What The Why?!? with Barbara Anne,” a weekly talk show on RVN Television, Roku, and more. Before her current roles, she served as the Management Analyst and Community Liaison for the U.S. White House Promise Zone Initiative in Camden, NJ, stationed at the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), and as Supervisor of Lender Relations and Economic Development/Women's Business Ownership Representative for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) New Jersey District Office, and in other leadership roles in the corporate, non-profit, and municipal government arenas. Barbara Anne holds an M.S. in Executive Leadership, a B.A. in Political Science/ Honors with concentrations in Pre-Law and Women's Studies, and an A.A. in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Business Communications. She has completed multiple professional designations and adult continuing education certificates, including her Professional Certified Coach (PCC) certification with the International Coaching Federation (ICF), Certified Professional Coach in Executive Coaching from RCSJ, and certifications in talent optimization and implementing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. Barbara Anne serves in volunteer leadership capacities with ICF's NJ Charter Chapter and Braven, and she is a member of ICF Global, the Association of Talent Development (ATD), CDFI Women's Network, and other professional and civic organizations. The National Association of Women's Business Owners (NAWBO) – South Jersey Chapter honored her with their 2016 “Women's Advocate of the Year” award.  She is also a Second-Degree Black Belt and member of the Okinawa Goju-Ryu Kenshi-Kai Karate-Jutsu Kobu-Jutsu Association and trains in multiple other martial arts styles.   ** ** Ways to connect with Barbara:   Email: info@Purposefilledsolutionsandevolutions.com Phone: 856-313-0609 Website: https://www.purposefilledsolutionsandevolutions.com/  Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bgardenhiremills/ Purpose-Filled Solutions & Evolutions' Social Media Links Through LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/purposefilledcoach "What The Why?!? with Barbara Anne" On-Demand: https://rvntelevision.com/tv-show/what-the-why/        About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, and hello, once again. Welcome to unstoppable mindset. I'm your host, Michael Hingson. Or you can call me Mike, it's okay. Just Oh, I hate to do the joke, just not late for dinner. But anyway, here we are. And today we get to talk with Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills. Barbara Ann is in New Jersey has an interesting story and things that she's doing as a coach and other work that she is doing. And also, I'm going to give it away and she'll talk about it anyway. Barbara has had a couple of bouts with COVID. And actually just got through with one but she has a lot of wisdom about long COVID And actually already and just talking with her before we started this I learned some things I didn't know. And knowledge is always useful thing to have. So Barbara Anne welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 02:12 Thank you so much. I am super happy and honored to be asked to be your guest today. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.   Michael Hingson ** 02:23 Well, then we ought to have one right. So tell me about maybe the the younger barber and growing up and all that let's start there. It's always good as they say to start at the beginning somewhere.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 02:34 Yes. Start at the beginning. So younger Pribram was born in the late 60s to Maryland and Joseph, a biracial couple. So when my parents got married, still wasn't even legal in some states. And I was born right here in New Jersey, Jersey girl my whole life. And my my five foot three Caucasian mom and my six foot three. Black dad, African American reef. Yeah, they met when they were in college. And while my mother's family was very, very not in any way any color in the family tree has recently improved by one to three me my father's family was always very integrated. And I was the first of four children. My mother and dad had me and my sister exactly 16 months apart on purpose. I think that's insane. I can't even imagine doing that these days. And, and then there was three other siblings that would come along the way. One of whom died shortly after birth because of complications. And it was interesting. I grew up in an apartment complex that wasn't then but is now officially designated as what you would call affordable housing. And a small little, I never thought of it as rural growing up, but they call it rural. It was Vineland, New Jersey. Ah, and it actually is the biggest city in the state of New Jersey in terms of land size, all 69 square miles of it. And but definitely in southern New Jersey. And this is at a time when a lot of the highways and systems that exist now didn't even exist in its parts of South Jersey. And it was like its own whole other world. Anybody who has any familiarity with North and South Jersey knows how vastly different the two are the right down to the accents. And you know, we you know, had a good upbringing, the Things were going well, when it's time for me to go to school, because of the time that it was was you talking about early 70s, I was bussed as part of a program to make sure that they were, you know, equally distributing children aka schools. Which was really interesting. When back in the days before there was cell phones, in fact, my parents had a party line. They accidentally put me on the wrong bus. That was fun when you're in kindergarten. Yeah. But probably one of the earliest tragic things that would happen to me what happened when I was seven. And it's interesting, because I, my mom said, I've always been a forward planner, I've always been very rational, but also very even tempered. And she likes to tell stories about how you know, at a time when I was 14 months, I spilled a bowl of popcorn and I sat there at 14 months old, individually picking up each piece of kernel of corn and putting it back in the bowl. And when I was when I started walking it at nine months, and around 1112 months, we were out walking, and I saw a dandy line and I bent over and I pulled it up, I had no idea that would kill it. I picked it up and I sniffed it, and proceeded to put it right back in its exact place where it was. And so all these years later, she still loves to tell that story because I was very methodical and particular and had my routines and my processes. And then 10 days before Christmas, just after my seventh birthday, my father was killed in a car accident. And here was my mother, at the age of 28, widowed with four biracial children, the oldest of whom was seven and the youngest of whom was only had just been born on October 27. And that would be one of many pivots, in terms of that would define my future going forward. Okay, how   Michael Hingson ** 07:09 did you how did your parents, your, your grandparents deal with you? Maybe at the beginning, you said that they on your mom's side, we're not really oriented toward having biracial or any color in the family did that mollify at all especially towards you as you grow older,   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 07:30 not till I was much older. In fact, when my dad died, my grandfather, who was an Episcopal priest, refused to let my grandmother even can be with my mother, her grieving daughter, because as far as he was concerned, she was dead to him.   Michael Hingson ** 07:51 I have just never comprehended, of course, I've been blind my whole life, baby. And I regard it as a blessing. But I've just never understood this whole issue of color, and skin color having any significance to anything. It's just crazy. But   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 08:09 for the most part, it wasn't even a thing until the mid 1800s. In terms of, you know, I can't think of his name right now, because I'm coming off of my long COVID relapse, but a British scientist, was the one who kind of artificially constructed and classified race. Yeah. And there were a number of people, including Alexander Graham Bell, who bought into some of those theories. Yeah. And but before that, it really was just more of a familial designation, in terms of what country you are from and royalty was royalty. So they intermixed all the time. You know, there was how we understand things now really, are an artificial construct, which is one of the foundational pieces of what I do in my work as it relates to civility, inclusion and equity and diversity. But in that time, my grandmother didn't come my aunt didn't come they were in Florida. My dad's family. My dad was the youngest of six and he was a sports person he had played for the Eagles, arm team and he played basketball and everybody knew who he was. And his family stepped up and stepped in by her family was non existent. I would finally meet her sister a few years after that, and we have a good relationship. I only ever met my one uncle on her side once and I have a necklace that's handed down to my mother was. Her maiden name was aptly As in former Prime Minister Attlee of England, and so they were very particular, he was very much. Interestingly, it was almost bad that he married my grandmother. He was very much a white Anglo Saxon Protestant male, who married my mother's mother, my grandmother, credibly beautiful woman, her name was Ruth Fogarty. And like, parents off the boat Irish, her dad was an Irish house in New Orleans. And, and they had three children, and my mother was the oldest of them. And so dad wasn't so thrilled and dad ruled the household. And I finally met my grandmother right before I turned 12, because there's a family necklace that's handed down through the Fogarty family line to the to the oldest female on their 12th birthday. And so she was permitted to come see us and, and transfer that to me. And then right around the time I turned 16, my grandfather decided to have a change of heart, and that he was wrong. And I would meet him a couple of times between 16 and 19. And then when I was 19, he passed us was very awkward, I agreed to go to the funeral for my mother. But that was probably actually one of the biggest fights we ever had to because I had very strong feelings about being forced to go and mourn someone that had done, what I now understood had been the things that he had done over the course of her life in mind. But I, you know, she she said, incredible person. So my mother, who I'm I've ever been, I don't know who it is, but I don't like she tends to be much more private. She watches everything I do. But I don't usually name her for her own privacy reasons. You know, she would raise all four of us on her own, she never remarried, she went back to school, because she dropped out when she married my dad, and then had me, you know, urina. She got married in February of 67. They had me in mid November of 68. So she decided to go back to school, she completed her associate's then her Bachelor's than her Master's. And she went on to teach at the college where she got her nursing degree. And all of that joined the military before age 40, to become a nurse. And for the US Army, reserve corps, so she did a lot of really amazing things on her own, with me, helping out along the way, as the oldest child. So I learned to do a lot of things very young, that I probably wouldn't really be able to do now, in terms of watching siblings, cooking and cleaning, and things like that, but things that were otherwise really common at the time. And another big part of our lives was the church that we raised in. And because the whole family, my dad's family, was involved on both sides, my family were involved in the clergy, but the brother and cousins that we were most close to, went to the church where we went to and so they became a huge support system for my mom. And in a very interesting indoctrination process for me, that I would spend the better part of my teens and early 20s trying to undo. So that's the very early I, you know, we went to a private Christian school on scholarship. And when my mom graduated, they said no more scholarships. So I went to public high school, and did really well. You know, but I felt like I had been kind of thrown into this weird alternative universe where I had been used to being one of the only children of color in an entire school. And now I was in a school that was pseudo integrated. Different kids tended to be tracked based on their intelligence, but also, in part based on their socioeconomic status and, and race. And on my very first day, when I went to go in with the few kids that I didn't know, into the school cafeteria, I was stopped at the door and I was told that only the white kids ate in there, I had to go to the other cafeteria with the black and Spanish kids. And I was like, what, what are you talking about? And they were like, You eaten here. And that that was not something that my high school fixed for almost another 15 years when they finally decided to assign cafeterias, and eliminate a lot of staff. But other than that, I did choir, I did drama, I did all the things that I loved to learn, had its really great friends. And then couldn't afford to go to college. Now that my mom was working, I didn't get enough aid, and I wanted to be a doctor. And so I ended up getting just enough grants to go to community college. And then I went to work full time, and we went to school full time at nights. I went to work for Prudential insurance company, and they paid 90% tuition reimbursement. And I worked there in policyholder services, answering questions for agents for 10 states. Here I was, you know, the ages of 1819 20 ensiling complex insurance questions back when everything was in these little books, we would have to pull the pages out. And to replace them to update them. We covered all of New England and most of the East Coast with the exception of New Jersey and Massachusetts along scope   Michael Hingson ** 16:36 guard. So this was like 1987 88. Yes, exactly.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 16:40 8788 89. And, and then one of the next major pivotal things in my life happens. Having been raised in a very fundamentalist religion, I had never been involved in any kind of a sexual relationship. And I got raped. And what was interesting about it, other than the fact that it was pretty bad and it was somebody I knew, I got angry. And that's, that pivoted me into advocacy. And I became a speaker. I spoke on college campuses, I spoke at my high school. I was like, oh, no, no, no, this is never going to happen to another woman. Right? Yeah. This is just not okay. And, and then I had this whole world of advocacy opened up for me. And it's funny, I'll never forget, I ended up changing my major. Because my political science class and my sophomore year of college, the professor has put a list of all of these different characteristics. He said, Well, what describes a typical politician and he was what in New Jersey, we now call commissioners, but back then we called them freeholders freeholders held land. And we put all these characteristics on a board of what a typical politician is. And he said, Georgia class, he said, Okay, everybody, if you aren't, at least, almost all of them, if not all of these, you never, ever, ever have a chance of holding any kind of high office or elected office in government. And I looked at him in my stereotypical, defiant way, when somebody says I can't do something, and said, Oh, really. And I changed my major to political science that week. And I would later tell him after I graduated from political science honors from what is now Rowan University, with concentrations in pre law and Women's Studies. I would eventually tell him go back and tell him that he was the reason why I changed my major. And he was just so blown away. He's like, Oh, wow, I'm so odd. Really told him why. And guess what, like many politicians, he ended up having an affair with a staffer and losing his his seat and his wife in the process. So I guess he was so much more like, far too many prostitutions back then, than what was listed on the board.   Michael Hingson ** 19:31 Do as I say, not as I do.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 19:35 When I go ahead, no, go ahead. I was gonna say when I finished college, though, my first job right out of college. As I had left Prudential to go back full time to finish, which was good because by the time I got done Prudential no longer existed. They had moved their job offices to Jacksonville and have the office that I would have worked at had I stayed there like so many people said I should. Of course they He told me he really shouldn't leave this great job. And I said, Okay, really well watch me. And so again, I answered an ad in the newspaper. And I ended up going to work for the city of Bridgeton, in my field, actually working for the city in a new role for called the Community Development Block Grant sub recipient monitor. And my job was to create the infrastructure for monitoring funds from a community development block grants that were distributed to organizations in the community as a whole host of other things. And that was the beginning in 1992, of my 31 year career, other than one, brief six year return to insurance after having my son, my otherwise 31 year career in community and economic development.   Michael Hingson ** 20:59 So you got married along the way?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 21:02 I did, but not yet. I stayed for a while. Yeah. Which is a really great question. I, I just wasn't ready. Yeah, I, I was in this I was in this weird world of, I was too white for most black boys. I was too dark for most white boys. I was not Latina. But that was what I was most often mistaken for, because of my skin tone and where I grew up. And, and I was often just a novelty, somebody wanted to be able to say that they had tried being with a black girl. And in 2012, when I was 23 years old, that culminated actually, in a second, much more serious rape scenario with a guy that I had been seeing. Who knew about the first one, we'd had conversations about the fact that his sister had been through something similar. And then myself and a friend went to a party at his house, and they, I didn't even drink, because I didn't want to be in that situation. And yet, I felt like I was drunk. And it didn't. We didn't talk about things like being date rape drugs, and things like that. But yeah, it was, it was bad. And I remember bits and pieces, and they were just kind of joking that they all wanted to know what it was like to be with a black girl. And, um, so I was very protective of myself in many ways for many years. And when I met my husband, I was in a, I was long distance seeing someone he was seeing somebody else, we could care less. And then we would be reintroduced a couple years later. And I was at a point where I was like, I just not I can't get involved with. I've had all these bad experiences with white guys and black guys. I just know, I was seeing a guy from Puerto Rico at the time. And as my husband likes to say, he just had to convince me that he was the only thing missing from my life. So he did what every other guy who wants to be with somebody does, he became a really good friend. And then we would end up finally getting married three years after our first date, which was a disaster, by the way, because our first date was literally the day of the very first Million Man March. Oh, and I said to him, What were you thinking we had ended up getting into a political conversation and realized we were about as diametrically opposed as one could be. And that's what he thought about. What was he thinking when he asked out a young black urban professional, he said he didn't know because he didn't realize I was black. He thought I was lucky not then. And then one of the jokes of that evening that still gets repeated to this day, I said, oh, and I suppose you haven't marched? And I suppose you've marched in a militia too. And he says, well, not lately. Now he was he had been on the north on a Civil War reenactment militia militia, but my husband would really appreciate your sense of humor. So no, in spite of that disastrous first date, next month, we will have been married for 25 years and together for 28. Any he was so everything I was not looking for at the time, which is probably exactly why it worked because I after all of those other experiences I had decided to find out. And we did, we got married. And, in fact, I was executive director of a nonprofit housing organization at the time, and it was selling, it's celebrating its 25th anniversary. So we postponed our talk about understanding guy, he's always supported me and said, You go be you. We actually postponed our honeymoon, so that we could get the anniversary banquet and celebration out of the way, and then go on our honeymoon without having that hanging over our heads. So he knew what kind of person he was getting together with. And he was he was fine with that. And so yeah, and we would go on, and I would have, we would have one son. And that was another pivot. This year, I was, at this point, I'm now running an organization that the nonprofit that I was with helped start, I'm used to like going around the country, and conducting training classes in housing counseling, and homeownership education for housing counselor is for the federal government on going all these great places. And then along comes this son, who God purposefully gave me to prove I have absolutely no control over anything. I remember Oh, my gosh, it was it was something else. And remember, and of course, you know, being a slightly older mom, at this point, I'm 33. Having a geriatric pregnancy just didn't sound right. At all, I'm like, Oh, my God, I've I've tested I'm sitting there in tears one day, like, how is it that I could testify and in front of the state legislature and congressional hearings that I can't get this kid to go to sleep? What is wrong?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 27:10 got through it. I went back to the insurance industry. took a pause. 911 happened. I remember you. I remember seeing interviews with you on Larry King. And you know, one of the reasons why we chose our son's name, Colin, which is, the original Greek word for courage was after that happened, because we had, as you probably I know, you can relate based on having heard your story. I worked in Trenton and so there were people, a lot of people would commute by train. So someone I grew up with was lost. Very, very close friend of ours, his cousin was lost. But then there were other people that were actually supposed to be there that I was friends with, for various reasons that, like interviews were cancelled. A friend of mine who worked in Jersey City was supposed to cross over to work for Wall Street Journal, he was supposed to be there that morning, it got postponed to that afternoon. So many people that had so many close brushes. And so Colin seemed like a really good name. And, but it also drastically affected our funding as a nonprofit, because all the organizations where we were basically redirected already committed funds to World Trade Center efforts. And which is why to this day, I'm still firmly believe in cash accounting, and not the cruel accounting. And I went back into the insurance industry for six years. And it was fun. And I was underwriting manager for a company here in New Jersey. And and then, we unmerged with our parent company merged with another company and a whole bunch of changes started happening. And I ended up going through my next major pivot. I decided to leave a role where I was having a lot of difficulty with someone who was actively sabotaging my work. And so I decided to take a lateral move left a team of 19, several of whom were in extreme tears to help go create another department. And that behavior continued constant, what we would now call bullying but there was no such thing as bullying in the workplace. Right? And that would culminate in him. physically assaulting me on the job in a conference room full of leaders in front of witnesses. And he herniated all the discs in my neck. And what was really interesting about that is all of the other things that I had been through. They were emotional, and it was easy to recover. But the physical injury that I went in for a while I, my neck got everything swelled up so much I couldn't walk, I couldn't feel my feet. I couldn't function it was was incredibly painful. All of my C spine discs, were either damaged or bulged. And you would think, with so many people having witnessed it, it would be a no brainer, he would get fired. That's not what happened. Yeah, I was gonna ask. Yeah. That's not what happened at all. I would later find out through notes that he was giving a an a one time final warning, but this person had had a history of inappropriate behavior. And everybody would just chalk it up as to being that person. And so he had been there 20 years I had been there, three, and they decided that I was the one that needed to go. And they did what we used to call an insurance terms and other corporate terms called circle the wagons, protect their jobs. And that got ugly, very, very ugly. And Lisa Halloran was my hero. She was my, she taking the job was supposed to be a director was downgraded to a manager, which then downgraded me from management to consultant. And so she had only been there six months when this happened, she had transferred from another office. And in full integrity, she stood by me. Even when she personally was threatened, she stood by me. One point, she was told by the Vice President, I'm trying to save our jobs, you need to get in line. And she said, I would rather lose my job and be able to sleep at night, and do what you're asking me to do. And fortunately, for me, even though that left knee permanently partially disabled, I was able to find specialists, they did pay for one disc to be replaced. I did, New Jersey has binding arbitration, and the company pays for it. So there's not really much of an incentive for a binding arbitrator to actually rule in the favor of an employee. And they had argued in court that assaults were not not considered eligible for arbitration, but then tried to argue, in arbitration, that assaults belonged in court and the judge saw right through it and sent them all and joined everybody together, inviting arbitration and what was interesting is they lost. Wow, they lost and what what the ruling basically was was that the assault aside the way I was treated, including having ignored blatantly and openly admitted to ignoring their own grievance procedures process, that they had made a bad situation worse. And the funny thing is, then they then filed an appeal. At which point the arbitrator scathingly said, what part of binding arbitration Didn't you understand when you asked for binding arbitration? And they would eventually shut down all New Jersey operations. I, there's lots of rumors, I won't speculate. But yeah, almost everybody lost their jobs, all the way up to the top, including the New Jersey president. And I went back into government nonprofit work, and that's where I've been ever since.   Michael Hingson ** 34:26 You know, it's the insurance industry is a fascinating place. The reason I said early on that you joined in the insurance world in 1987 1988. Something like seven years before around 1980, maybe 1979. Probably 1980. Somebody in the National Federation of the Blind, which is the largest consumer organization of blind people, was at a meeting of insurance people Sitting next to a person from Prudential and said to this person, I think it also had to do with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, but anyway said, you know, insurance companies won't provide life insurance for people who are blind. And this guy said, Yeah. And the person who I knew said, Well, why don't you do everything that you do based on evidence to actuarial statistics and evidentiary data? And you have mathematical models for everything? And the guy said, Well, absolutely. That's how we make all of our decisions. And my friends said, Well, can we see the evidence that says that blind people are a higher risk? And the guy said, Sure, no problem. Six months went by, without any indication that there was anything. And finally my friend said, so where's the evidence? And the guy from Prudential said, Well, we were working on it. We haven't found it yet, but it's there. And my friend said, you don't have any do you? You have been discriminating against blind people and other persons with disabilities is it eventually expanded. But you've been doing that simply based on prejudice, and a mistaken belief that we're a higher risk without any evidence to show for it. And on the other end, we as blind people know, we're not a higher risk. Well, what that eventually led to was a campaign in every State of the Union at the time, I was living in Massachusetts. So I ran the effort for the state of Massachusetts for the National Federation of blind in Massachusetts. But to get every state to pass a law that said, you can't discriminate against blind or other persons with physical disabilities, unless you can provide actuarial statistics or or evidentiary data. And to this day, of course, no one's been able to because it doesn't exist. Yeah. It wasn't scientific at all. It was prejudice. Yep.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 37:00 Absolutely. Absolutely. And my husband had worked in that industry for a while. And yeah, and it both in the life insurance, but also in health and also in property and casualty. To be honest, at one point from in 95, and 96, I had gone back to insurance company, because I was recruited from a nonprofit specifically to help with a pilot program where they were reentering the urban environment to because they had stopped insuring in most cities, urban environments, because of flat roofs, and the fire risk that they support that they had. And my boss, an amazing person, his name was, Andre Howell had conceived of this idea that if we worked with people to help mitigate risk, we think that they'll actually perform well. And he was right. And we worked in a very specific target targeted neighborhood of Philadelphia, and offered like free inspections, and all kinds of things. And, and part of my job was to track the performance of that. Now, this was for all state at the time, and I will name them because at that time, they had lost more money in Hurricane Andrew than they had made in the history of the company. Yeah. And this is a program that they would eventually roll out across all the states. And I had been serving on the National Insurance Task Force which dealt with access, availability, and affordability, affordability of insurance and regional or in a metropolitan as well as rural areas, because there's a big issue with rural areas too. But interestingly, a division of theirs decided not long after I got there that they were going to start mass canceling and a non renewing policies in the state of New Jersey. And the actuarial logic behind it was they looked at all of the people who had had not an accident, apparently you get an accident every five years, they looked at all the people who had not had an accident within a five year period determined that they were due and decided that they were going to use a loophole in a tooth what was called the two for one law. For every two g non renewed you could take one new customer and they just started, guess what group hasn't had a car accident within a five year timeframe. Disabled people, seniors and those who only use vehicles for pleasure use. So here I was in the government relations divisions of a company whose state subsidiary was mass, non renewing disabled and non working individuals. We had agents that were losing clients like 90 a week, and of course, those individuals were taking other business with them, I've never. And this is on the heels of them having gotten in trouble because somebody had made a very inappropriate comment about why they wouldn't cover repairs to a property for a same sex couple. So it was a rough period for them that they would eventually overcome. But really just, that was some of the eye opening for me in terms of why my advocacy needed to be so much broader than just around women. So   Michael Hingson ** 40:28 is that what sort of really led you into dealing with the whole issue of inclusion and equity and so on?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 40:36 Yes, because I had now at this point, I had worked. in Bridgeton, I had worked in Cherry Hill Township, I had worked in Camden, I had worked in Philadelphia, looking at all of this, I'm seeing all this happening, I'm looking at people use numbers in ways that they should never have to use them because they had their own proprietary insurance score. And I had to know that model. So I had to know what went into it, so I could teach it. And I realized that the problem was so much bigger than even the different things that I had in my life that were intersectional in terms of being a female being a woman of color, you know, I wasn't even dealing with the disability yet at that point. And, but just other things, and, and hearing the way people would talk about people, as groups and status as individual human beings.   Michael Hingson ** 41:34 You know, it's, oh, go ahead.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 41:36 No, go ahead.   Michael Hingson ** 41:37 It's amazing, just how, as I said, Before, people do as I say, not as I do, how people behave, you know, and most people don't think about their own disabilities, all of you who have eyesight, and I've said it several times on this podcast, have a disability as well, your light dependent, just wait till the power goes out in the building, and you got to go off and try to scrounge for a flashlight or a smartphone. The thing is that, because so many people think that eyesight is really the only game in town, our society collectively, has worked really hard to make light on demand, a fact of life everywhere. And so we've spent basically 145 years developing this technology to make light on demand available, pretty much in a ubiquitous sort of way. So most of the time, you have light on demand until you don't like when I was in a hotel in March. And I've seen it other times since then, before being a building and settling, the power goes out and people start to scream and they don't know what to do. And the fear comes in, and I'm sitting there going so what's the problem? The the issue is, you guys are light dependent. And the reality is disability should not mean a lack of ability, because it's not. Disability is a characteristic that every single person on the planet has. And what we need to truly understand and do is to recognize that the characteristic manifests itself in different ways for different people. It doesn't mean it's not there. So let light cover up your disability, but you still have it. And you can say all day long, you don't. But you do. But but we're too arrogant sometimes to really address that and deal with it. And it's so unfortunate, when that happens so much in our world today. But but the fact is, that's that's the way it is. And so I talk about it, probably more than some people would like on the podcast, because I want the message to be heard by everyone. That disability does not mean lack of ability, and everyone has that characteristic in one way or another. For my part.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 43:51 Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, no, I was gonna say AB so lute Li and I loved hearing you talk about it, on the podcast that I listened to in the speeches that I listened to. Because disability disabled individuals are among some of the most discriminated individuals in this country. And that's planet. And, you know, when you were talking about what happened to you as a child in terms of what the doctors told your parents, you know, a lot of people don't realize that in this country in this country, till as recently as 1979. They were sterilizing women to keep certain women from being able to reproduce, because it will pollute the gene pool with disabled disability character, and   Michael Hingson ** 44:37 there were courts who backed that up. Yes. And supported eugenics like that. Yes, exactly.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 44:43 And so, you know, I mean, depending on it had I didn't born in a different state, God knows what would have happened. Yeah. But you know, in California was one of the biggest ones. And, you know, a lot of people don't know that because we don't talk About those parts of our history, but whether I was paying attention, I'm really good at listening. And I realized that it's naturally human beings tend to want to group things. They all want to be seen as individuals, but they want to put everybody else in groups. And you could say, you know, people talk about, you know, different immigrants being stupid. I'm sorry, How many languages do you speak? Because they may be struggling in English. But most, most people I know, who have immigrated here know at least one if not five, or six. My Spanish is terrible got Mexico, to for my honeymoon. I mean, people who have all these diverse people, we are all wonderfully and perfectly made, depending on whether or not you believe in God, we've written to flee imperfectly made in God's image. Yeah. And if the Bible says God makes no mistakes, who are we to think that any one else is any less? More superior, less, less superior? Or that we're more superior than anyone else?   Michael Hingson ** 46:19 Well, except that in Oh God, George Burns said that he made a mistake, because he made avocado pits too large. Yeah. Oh, my God to sneak that one in.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 46:34 Which is funny, though, only. But   Michael Hingson ** 46:37 I hear exactly what you're saying. The fact of the matter is, and kids especially I was talking with someone earlier today. And we were we were doing another interview, and we were talking about children and growing up and how kids are, are fun loving, they are full of adventure. And they don't have all of these agendas. And it's so unfortunate that we teach this in so many ways to children, and they grow up with these these horrible attitudes to a large degree, and there's no need for it. Children aren't evil. But we make them that way.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 47:17 Well, we could say that about a lot of things, right? I mean, a thing is a thing. It's, it's how we use it. Now, children are born a blank slate, it's what we write on it. Right. And the younger, we can undo that the better. And which is a huge part of you know, you know, like I said, my third pivot was was my most recent pivot after going to grad school. Because I was determined, I was going to get that master's degree before I turned 50. And then getting long COVID. I was like, Okay, you're still here. What are you going to do with this? And I said, well, since grad school, I've been talking about it, because here I am this black female who's been, you know, the first list the first you know, first black female here at first black female there because I was lighter skin, I was palpable, which gets into a whole other issue. And I didn't say quote, unquote, sound black or growing up, the black kids would say your family talks white. Half of my family is white, all my cousins are all interracial. That was my way my dad's family was three possible shade. So it was just normal to me. But then in the post Obama era, it was a little bit more normalized. For a while, oh, if I had $1 for every time somebody said, Oh, she speaks so well. I'd be very, very rich. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 48:45 if I had $1, for every time somebody said, you're amazing. And of course, what they're really saying is, especially for a blind person, you know.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 48:53 And so after getting COVID, and realizing I was still here, and seeing the spotlight shine on all things that were broken with our health care system, and then some, for anybody who was a person of color, who had an existing disability. Some of the things that I experienced. I actually had to I was like, Mom, you deal with the hospital, you're a nursing professor, you're Caucasian. They're not listening to me. You just deal with it, because they're not listening to me. Because there's so many of us continue to have to deal with ongoing symptoms before anybody would acknowledge that that was a real thing. The and so many people who are in the disability community, we're right in there with us. We're all in there together finding each other and social media and Facebook groups, because no one would listen to us. Mm. That's when I was like, Okay, it's, you're still here, you're here for a reason, it's time to get vocal about everything that's broken in this country about how we treat each other in general. And as the person of color in many organizations back when it was still called affirmative action. And having been part of integrating teams and corporate and government agencies, and seeing the narrative shift. Over the years, I was already getting concerned. And then when everybody was exposed to what so many of us knew, in the death of George Floyd and others, while everybody else said, Okay, stand up, this is a time for celebration, people are finally going to live, learn, change is going to happen, companies are issuing pledges everywhere, we're finally going to get the change that's been coming. And me, I'm on a webinar, still in very deep throes of long COVID with massive cognitive issues. And I said, here's my concern. And I meant to say backlash. I said, the black lashes coming. And that stuck. I see, I see, give it time. People know, when things aren't authentic. People know, when change is being shoved down their throat, people don't like being told that they're responsible for things that they didn't have happen. And saying, Now, you know, how it feels to be me is not the right response for that. And people started reading books about anti racism and all these things I said, I'm telling you, and then I repeat it, I said, I'm gonna keep using the word the black lashes coming since 2021, on record in a webinar. And now we have what we're seeing in Florida, and other states, and book burnings, and Supreme Court decisions. And all of these things as the pendulum swings back from one side to the other. And companies are eliminating diversity, equity inclusion programs, and people are leaving this fairly new kind of practice, for lack of better words. I mean, they've been, it's been slowly been evolving from diversity, diversity, inclusion, diversity, equity. And, and I've been saying for eight years, we're doing it all wrong. doing it all wrong. At no point, in over 20 years, if I ever brought a new hire into a situation without first addressing what needed to be addressed in house to create the environment that would make it possible for them to succeed, we should be doing it differently. And then, of course, after my assault, I was like, we have a serious civility issue. Just in terms of me, you can only legislate how people treat each other so much. But we have serious civility issues going on in workplaces that aren't being addressed, for all of the wrong reasons, across different groups. And it's time that we get our houses in order in terms of civility, then focus on creating the inclusive environment that it should be, then look at the equity issues within that environment, then you bring in the diversity hires that you want to bring in to help your company capitalize on the 30% return on investment that most companies that are diverse actually experience when they are run properly. In a truly, you know, culture add way, and then everybody can succeed. Otherwise, they're just hiring somebody that person comes in, they can't function, they quit. Everybody throws up their hands and says, Oh, well, we tried it didn't work, move on.   Michael Hingson ** 53:46 Tell me about purpose, build solutions and evolutions, if you would.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 53:49 Sure. It's a purpose built solutions and evolutions while I was in grad school, and I've been doing coaching internally and externally, since 1997. And I was asked, in grad schools, what as part of one of my classes to come up with a two or three word way to describe what I am from a professional standpoint. And I described myself as a Resource Navigator. And because so many of my roles involved, either giving the answers or putting people into the direction where they could find the answers. And so I had been doing everything that you're not supposed to do as a business as a side hustle. And Maryam with long COVID I go ahead, I finally get my international coaching Federation certification that I've been putting off for 12 years. And my coach says, When you get to start a business, you've helped like 1000s of others when you can actually do it yourself. And I figured, okay, so put was filled solutions and evolutions was originally going to be purpose filled solutions and evolutions navigators. But I've refiled the service mark to drop the the navigators, even though I still use it. Solutions navigator was already taken. So I was like, well, everything I do is coaching around the purpose. Once your why what is your core purpose? I know mine, mine is helping others figure out theirs, and then achieve it. And after about three weeks of analysis, paralysis, and finally settled on purpose built solutions, and evolutions, a company that would offer the coaching that I had been doing, but also capitalize on my years of experience in various leadership roles, from supervisor up to Executive Director, as well as my Masters of Science and executive leadership and all that I had learned in grad school with a big focus on fixing what I felt was broken with what I call civility, inclusion, equity and diversity. And my company's turned to in June. And I have a team of consultants that support me, and a young woman that I hired from a program that I served as a leadership coach in breathe and shout out to Braven, which is a fellowship program for college students. I brought her in as an intern, and then hired her as my team. And she was a young woman who came here at the age of three, as part of her parents trying to escape Mexico. And she's DACA. And she's going through the citizenship process. And she couldn't find a job in the DEI space. And so we after a number of things, I asked her apologize for the parking. After a number of meetings, I asked her, Okay, we've had all these conversations about what I feel is wrong with the tape all of the information that I gave you, and then I want you to go and I want you to research and I want you to come back and tell me how you would redo my inclusion, equity and diversity program. And she came back. And she said, I think we need to start with mental health and physical disabilities. So this young woman who herself was an immigrant, who had was given carte blanche to look at everything that we should be looking at as part of a program that focuses on inclusion, equity and diversity, had every reason to throughout her life to come back with any number of options. And that's what she came back with. And I said, Okay, would you like a job as consultant? And how would you like to help me take take the lead and developing this program, and that's how paving the way to civility, inclusion, equity and diversity was born. Wow.   Michael Hingson ** 58:09 Well, that is pretty cool. And, and you're even making enough to pay her and everything, huh?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 58:14 I am. That's a blessing. Unfortunately, it works out she's she's part time consultant. She just had her and her husband just had their second baby. And she's on maternity leave right now. But we did our first official full public offering of the program in June, it was very well received, people were blown away. They learned things, of course, that they were never taught and about everything from how the messages are even being manipulated to you know, you know why it's so important to see every person as an individual being and someone who I love Louis Brandeis Griggs was the one who I stole the spelling of it from because I would always say people want to be human beings. And he would always capitalize the B E. In being and so paving the way to civility, inclusion, equity and diversity, a new way of be in, in workplace and in life is our our most comprehensive flagship training program, who   Michael Hingson ** 59:24 have been some of the people who had the most influence on you as you're going through life.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 59:31 My mom obviously has been one. I mentioned a couple of Lisa Halloran who stood by me when she had everything to risk. I have to ride or die. Best Friend's one. Unfortunately. Kathy Jagger passed actually. It'll be here next week. She was also a rape survivor and we met when I was 19. She was a little bit older too. She was 32. And we bonded and she was my best friend and mentor in so many different ways. She was the reason I went to work at Prudential. We went through all kinds of things together. And you know, she will she I referred to her as one of the greatest loves of my life. And the other one, her name is Maria Callahan, Cassidy, who she relocated to an amazing new position at Richmond University only weeks before Kathy passed. So I lost I fortunately didn't lose Maria, it's, it's hard because she's not here. But these are both people that I've known since my teens and have definitely shaped who I am. My son, actually, I've learned so much from him. My son is neurodiverse. He likes to say he's not on the spectrum. He broke the spectrum. Well, that's can and and, and he is hysterical and funny and incredibly talented and incredibly brilliant. And helping navigate the public schools where we live. And watching him continue to still get back up even when he was pushed down. Because in our school district, if you are not in the box, you're basically out of luck. So we had to get an attorney for our son when he was only in third grade, to fight for his rights, and the he knows himself. And really, his biggest challenge is he has something called dysgraphia. He can recite things verbatim, but you could give him that same thing to copy, and he struggles to copy it. And that was a very difficult educational experience for him. But now he's a mechanic, he's training to be a mechanic, he wants to own his own mechanic shop, he has a lovely girlfriend, Collins girlfriend is Ariel, they've been together since they were 14 and 16. And now they are 19 and 21. Going on 20 and 22. And she is the daughter I would have chosen. I call her the daughter I got to choose. And I've learned so much because of her a lot of her upbringing is very similar to mine, they say we've we're very careful to make sure it doesn't get weird. But they say you end up with somebody very similar to your parent. Ariel and I have definitely have a lot in common and and then I would be remiss if I didn't say my husband because even though we have a definitely have our different political beliefs. He has really just unleashed me. He, one thing he stands very firm on is equal pay for women after watching some of the experiences that I go through and he is constantly up, go do it. You got to do this, you got to speak up up, you've been offered a show. I should mention Joe Cole, Antonio, my coach, she is the one who did push me off the cliff to get my show by saying I'm booking you on a local talk show. So that you have two weeks, you have a couple of weeks to get ready to go announced your business is finally open. That's the other reason why purpose filled solutions and evolutions came in. But these are some really all unique but very interesting teachers in my life. So   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:36 tell me really quickly if you would about your talk show.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:03:39 My talk show was an offshoot of Joe pushing me off the cliff, ironically, and we joke because Joe is my husband. But Joe is my coach and also probably one of my closest friends at this point. To Joe to Joe's once God wants J O. And Jo booked me on this talk show called Morning Coffee and gave me a couple of weeks. She said I know you can incorporate a business within 72 hours. I've seen you do it. You're going to do it. And so sure enough, on July 2 of 2021, I went in there. My business was two weeks old. And I announced and introduced myself and my one intern to the world. Somebody else who my son's girlfriend and told them about what I was looking to do and how I was going to change the world and the narrative and be a coach and offer services that I couldn't offer in my day job. And they came back to me and said the response to your episode was so amazing. Do you want to do a show? I was like, I was like I've always been the person on answering the questions or writing for government officials who are answering the questions. I've never been on that side of the mic. They said, Well, what do you think I said, Let me think about it. And I was originally going to call my blog, what the why? Kind of like instead of WTF, WT w. And I said, I have an idea. If you give me full control over who my guests are, would you be interested in doing a show called What the Why, and it would be conversations with diverse leaders from all walks of life, all races, genders, disabilities, ages, and I would interview them about what their purpose in life was and how they figured it out. And the station manager said, huh, yeah, let's do it. And so right now I'm on a brief hiatus because the station is in the middle of a move, but I'm in my second season. Of what the why with barber and and I have, I'm hoping to have you on in like, third season because you are so friggin awesome. And not because you're blind. You're just freaking awesome. Period. You just amazing. I'm completely and utterly amazing. But I have interviewed the smallest of businesses. My oldest guests had been in their 80s. My youngest recently was eight. He is a he's a math genius who video of him doing complex math at the age of three went viral. He was invited to join MENSA fours. Mom submitted it and he was accepted at age five. He and She both have long COVID Cynthia, shout out to Cynthia ad Nagin her brilliant son, Aiden. They're both brilliant. And she founded a health equity agency. And he is officially the paediatric spokesperson. He does not know he does not know his IQ. So cute. He had literally just turned eight a couple of weeks before I interviewed him in August. And one second, he's telling me what I need to understand about quantum singularities. And then the next second is holding up pieces of clay saying look at the ribbon I made. And he's what's funny about the interview we did is all three of us were having a level of a COVID flare up. So all three of us were having cognitive challenges. So   Michael Hingson ** 1:07:24 it was like a fun show.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:07:25 It was fun. But you know, when you're with an eight year old, you roll with it. Yep. And we just kind of laugh with but he's, he's amazing. He is training to be a chess champion, because COVID has affected his ability to do outdoor sports. And he's homeschooled with a pod of other little young geniuses like Kim. And but I got to talk with the Sunni meet. One of the people I got to interview was the biker from the village people, ah, and the first woman to be the president of the National Association of government guaranteed lenders and, you know, some local elected officials. But then like, I found out a whole side to my hairdresser. And, and his story as a small business owner who's getting ready to hand it off to his daughter, now that he's in his 60s and I know what his journey was like and how his grandparents stood behind him as a black straight male wanting to do hair.   Michael Hingson ** 1:08:28 There you go. So you have lots of lots of people. I have one more question for you. This is a very crucial question. How tall are you?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:08:38 five foot six.   Michael Hingson ** 1:08:40 And how tall is your husband?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:08:42 five foot eight.   Michael Hingson ** 1:08:44 Ha we did not follow in our parents footsteps. Okay, I just wanted to check that out.   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:08:49 But here's the flip side to that though. Yeah, they were both named Joe. My dad was a Joseph. My husband is a Joseph.   Michael Hingson ** 1:08:57 There you go. And what's your son's name?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:09:00 Colin   Michael Hingson ** 1:09:01 Cartwright. You said that Yeah. Well Colin Joseph. Okay. So there's a Joseph in   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:09:05 all of them in my dad was was rather dark for a mixed race man. All three of them are avid outdoorsman. In my husband's not into the same kind of football basketball. My dad was but all three of them were hunters. Okay. married to former vegetarian. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 1:09:24 there you are. If people want to reach out to you maybe learn about your coaching and and get in touch. How do they do that?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:09:31 They can find me on LinkedIn. BGardenhiremills. And you spell it sure it's B G A R D E N H I R E. Mills. I'm on all forms of social media. And honestly, if they can get Barbara Anne garden Hire Mills if you Google that and What the Why it pops up the show airs on RVN R V N television.com as well as roku. And then I believe I forwarded you some some other links to the website. I'm not going to spell out our whole ridiculously long website because I'm actually I actually bought the URLs to shorten it. So   Michael Hingson ** 1:10:26 how do I find it on Roku?   Barbara Anne Gardenhire-Mills ** 1:10:28 I believe rvn because I don't have Roku that's why it's there. Yeah. But if you go on Roku you should be able to find the channel for RV and television is supposed to be on the Roku channels are and I'll check out under the Roku channels otherwise, RV and television or there's access to it directly from my website, which is my entire name spelled out a moment of weakness. It when I was having COVID Happy hypoxia which is really not happy. But I thought somebody said to me, Oh, let it you just name your website, your company and I thought, Oh, sure. Yeah, well, yeah, well, as if my name isn't long enough purpose built solutions and evolutions because you can't have an ampersand and a website.   Michael Hingson ** 1:11:08 No, that's okay. I'm gonna go hunted down on Roku though. That'll be kind of fun. Awesome. Well, I want to thank you for being here. And I want to thank you for listening. I love to hear your thoughts about today. This has been a lot of fun and firebrands, life and lessons are definitely worth paying attention to and I really value the time that we got to spend. I'd love to hear your thoughts, please feel free to email me Michaelhi m i c h a e l h i at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to www dot Michael Hingson H i n g s o n.com/podcast. To listen to more podcasts. But you can also find us wherever Podcasts can be found. And wherever you listen, please give us a five star rating. We appreciate it. We appreciate your insights and your comments and value them greatly. Now, of course, both Barbara Anne for you and for you listening. If you know of anyone who want to be a guest on our podcast, please let us know. We're always looking for more people to come on our podcast. I'm sure that Barbara Anne could talk to you about talk shows and in finding guests. So whatever. We'd love to hear from you and we really value your time and that you took the time to be with us today. And Barbara Anne one last time. T

Explore the extraordinary journey of LTC Oak McCulloch, a seasoned Army veteran and accomplished leader, in this captivating video. Born in Loudon, Tennessee, and raised in Kirkland, Illinois, Oak's path led him through the prestigious United States Military Academy at West Point, where he began his military journey.Over a 23-year career, LTC McCulloch served in various leadership roles in the Infantry and Armor branches, contributing to disaster relief efforts during Hurricane HUGO and Hurricane ANDREW. His operational deployments took him to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo, shaping his expertise in military strategy.Following his retirement from the Army in 2009, Oak transitioned to civilian life, making a significant impact as the Associate Director at the Bay Area Food Bank during the BP oil spill. His commitment to service extended to roles as Vice Chair for Military Affairs at the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and as a member of the Mobile Rotary International Club.In 2010, LTC McCulloch took on the role of Recruiting Officer for the Eagle Battalion Army ROTC program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Over 15 years, he transformed the program, earning recognition as the top recruiting officer in 2019 out of 274 recruiters.Beyond his achievements, Oak McCulloch is the author of "Your Leadership Legacy: Becoming the Leader You Were Meant to Be," published in February 2021. His educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in History from Northern Illinois University and a Master of Military Arts and Science from the United States Army Command and General Staff College.Throughout his military career, LTC McCulloch earned thirty-one military service awards, including the Bronze Star, eight Meritorious Service Medals, and the Humanitarian Service Medal. Join us in celebrating the remarkable life and accomplishments of LTC Oak McCulloch, a true leader and inspiration to many.

In honor of the Canes retiring Gino Torretta's No. 13 jersey this Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium, we re-air Josh Darrow's 2021 conversation with the 1992 Heisman Trophy winner, who reflects on his recruitment to Miami from northern California, taking over the starting quarterback role, the 1991 national title, his memories of Hurricane Andrew and his award-winning senior campaign.

Tonight's Guest WeatherBrain needs no introduction.  He grew up in Central Florida.  He's a TV meteorologist and hurricane specialist.  He was previously the chief meteorologist for WTVJ-TV in Miami where he became well-known for his excellent coverage of 1992's Hurricane Andrew, and subequently became Director of Meteorology for WFOR-TV, and a hurricane analyst for CBS News in New York City.  He currently works for Fox Weather in NYC.  Bryan Norcross, it's an honor to have you on the show tonight.

Kris Ketz From the South-Central riots in Los Angeles to Hurricane Andrew in Louisiana to national political conventions, when it comes to big stories, KMBC 9 News anchor-reporter Kris Ketz has always found himself in the right place at the right time. Kris is also an Emmy-award winning anchor and investigative reporter, having captured a Midwest Emmy for best anchor in 2008. He also won in 1991 for an in-depth report on the influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the Kansas City area. He was nominated for a 2003 Emmy for best anchor. Kris was also nominated for a 2011 Regional Emmy award for “general assignment reporting” for a heartwarming story about a first-time meeting between a heart transplant recipient and the donor's family. Kris was also one of 4 local television news anchors chosen to interview President Obama one-on-one in February 2015. Kris was also the 2004 recipient of the prestigious Barbara Potts award from Hope House for raising community awareness about domestic violence in Kansas City. Hope House is now the largest domestic violence shelter in Missouri with centers in Independence and Lee's Summit. Kris is married to Dana Wright, co-host of "Dana and Parks" weekday afternoons on98.1 FM KMBZ. https://www.kmbc.com/news-team/606f5428-f0af-4097-8310-42c36f674dde

We're diving deep into the top 5 deadliest and most costly hurricanes to ever make landfall in the United States. We'll break down the who, what, where, and how-much, from Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Andrew and everything in between. I'll walk you through what went down, the impact, and the aftermath of these monster storms. More importantly, we'll discuss how we can all stay safer in the future. Check out more Larry has to offer Check Out The Cookbook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.realitycheckprogram.com/store/Books-c60128258⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@TheRealDealwithLarryLawton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Youtube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/LarryLawtonJewelThief⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy the Crooked Diamond Cigar: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://crookeddiamondcigar.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Larry's Book Gangster Redemption: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.realitycheckprogram.com/store/Books-c60128258⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/reallarrylawton/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJSMNDLY/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/larrylawtonjewelthief/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://teespring.com/stores/larrylawton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Official Discord Server: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/jj9h9dktMD⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Cameo: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cameo.com/larrylawton?qid=1616534953⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Larry Lawton Consulting: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.realitycheckprogram.com/store/Consulting-c60114317⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Video Help for Young People: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.realitycheckprogram.com/store/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Jeff Dudan is the CEO of Homefront Brands, a platform of property service franchisors as well as Chairman of Dudan Group, the capital partner to Homefront Brands and others. Dudan Group invests capital, provides expertise, and offers services that enable people to join, buy, build, or expand franchise systems. Jeff is the author of Discernment; The Business Athletes Regimen for a Great Life through Better Decisions, a Forbes contributor, sought after speaker, and consultant to emerging franchise brands. Jeff served YPO as Chapter Chair of the Southern Sands Chapter, and IFA Franchisor Forum as a member. Jeff appeared on Season 8 of Undercover Boss in January 2017. His journey began as a college athlete who founded a business to paint student housing. After graduation, he assisted South Florida in recovering from Hurricane Andrew which led to the launch of AdvantaClean in 1994. With 240 locations, AdvantaClean became a national strategic partner with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and was acquired by Home Franchise Concepts January 2019.  In this episode, Jeff talks about his journey, successes, and lessons learned along the way as well as how to learn more about Homefront Brands.   Key Takeaways: [3:29] - You can have a variety of different experiences by meeting new people. Franchising gives you the opportunity to collaborate and learn from others. [4:26] - For some businesses and business owners, franchising isn't right, but Jeff believes that it is the best way to build wealth and success. [6:37] - Creating the entrepreneurial framework within the confines of a franchise system can be challenging depending on the franchise brand. [9:00] - Jeff describes the beginning of his career after graduating college. [11:26] - We have points in our lives where we have to make big life-changing decisions. [13:31] - What are the deciding factors behind Homefront Brands? [16:22] - Territories in a brand are really important to get right. [18:52] - Jeff explains how they mapped out territories. [21:04] - There are several businesses under the umbrella of Homefront Brands and together they offer a wide variety of services. [22:38] - It is important to be a values-forward company. [23:55] - Jeff shares the most valuable change he made to his mindset and what his leadership style is. [27:10] - What is Jeff's hope for Homefront Brands over the next few years?   Mentioned in This Episode: Homefront Brands Website On the Homefront Podcast

Through his abstract paintings, the Miami-born, Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá explores themes ranging from memory, gesture, and layering, to movement, dance, and hip-hop culture, to codes, mapping, and mark-making. Coming up in Miami in the late 1980s and early '90s, Parlá spent his adolescence and young adult years steeped in hip-hop culture and an underground scene that involved break dancing, writing rhymes, and making aerosol art. The art form still manifests, in wholly original ways, in his abstract works, which, while decidedly of the 21st century, extend in meaning and method back to ancient wall writings and cave drawings.On the episode, Parlá talks about his recent near-death experience with Covid-19; his activism with the collective Wide Awakes; and how his large-scale murals at locations including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barclays Center, and One World Trade Center trace back to his early days of painting elaborate wall works with aerosol.Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.Show notes: [07:37] Rey Parlá[11:45] Ciclos: Blooms of Mold[12:19] Augustin Parlá[13:13] Curtiss School of Aviation[14:05] José Martí[16:20] “Phosphene” series[18:27] “Polarities” series[18:32] “Breathing” series[23:25] Wide Awakes[23:26] For Freedoms[23:29] Hank Willis Thomas[23:31] J.R.[23:35] Wildcat Ebony Brown[24:28] “The Awakening”[32:04] “It's Yours”[34:17] Snøhetta[34:45] Ghetto Gastro[36:50] Craig Dykers[36:55] José Parlá's Studio[38:20] James B. Hunt Jr. Library[38:22] “Nature of Language”[38:47] Far Rockaway Writer's Library[56:56] “Brothers Back to Back”[59:51] “Parlá Frères”[01:00:03] Hurricane Andrew[01:00:12] Savannah College of Art and Design[01:01:32] New World School of the Arts[01:01:51] Mel Alexenberg[01:02:29] “Combine” by Robert Rauschenberg[01:06:29] “Gesture Performing Dance, Dance Performing Gesture” at BAM[01:06:30] Barclays Center mural[01:06:32] “One: Union of the Senses” at One World Trade Center[01:06:33] “Amistad América” at the University of Texas at Austin[01:12:08] Gordon Parks fellowship

You can't tell the story of Florida without the story of Hurricane Andrew. That's what we're doing on this episode with the help of longtime University of Miami professor, Hurricane Andrew survivor, and author of "In the Eye of Hurricane Andrew," Eugene Provenzo."Welcome to Florida" is presented by Windstorm Products, a Florida small business and the world's No. 1 online retailer of hurricane hardware products.

In this episode of The Power Producers Podcast, David Carothers and co-host Kyle Houck interview Dulce Suarez-Resnick, Vice President of Sales at Acentria Insurance. Dulce discusses how Acentria Insurance leverages technology to streamline the insurance process and improve customer experiences. Episode Highlights: Dulce shares that she has been in the insurance industry for 37 years, starting at 19 after working as a clerk and discovering her interest in insurance. (3:19) Dulce mentions that she found her calling in the insurance industry by protecting people's homes and livelihoods. (5:52) Dulce discusses Hurricane Andrew and the subsequent changes in Florida, especially after the 2004-2005 hurricane seasons, transformed the industry. (9:03) Dulce mentions that the Building Code is the strongest in the US, but reinsurance is expensive and fraud is a major issue. (12:17) Dulce discusses the importance of regular maintenance for homeowners to avoid damages that insurance policies do not cover. (16:53) Dulce discusses the need to stop solicitation practices in Florida's insurance industry to protect consumers. (20:04) Dulce explains that Acentria Insurance writes citizens' policies only as a last resort for clients who cannot find coverage elsewhere. (26:09) Dulce mentions that people in southeast Florida have no confidence in Florida-only carriers. (28:15) Dulce explains that women in the insurance industry were not seen as agency owners or producers until recently, and it took determination and education to become successful. (39:22) Dulce explains the significance of mentorship and involvement in professional organizations for success in the insurance industry. (50:50) Tweetable Quotes: “I can help people protect themselves in the event and help them rebuild in the event that something bad happens...That whole experience...helping them rebuild their lives, really solidified my position in this industry moving forward.” - Dulce Suarez-Resnick “Right now the attitudes are different, the world has changed, the insurance world has changed, policies have more restrictions nowadays than they did before. But the one big thing that we can, as Floridians, we can be proud of, unfortunately, it's due to too much practice is that we know how to handle storms.” Dulce Suarez-Resnick “Now it's a matter of finding people to come into our industry. It's not whether you're male or female anymore, or you're Hispanic or not. There's a huge shortage in our industry, of people wanting to come into our industry, and we have a lot of people that are retiring, or just leaving the industry because they've had it…but this is what I know, and this is what I love, and I have nowhere else to go but to stay in the insurance industry.” - Dulce Suarez-Resnick Resources Mentioned: Dulce Suarez-Resnick LinkedIn Acentria Insurance David Carothers Kyle Houck Florida Risk Partners The Extra 2 Minutes

As the remnants of Hurricane Andrew were headed for Tupelo on the morning of August 27, 1992 13-year old Leigh Occhi vanished from her home under unknown circumstances. While the victims of this devastating hurricane have long moved on with their lives, Leigh's disappearance remains stuck as an open case. And Sadly, not a single bone of the adolescent girl has been found over the past 3 decades.

We've told you the insurance industry in Florida is in crisis. Or as one industry insider put it, it's holding on by “a piece of chewing gum.” In this episode, we explore possible solutions. We dive into the business of reinsurance, or insurance for insurers (turns out you can insure almost anything, including insurance policies); and we look at another possible solution that was born from the wreckage of Hurricane Andrew 30 years ago: the catastrophe bond, a financial instrument that allows investors to bet against storms and make money on risk. So long as a big storm doesn’t wipe them out completely.

We've told you the insurance industry in Florida is in crisis. Or as one industry insider put it, it's holding on by “a piece of chewing gum.” In this episode, we explore possible solutions. We dive into the business of reinsurance, or insurance for insurers (turns out you can insure almost anything, including insurance policies); and we look at another possible solution that was born from the wreckage of Hurricane Andrew 30 years ago: the catastrophe bond, a financial instrument that allows investors to bet against storms and make money on risk. So long as a big storm doesn’t wipe them out completely.

The insurance industry quietly rules our lives. It determines where and what we build. It's also a linchpin of the housing market. Without it, homeowners can't get mortgages. And without mortgages, most people can't buy homes, and the whole housing market starts to collapse. In this episode, we dig into Florida's broken insurance market and what's at stake if we don't fix it. And we look back at Hurricane Andrew, the 1992 storm that changed the insurance industry.

The insurance industry quietly rules our lives. It determines where and what we build. It's also a linchpin of the housing market. Without it, homeowners can't get mortgages. And without mortgages, most people can't buy homes, and the whole housing market starts to collapse. In this episode, we dig into Florida's broken insurance market and what's at stake if we don't fix it. And we look back at Hurricane Andrew, the 1992 storm that changed the insurance industry.

Inside what it was like to live through Hurricane Andrew in 1992. How do hurricanes affect Florida politics and why is the insolvency of Citizens insurance a bad issue for Ron DeSantis? Herschel Walker's campaign is tested by two different scandals. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania another campaign plays Hide-a-John. A selection from We're Not Wrong with Andrew Heaton and Jen Briney on what's on and off limits in campaigning.

Every year, the eastern United States faces the prospect—and, too often, the reality—of major hurricanes that cause extensive physical and financial damage. This year is no exception; even as Hurricane Ian approaches the Gulf Coast, more storms are likely in the coming weeks.On this episode of Chatter, David Priess chatted with author Eric Jay Dolin about the history of Atlantic hurricanes, with a special focus on such storms' influence on U.S. national security. They spoke about the devastating 2017 hurricane season, how tropical systems are covered in the media, Ben Franklin's role in hurricane science, the role of Caribbean hurricanes in the American Revolution and the Spanish-American War, the evolution of the federal government's storm forecasting and crisis response efforts, hurricane hunter flights, attempts to use technology to disrupt massive storms, Hurricane Andrew (1992), the effects of climate change on tropical systems and their impact, viewing hurricanes as national security threats, how humans assess risk, and films about hurricanes.Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fox Weather Hurricane Specialist Bryan Norcross joins Dan and Billy Corben to discuss the impact of Hurricane Andrew on South Florida and if we'll see a similar storm hit our shores in the near future. Plus, we ask Michel Hausmann, the co-founder of Miami New Drama, about the Miami Dade School Board's banning of the work of Nilo Cruz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices