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We will learn about one man’s experience responding to disasters over the last 9 years and the shift from acute to chronic disaster responses.

Daniel Wirth, currently serving as the interim Northwest Regional Executive of the American Red Cross, has a committed history of fulfilling the Red Cross mission over the past decade. Beginning in March 2014 with the Indiana Region, his career quickly led him to accept the position as the Regional Disaster Officer for the Kentucky Region in 2016. Here he helped guide and mentor the disaster workforce of 17 for a 119-county territory. After four years of leadership in the disaster line of service, in January 2020, Dan moved to Washington State to serve as the Executive Director for the South Puget Sound and Olympics Chapter serving eight counties. Dan’s deployments have spanned the nation including the Flint Water Crisis, Texas Flooding, South Carolina Flooding (x2), Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, the recent wildfires in California and Oregon, and served extended deployments for the Kentucky tornado operation helping the most vulnerable in Mayfield and surrounding counties, as well able to serve the migrant population on Pine Island during Hurricane Ian. 

Learn about the Opinion Page at The News Tribune and hear about the addition of Community Members to the newspapers Editorial Board,  joining with newsroom staff.

Our long-time member Pamela Transue participates on the Editorial Board every election season as candidates for public office are interviewed.

Matt Driscoll grew up in Edgewood, and has worked at The News Tribune since 2015. He has previously written for Seattle Weekly, the Weekly Volcano, the Tacoma Reporter and other regional publications.  Driscoll, serves as the opinion editor, leads the editorial board and writes columns that provide a look at the good, bad and ugly in our community.

Louise Braun Frank is the author of an International Award-Winning nonfiction entitled “The Gift of Great Sorrow – A Journey Thru Pain to Purpose”.  While writing her book, Louise founded a nonprofit called “Joy Thru Tears Foundation” with the mission of gifting a Wish of self-care to selected caregivers, in their Silent Angels Program. They currently serve Pierce County and South King County.

She will talk about the Joy Thru Tears Foundation Vision and Mission of Celebrating Caregivers.

How does one go from working in his father’s barber shop as an 18 year old to becoming one of the most recognized television personalities in the Pacific Northwest?   “Never stop trying to improve, always recognize those who help you along the way and look for ways to help others.”  That’s sound advice from the former Sports Director and Anchor at King-5 Television from 1983-1994 and Kiro-7 Television from 1994-2004.

Beginning in 2004 Tony was host of the Seahawks post game show on 710 KIRO radio,  anchor and reporter for Comcast “Local Edition,” and “Newsmakers “ through 2008.

Tony also covered the Seahawks for KCPQ-13 from 2004-2006 before taking a full time job as Digital Media Host for Seahawks.com.  During his 10 years with the team, Tony covered three Super Bowls and was awarded a Super Bowl ring by team owner Paul Allen in the spring of 2014.

In the spring of 2022 Tony began working with King County Television on a program called “Community Conversations,” doing interviews with elected officials and other individuals serving their communities in various capacities.

In 2002 Tony wrote his first book, “Smile in the Mirror,” a collection of motivational stories from childhood through his broadcasting career.

In 2009 he published a second edition of “Smile” and in 2016 wrote and published “Here’s Smiling at You,” another collection of stories of hope and gratitude.

In the fall of 2016 Tony ran for U.S. Congress in the 8^th district, losing to six term incumbent Dave Reichert.  Three years later Tony was elected to the City Council in Newcastle, where he served as Deputy Mayor before moving with his wife Mika to her former home town of Steilacoom, Wa.

Tony has appeared as an inspirational speaker for hundreds of commercial and non profit organizations since the beginning of his broadcast career in the early 1970s.

He has been host of the “Great Strides” walk for Cystic Fibrosis research in Seattle since the mid 1980s.

Besides broadcasting, writing and speaking, Tony has appeared in two dozen community theatre productions in Snohomish and King counties since the early 80s and with close friend Dave Blacker, established the “Rosehill Players” in Mukilteo in 1984.

Tony has four children, seven grand children and one great grand child.

Oh, and the barber career?  His Dad wanted to make sure Tony had something to call back on. “I’ll always be grateful to my Dad for teaching me to cut hair. Some of my greatest memories are from the few years we worked side by side at Ventrella’s barber shop in Connecticut.  “Need a haircut,” says Tony, “One never forgets something as special as a lesson from their father. Sit down, let me know what style you want.”

Shelter Box is a cutting-edge charity that delivers emergency shelter for families devastated by disaster. It was founded in Cornwall, UK in 2000 and continues to operate out of that region. The US Affiliate is in Santa Barbara, CA.  They are project partners with Rotary International.  Shelter Box’s mission is to create positive, lasting change in communities at home and all over the world. In 2012, ShelterBox became Rotary International’s first Project Partner in disaster relief. By working together with Rotary, Shelter Box collaborates and combines resources to ensure that they can support more communities in desperate need of shelter after disaster. Shelter box also has partners in the field such as: International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and Habitat for Humanity. They work with many global humanitarian aid agencies, including United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Organization for Migration (IOM), Amnesty International, UNICEF, and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). These networks, rooted in communities, help Shelter Box go the last mile to deliver a diverse range of emergency shelter aid to remote and vulnerable people. The signature ShelterBoxes and ShelterKits contain the tools to transform lives and rebuild communities. It is driven to reach more people, to empower them to transform their lives, and to build a world where no family is left without shelter. The need for emergency shelter is urgent. As of 2022, around 100 million people around the world have been displaced by disaster and conflict – more than ever before. Over 80 million were forcibly displaced due to conflict and 30 million due to disaster.  Every minute, 25 people are forced from their homes due to conflict. In 2022, we responded in 10 countries, providing shelter aid to 400,000 people.

Wen was born in China at the end of the Great Cultural Revolution. Being the victim of this horrific atrocity that killed two million intellectuals and destroyed traditional Chinese culture, Wen's parents had mixed feelings about her education. Despite their discouragement, Wen eventually won a national prize at a science competition when she was 16. Hence, she went to a top university for undergraduate study and then came to the U.S. in 1994 for graduate school. Wen received a Ph.D. in Biology at the California Institute of Technology in 2000. Because of her personal experience of being brainwashed in China, she decided to be a voice for the voiceless. Since 2012, she has given hundreds of presentations to community organizations about Chinese culture, history, and society.
Wen has been working for Caltech since 2000 as a biologist and information scientist. Her everyday work includes scientific outreach by speaking at conferences and seminars at universities. In her personal life, she is an active
member of Amnesty International, focusing on human rights in China. She serves as a board member and community liaison for Caltech Women in Biology and Biological Engineering.

Everyone loves trees! They make our cities beautiful, clean the air and water, help us de-stress, and give us shade and cooling in the summer. So why is Tacoma's urban forest struggling? Why do some neighborhoods have more trees than others? And what can we do about it as a community? Lowell Wyse will share about the efforts of the Tacoma Tree Foundation to bring trees and shade to the Tacoma communities that need them the most.

An English professor turned urban forest advocate, Lowell Wyse, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Tacoma Tree Foundation. For over a decade, he taught college writing, literature, and environmental humanities, focusing on the many ways that social and environmental issues overlap. His scholarship resulted in the book Ecospatiality: A Place-Based Approach to American Literature, published in 2021. In 2016, he founded a community group called Tacoma Needs Trees, to call attention to the urban forest crisis in Tacoma, where tree coverage is the lowest of any city in Western Washington. He now lives in downtown Tacoma (Puyallup territory).   

Hear from BirdNote Executive Director Nick Bayard about the popular daily public radio show about birds and what BirdNote is doing to advance equity and inclusion in the worlds of public media and environmental conservation. 

Nick Bayard is the Executive Director of BirdNote, a public media nonprofit organization with an estimated 6 million radio and podcast listeners that seeks to inspire people to care about--and take steps to protect--the natural world. Prior to this role, Nick served as Assistant Chief Equity Officer for the City of Tacoma and Director of the REACH Center. He also served in the Peace Corps in Paraguay, where he founded a tri-lingual radio show. He holds a master's degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies from Brown University. You can learn more about BirdNote at www.birdnote.org.