Seattle Leadership Summit
Dear Fraters,
I have been home for 5 days now, and just finally able to sit down, reflect and communicate with you about a wonderful AO weekend in Seattle, on April 30-May 1.
Coming from Calgary, I flew to Seattle in the early morning of April 30. The hotel Bellevue was lovely. I arrived just in time to join the large crowd (about 100 people or more?) of dentists and their teams to listen to a full day presentation by Steve Anderson. Boy, I can never hear him too many times. What a terrific lecture, tons of stuff learned, and he also offered an incredibly generous offer to the AO members present as a gift to us all.
The evening had the fraters and students congregate at the beautiful home of Michael and Wendy Spektor for Shabbat dinner. The food was great, the company even better.
Saturday had the Western regional leadership seminar. Organized by President-elect Michael Tenenbaum, and lead by our new Executive Director Marty Zimmerman, it was a nice gathering of International leaders, local Seattle fraters, a good cadre of AO dental students and some riff-raff hangers-on (like me). I was impressed by the caliber of the discussion and Marty Zimmerman had us create ideas for Global Oral Health Initiative (GOHI) programs that could be used by chapters all over the world.
The weather was...Seattle rainy, but warmer than snowy Calgary. The company was much better.
The weekend was well worth my time and money to have attended. I got great CE, connected with people I care about (and humbly, might even care a bit for me), was impressed with our new Executive Director and just plain proud to be a frater.
A big thank-you to Michael Tenenbaum for leading this event, to Michael Spektor for opening his home to us on Friday night (with Wendy's incredible organizing) but most of all, a huge thank-you to Wendy Spektor who really pulled it all together.
I left Saturday, at Supper time, and was home about 39 hours after I left. OY!
I understand there will be another weekend like this in the Fall in Boston. If you have a chance to go, you should.
Warm regards,
Larry Stanleigh
PS I was also proud of the fact that the Toronto fraters present were treated with great respect. There was no Toronto bashing and, as a former Torontonian myself, was pleased with their invaluable contribution to the weekend. The Toronto chapter has a wealth of great experience, knowledge and hard work that their participation in
the weekend, given how far they had to travel, was really great.
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