The Silver Spring Regional Area in
the Context of the Broader State Economy
Monday, May 18th 7:00 p.m.
Silver Spring Civic Building
The Commercial and Economic Development Committee of the Silver Spring
Citizens Advisory Board invites
the community to this forum on the State of Maryland's economy, with emphasis
on the Silver Spring Regional Area. The general consensus seems to be that
efforts must be made to improve Maryland’s private-sector economy and diversify beyond the State’s strong reliance on federal spending. This forum
will provide an opportunity to hear about alternatives to grow Maryland's
economy and expected impacts on the Silver Spring region.
AGENDA
Welcome
·
Bernice North, SSCAB Chair
Introductory Remarks
·
Sigurd Neubauer, SSCAB CED Committee
Co-Chair
Keynote
·
Peter Franchot, Maryland State
Comptroller
Panel Discussion
·
Lily Qi, Special Assistant to County
Executive Ike Leggett
·
Andy Stern, Montgomery County Business Leader
·
Stacey Brown, Montgomery County Business Leader (Silver Spring based)
Closing Remarks
·
Jamie Raskin, District 20 State
Senator
Moderator
·
Ed Levy, SSCAB CED Committee Chair
Speaker bios
listed below in order of appearance
Bernice North, Chair, Silver Spring
Citizens Advisory Board
The daughter of immigrants from Ghana, West Africa, Bernice Mireku-North is a lifelong Montgomery County resident and a
graduate of Montgomery Blair High School. After graduating from
University of Maryland, College Park in 2003 with a B.A. in Government and
Politics, she attended Howard University School of Law.
Since joining the Board, Bernice served as
Co-Chair of the Neighborhoods Committee and was voted the Board’s Executive Vice-Chair for two terms. She also served on
the boards of the African Immigrant and Refugee Foundation and the Literacy Council of Montgomery County, and served as a
member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Committee.
Bernice works as an Assistant State's Attorney
in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, where she prosecutes criminal and traffic adult and juvenile cases including domestic assault,
drug possession, and driving while under the influence of alcohol.
Bernice resides in Takoma Park with her husband Terrill and enjoys Terps basketball.
Sigurd Neubauer, co-chair, SSCAB’s Commercial and Economic Development
Committee
Sigurd Neubauer is a non-resident fellow at The
Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington where he specializes in U.S. policy
towards the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf region. His expertise
includes: Oman; Persian Gulf security; inter-Gulf Cooperation Council
dynamics; Arab-Israeli relations; and Afghanistan.
Neubauer has many years
experience in strategic communications, public diplomacy and research focusing
on American foreign policy towards the European Union and the Middle East from both the U.S.
defense industry and from the NGO sector. At SOS International Ltd., a
privately held operations support company providing information engagement,
intelligence solutions and stability operations, Neubauer supports NATO's Resolute Support
mission in Afghanistan and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul with their respective
strategic communications efforts. Under a previous contract with the United
States Strategic Command, he analyzed Israeli military security.
Neubauer has addressed a number of international conferences, including a NATO Maritime Security Workshop in Marmaris, Turkey. His non-partisan expert commentary has been published by Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Middle East Institute. His work has also been translated into Arabic.
He is a frequent commentator on Middle East politics for a number of international television and radio networks and has contributed to Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera America, CNN, Fox News, and The New York Times, among others.
Fluent in seven languages, Neubauer is a graduate of Yeshiva University in New York where he studied Jewish history (MA), political science (BA) and French literature.
Neubauer is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and of the Gulf 2000 Middle East Project at Columbia University, is married and has two children.
Neubauer has addressed a number of international conferences, including a NATO Maritime Security Workshop in Marmaris, Turkey. His non-partisan expert commentary has been published by Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Middle East Institute. His work has also been translated into Arabic.
He is a frequent commentator on Middle East politics for a number of international television and radio networks and has contributed to Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera America, CNN, Fox News, and The New York Times, among others.
Fluent in seven languages, Neubauer is a graduate of Yeshiva University in New York where he studied Jewish history (MA), political science (BA) and French literature.
Neubauer is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and of the Gulf 2000 Middle East Project at Columbia University, is married and has two children.
Peter Franchot, Maryland State
Comptroller
Peter Franchot was elected Maryland's 33rd
Comptroller on November 7, 2006, and sworn into
office on January 22, 2007. He was re-elected on November 2, 2010 and November
4, 2014. Prior to his election to statewide office, Mr. Franchot served twenty
years in the House of Delegates, representing the residents of Montgomery
County. Mr. Franchot served on the House Appropriations
Committee and chaired its Transportation and the Environment subcommittee.
Throughout his career, he has been a strong advocate for education, healthcare,
transportation and environmental protection initiatives.
As Comptroller, Mr. Franchot has been an
independent voice and fiscal watchdog for the taxpayers of Maryland. He serves
on Maryland’s three-member Board of Public Works, which approves millions of
dollars in State contracts each year. Comptroller Franchot has worked tirelessly to keep Maryland competitive in the
knowledge-based economy, assisting working families and protecting the State's
natural resources.
Comptroller Franchot attended Amherst College
(B.A., 1973) and Northeastern School of Law (J.D., 1978). From 1968 to 1970, he served in the United
States Army. He is married to Anne Maher, a lawyer, and they have two children,
Abigail, and Nick. They live in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Lily Qi, Office of the County
Executive
Lily Qi (pronounced “Chee”) was appointed in 2011 to oversee several priority
initiatives related to economic competitiveness and global partnerships. Her
major projects include helping to establish BioHealth Innovation, Inc. to facilitate
commercialization of biomedical research; building strategic trade
and sister-city partnerships with regions in China; launching the Nighttime
Economy Task Force to create more attractive places in the suburban community;
enhancing private sector participation in economic development; and developing a
comprehensive economic strategy to position and brand Montgomery County for
future economic success.
Lily first joined Montgomery County government
in 2008 as the County Executive’s Liaison for Asian and Middle-Eastern Communities after serving as spokesperson for the DC Department of
Insurance, Securities and Banking, and Vice President of Business Development
and Marketing for the Washington, DC Economic Partnership in charge of marketing
the Capital City for business attraction and
retention.
An immigrant from Shanghai, China, who came to
the U.S. in her 20’s, Lily is a columnist,
speaker and trainer on cultural competency, immigrant integration and Asian
Americans. She chairs the Governor’s Commission on Asian American Affairs and serves on
the boards of Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Suburban Hospital, and the Metropolitan
Center of Visual Arts.
Lily Qi has been featured in the Washington
Business Journal, Bethesda Magazine, China Daily and Asian Fortune for her professional and community leadership. She has an
MBA in Marketing from American University and an MA in Organizational
Communication from Ohio University.
Andy Stern, president, Andy Stern
Office Furniture, Inc.
Andy Stern is the President and CEO of Andy Stern’s Office Furniture, Inc. and is in
his 38th year in this 2nd generation family business which was started by his Dad,
Sam, in 1948. Andy Stern’s Office Furniture, Inc. is a full service office
furniture and furnishings dealership with three locations in the DC metro area (two in
Maryland and one in DC). He has loved every minute of his business
life and feels very fortunate to have had such a wonderful family to work with
and learn from. In addition to his business life,
Andy has served the community as Chairman of the B-CC Chamber of Commerce,
The Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, The Jewish Community
Relations Council of Greater Washington, The Green Acres School and numerous
other non-profit boards and was a founding board member of Leadership Montgomery. Andy
currently proudly serves as a member of Comptroller Franchot’s Business
Advisory Council and as Chair-Elect of the Non-Profit Village - a non-profit
“incubator” serving Montgomery County.
Andy and his wife Eve
(lifelong MoCo residents - who met in the 3rd grade at Somerset Elementary School in Chevy Chase) live in
Rockville and have been married for over 34 years. They have two sons Ben, 30
(realtor extraordinaire) and Alex, 26 (a third year law student).
Stacey Brown, Chief Image Builder of Signarama Silver Spring.
Stacey and her husband, Ian, opened Signarama
Silver Spring - a full-service signage and branding solutions company - in May 2010
with a vision to go beyond selling signs and to help their customers build the
best image possible to grow their business. Prior to opening Signarama Silver Spring, Stacey was a
Senior Project Manager for Mars Incorporated for over 17 years, delivering a
variety of regional and global IT solutions. She has a BS in Marketing from Rutgers University, New
Brunswick NJ, and an MBA from the
University of Maryland, College Park MD. She is also a certified
PMP (Project Management Professional).
Stacey is a native of Washington DC and has
lived in Silver Spring for the past nine years with her husband and two
children. Both of her children attend MCPS, and Stacey is a former PTA Co-President
and NAACP Parent Council Representative. She has also held board
positions at Evergreen Montessori School in Wheaton, MD and the Women Business
Owners of Prince George’s County. She is a member of the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce and is currently
serving her first year on the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board.
Jamie Raskin, Maryland State Senator
Jamie Raskin is a three-term Democratic State Senator in Maryland
who came to office in 2006 in a landslide upset victory against a
32-year incumbent. After collecting 67% of the vote in a primary race all the
pundits considered impossible to win, Senator Raskin has three times won
election with more than 99% of the general election vote. He is the Majority Whip of the
Senate, Chairman of both the Executive Nominations Committee and the Joint
Committee on Legislative Ethics, and a dynamic leader of the liberal and progressive forces in the
General Assembly.
Senator Raskin has been described by the Huffington Post as “one
of the most talented state legislators in the country” and named one of the
“Top Ten Most Influential Senators” in Annapolis by the Maryland Gazette of
Politics and Business. In under a decade in public office, he has seen more than 100 of his
bills pass into law. A prodigious debater and legislative
strategist, he sponsored and led the successful floor fight on many of the
historic breakthroughs in Maryland politics over the last decade, including marriage equality, abolition of the death
penalty, passage of a medical marijuana law, creation of the benefit
corporation (a new corporate form that has since spread across the country),
enactment of direct wine shipment for the state’s consumers, the historic National Popular Vote
Compact, and the state’s acclaimed Farm-to-Schools Program linking public
schools with local farms. He also introduced and championed
landmark anti-drunk driving legislation that requires thousands of convicted
drunk drivers to have an ignition interlock device installed in their cars;
developed the Green Maryland act, which requires all state agencies and
departments to have recycling and composting plans; and has advocated numerous
laws advancing civil rights, civil liberties, tenant rights, and consumer rights. He authored the first state law giving victims of race and sex
discrimination the right to a jury trial and civil damages, introduced a
measure guaranteeing gender parity in programming at juvenile justice institutions, and led the floor fight for reasonable
accommodations for pregnant employees in the workplace. As Chairman of the Montgomery County Senate Delegation for
several years, he built unanimous support within the delegation to increase the
minimum wage in Maryland.
Senator Raskin is known for crossing the aisle to form potent
bipartisan coalitions. He teamed up with conservative Republican Senator David
Brinkley to persuade the Senate to pass a comprehensive Medical Marijuana law
and won unanimous bipartisan support for the Freedom of Political
Expression and Assembly Act of 2009 after a state police scandal involving
spying on anti-death penalty, pro-choice, pro-life, and environmental groups. He has also built strong liberal-conservative coalitions to ensure online sunshine disclosure of state
expenditures over $10,000 and to enact on-line ethics disclosure for state
public officials.
In the 2015 legislative session, Raskin authored and championed
three landmark bills that received overwhelming bipartisan support: the Second
Chance Act, which allows people to petition for the shielding of nonviolent
misdemeanor offenses when they have been clean for a period of at least three
years after termination of correctional supervision; the Maryland False Claims Act, which allows the state and
private whistleblowers to go after contractors ripping off the government to
recover public monies; and a dramatic reform and modernization of the state’s
Public Information Act.
Senator Raskin is a professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington
College of Law where he has taught more than 3,000 law students over a period
of 25 years. At WCL, he directs the school’s Program on Law and Government and
its acclaimed Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, which he founded
in 1999 and which has sent thousands of law students at 20 law schools across
the country into public high schools to teach a course in “constitutional
literacy.” A prolific author and a Senior Fellow
at People for the American Way, Raskin’s books include Overruling
Democracy: The Supreme Court versus the American People, a
Washington Post Bestseller which analyzes patterns of conservative judicial
activism and judicial assaults on democratic rights; The Wealth
Primary (with John Bonifaz) about America’s campaign finance regime; and We the
Students, a book now in its Fourth Edition which has sold tens of
thousands of copies and examines cases affecting America’s students and has
been called “the bible of the new movement for constitutional literacy.”
The Washington Post has described Raskin as the Maryland Senate’s
“authority on constitutional issues,” the Silver Spring Takoma Voice called him
the “whiz kid” of the General Assembly, PolitickerMD.com named him “Maryland’s Smartest
Legislator,” and the Silver Spring-Takoma Voice named him Montgomery County’s “Most Responsive Elected Official.” Progressive Maryland praised him as a “Hero of Maryland’s Working Families” and the ACLU named
him its Harry Edgerton Civil Libertarian of the Year in 2011. For his role as Senate leader on the marriage quality
legislation, in 2013 he was honored as a Hero in the 2013 Pride Day Parade in
the Nation’s Capital.
Senator Raskin is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and
Harvard Law School, where he was an Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He is deeply involved in promoting chess among children and has
also been active in Lumina Studio, which is one of the nation’s leading Shakespeare theaters for young people. He and his wife Sarah, who is the Deputy Secretary of the United
States Treasury Department and a former Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, have three children.
Ed Levy, co-chair, SSCAB’s
Commercial and Economic Development Committee
Ed is a native of Baltimore who has 'temporarily' lived in
the DC area since the mid-70s, including the last 35 years in Silver Spring and
Takoma Park.
He spent 32 years working for the U.S. Department of
Commerce, the last 15 of which working in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce
with responsibility for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary’s daily briefing
books and correspondence. In earlier positions, Ed worked on trade agreements
with Japan and Taiwan, conducted international trade investigations, and co-chaired an effort to
provide expert opinion on disposal of the Government’s $10 billion stockpile of
raw materials. He also worked for Congressman Al Swift (D-WA) as part of
the Government’s Legislative Fellowship program. Since leaving the Government in 2010, Ed has worked as a freelance
Editor/Writer and has volunteered for several organizations.
Ed is the Co-Chair of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory
Board’s Commercial and Economic Development Committee, and has written for the Silver Spring Voice newspaper and website. He has served
on the Board of the Northwood Four Corners Community Association, volunteered on
several political campaigns and as neighborhood Precinct Chair, edited a small
business newsletter, and trained law students in writing and research skills.
Ed graduated from the University of Maryland-College Park
with a Master’s degree in Business Administration including a concentration in
Telecommunications, and earlier with an undergraduate degree in Economics.
He has the proud grandfather of two and a half year-old Maya,
and few have stood within Ed’s reach for long without being shown a picture of
her.
Ed has travelled to every state, every Canadian province, and
to 71 other countries.
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