Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Serial entrepreneur Jessica Herrin, founder and CEO of the Stella & Dot Family Brands and author of the new book Find Your Extraordinary: Dream Bigger, Live Happier and Achieve Success on Your Own Terms, will explain how you can turn your passion into your career and live the life that you've always dreamed of by cultivating your entrepreneurial spirit.

For the past two millennia, paper has been one of the simplest pieces of human technology. It has formed the foundation of civilizations and promoted revolutions. It has also been essential to the development of education, commerce, arts, religion, and language. But what will we start to lose as we continue to move toward a paperless society? Kurlansky traces the evolution of paper and explains why paper will never go out of style.

Drawing from years of work in East Africa, the western United States and with fishermen from the coast of Maine, ecologist and conservationist Charles Curtin shares his experiences and scientific research to preserve the ecologies of large earth and water environments. His diverse and pragmatic scientific work has resulted in the development of important real-world approaches for the sustainability, renewal, restoration and health of large areas, including the United States' West Coast ocean coast line and habitats that are critical to the quality of life, economies and environments of California, Oregon and Washington.

The AMA, founded in 1847, is the largest association of physicans in the United States, with the stated goal of enhancing the delivery of care and enabling physicians and health teams to partner effectively with patients to achieve better health for all. Join AMA CEO Dr. James Madara for a candid conversation about bringing down the costs of medicine while still treating patients with the highest standards. Dr. Madara will particularly address what he says is America’s biggest health threat: costly, chronic diseases and their toll on public health and the economy. He says the future of health care is combating these diseases before they become life-altering ailments, and harnessing the power of technological innovation to empower today’s physicians and better train those of tomorrow.

Ashanti Branch works to change how young men of color interact with their education and how their schools interact with them. As a young teacher in the East Bay, Branch recognized, "When my students aren’t learning, it’s not usually because they can’t; it’s because they have deep-seated behaviors that are holding them back." This led Branch in 2004 to create the Ever Forward Club to provide a safe place for these young men to “take off their masks and be supported for who they really are,” and 93 percent of Club members have gone on to college. Documentarian Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Stanford’s “design thinking” program have helped Branch’s organization reach thousands of Bay Area students. Branch and a few of his students will use this concept of “taking off the mask” to show how to "look behind our masks that we wear on a daily basis and that often get in our way of living truly fulfilling lives."

Duf Sundheim double-lettered in football at Stanford while obtaining his economics degree, has chaired the state Republican party, advocates for government reform, and talks about applying technological advances to government to unleash a new era of freedom and make government more responsive to citizens. His supporters include GOP influentials such as former Secretary of State George Shultz, Charles Schwab, and U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Does Sundheim have a chance of replacing Barbara Boxer in our majority Democratic state? Will he win crossover votes? And what does he think about the state of the GOP on the national scene? Join us to find out!

University of San Francisco Professor Peter Jan Honigsberg, whose research focuses on human rights and the rule of law, is the founder and director of the Witness to Guantanamo project. Since 2008 he has filmed more than 125 interviews in 19 countries of former detainees and others who have worked in or are associated with Guantanamo Bay. These include prison guards, interrogators, interpreters, chaplains, medical personnel, prosecutors, habeas and JAG attorneys, high–ranking government and military officials, and family members of former prisoners.

We will discuss the hot prospects for building a climate-conscious career. New jobs and avenues for advancement are being created as companies strive to grow cleaner and governments figure out what a disrupted climate means for water, food, transit and housing systems. The young Americans entering the workforce today will create the cool new products, technologies and cities that will grow our economy and stabilize the climate. What are the best career paths for people who want to take advantage of that huge opportunity? What sectors are most promising? Will doing good entail making less? A conversation about building a thriving career based on reducing carbon while increasing social and economic value. Leonard Adler, CEO, Green Jobs Network Charlotte MacAusland, Commercial Channel Partner Manager, SolarCity Lyrica McTiernan, Sustainability Manager, Facebook Keely Wachs, Director of Communications, Clif Bar Katherine Walsh, Director, Student Environmental Resource Center, UC Berkeley

La Follette fought for votes for women, peace, civil rights … and more. Come discover, through a richly illustrated presentation, the progressive activist hailed by The New York Times as "perhaps the least known, yet the most influential of all the American women who have had to do with public affairs in this country."

Philips says these two groups make up 51 percent of all eligible voters in America, and that majority is growing larger every day. By failing to properly appreciate this reality, progressives are at risk of missing this moment in history—and losing. Phillips' new book is a searing indictment of the Democratic Party’s practice of courting white swing voters and a discussion of how America’s changed demographics have revolutionary implications for U.S. politics in 2016 and beyond. A leader in national politics for 30 years, Steve Phillips has had a front-row seat to these extraordinary political changes. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended Stanford University, where he was a leader in the anti-apartheid and multicultural education movements. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Education at age 28, becoming the youngest elected official in the history of San Francisco, and serving on the board for eight years, including one year as its president. He is the founder and chairman of PowerPAC+, a social justice political network that was the first national group to back Senator Cory Booker and California Attorney General Kamala Harris.