Lives Radio Show With Stuart Chittenden

The trauma of managing her father’s stroke was one catalyst that took Victoria Kirilloff into her https://www.mywealthanalytics.com/ (own business as a Divorce and Family Financial Mediator and Holistic Wealth Consultant). Victoria shares stories of how her father – a Russian heritage nuclear engineer – found love in rural Nebraska, built several businesses, but suffered an untimely stroke that had Victoria questioning not only her family’s financial planning, but also the science of money and behavioral psychology more broadly. In this show, we talk money and wellness, and Victoria shares her untraditional childhood, her personal battles with rheumatoid arthritis, and even staying sassy!

Sandra Reding joined the Aksarben Foundation as President in 2017, where she oversees and implements its strategic direction. For over 100 years, the Aksarben Foundation has been focused on giving time, energy, and resources to create a better heartland. Enabling talent to flourish in Nebraska has become a focus of the Aksarben Foundation over the last few years. In our conversation, Sandra talks about this evolution and the Foundation's more recent strategic pivots in order better to address issues of today and tomorrow, not just around retaining talent but also about being more inclusive, diverse, and equitable. A well-established figure in philanthropic endeavors, Reding's past positions including Executive Director of Children’s Scholarship Fund of Omaha, President of the Joslyn Art Museum Foundation, Director of Development for Lauritzen Gardens, and Vice President for Institutional Advancement at College of Saint Mary. 

Over the last few years some military veterans have been guests on the show. As this week marks Memorial Day, honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died in the performance of their military duties, I listened back to a few conversations with guests that speak to their own experiences in the armed services and its context in their lives. This show features parts of my conversations with three prior guests, all of whom are military veterans: Joe Gerstandt (original full conversation on January 3, 2018 https://player.captivate.fm/episode/5727fc5e-360e-4cd4-a2f7-d9aa717cc7e6 (here)), Bobby Brumfield (original full conversation on March 10, 2018 https://player.captivate.fm/episode/caf81437-a5a8-4bb8-b0f5-d5fdc45cb238 (here)), and Chris Hochstetler (original full conversation on August, 2019 https://player.captivate.fm/episode/a304bee8-3bf5-4eb7-8ffc-21b6d2e6d03a (here)).

http://work.deaccession.org/ (Julia Weist) is a visual artist who explores how the process of record keeping reveals crucial social truths around shared systems of knowledge and power. In our conversation, Weist talks about her interest in how non-artists document their lived experiences, shares her experience as an artist in residence within city government, and considers the nature of public space and digital space, all illustrated by some of the phenomenal project work that Weist has created. Her work is in the permanent collection of the City of New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the MIT List Visual Art Center among other collections. Weist’s public artworks include Public Record (2020, New York City), View-Through (2017, Miami) and Reach (2015, Queens). Her work has recently been exhibited at the Queens Museum, New York; the Hong-Gah Museum, Taiwan; The Luminary, St. Louis; The Shed, New York; nGbK, Berlin; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; the Gwangju Biennale and many other venu

Business and life partners, Patty and Mike Malone started as a photography https://www.maloneandco.com/ (company) shooting film and held on for the ride through the birth of digital photography and then digital motion. They have led their small production crew to document extraordinary places, such as Mexico’s Banco Chinchorro Biosphere Reserve, home to the largest and purest population of American Crocodiles, and document extraordinary subjects, such as the incredible athletes taking part in the Special Olympics. In our conversation, Mike and Patty talk about how their passion for photography emerged, being in business as a married couple, and the changing forces that have impacted the world of image capture.

Jamie Berglund is the Executive Director of Spark, an Omaha-based community development organization focused on catalyzing transformative community and economic development initiatives. In our conversation, Jamie describes community and the long road to community development, gentrification contrasted by positive community wealth building models, what true listening to neighborhood residents looks like, and more. Jamie also shares her own awakening to community in her Omaha neighborhoods and how her passion for this work has emerged.

Rachel Fox is a multiple entrepreneur, author, teacher, and founder of https://www.facebook.com/yougogirlomaha/ (You Go Girl), a non-profit organization dedicated to ending the cycle of self-doubt and low self-esteem in young women and girls by creating a vision for who they can be. Honored many times for her community and business leadership, Rachel talks about the personal impact during her early life moving from the South to the Midwest, how that inspired her vision for You Go Girl, and her aspirations for the future. This show, one of a year-long series, is supported in part by https://www.omahachamber.org/ (The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce).

Chris Harding Thornton talks about her magnificent debut novel https://chrishardingthornton.com/ (“Pickard County Atlas,”) sharing how Shakespeare influenced the book, as well as how themes such as free will or the lack of it play on the lives and actions of the main characters. Thornton also talks about her life and its geographic dislocations and how the craft of writing emerged for her.

This show's guests are poets, teachers, and community leaders Kathie Klarreich, founder of https://www.exchange-for-change.org/ (Exchange for Change) - a nonprofit teaching writing in prisons - and P. Scott Cunningham, founder and executive director of the https://www.omiami.org/ (O, Miami Poetry Festival), which celebrates Miami, FL through the lens of poetry. Together they host the Florida Prison Poet Laureate initiative. They talk about the importance and impact of writing, both in their own lives and in the context of those incarcerated in the correction facility system, as well as the activities and discoveries created by poetry in the O, Miami Poetry Festival. Kathie Klarreich is the author of “Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou, and Civil Strife in Haiti” and a contributor to two anthologies: “So Spoke the Earth” and “Women, Writing, and Prison.” In 2010 she received a Knight International Journalism Fellowship to train journalists in investigative reporting in Haiti, where sh

Liz Gre is a composer, vocalist and performance artist writing genre-less compositions with Black Women for Black Women. Her practice is rooted in storytelling and the viscerality of the imaginary. Currently, she is a PhD student at City, University of London in the UK, studying how ethnographic composition can best answer questions around the Black Woman immigrant/expat/trans-national identity. In the show, Liz shares her journey from sociology to nonprofit development to music and purpose, finding love, her highly collaborative creative process and the subject matter of her music creation, and the way her work takes on many lives once in the world.

Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM, for over two decades has served as President of College of Saint Mary, the Omaha region's only Catholic university for women. Inspired by her upbringing and faith as a Sister of Mercy, Dr. Stevens has led College of Saint Mary to develop several innovative programs to increase accessibility and affordability of higher education, including an on-campus residence hall where single mothers live with their children; a “Kids Club” for children of students and staff to learn remotely during the pandemic; and generous scholarships for undocumented students. In our conversation, Dr. Stevens talks about her upbringing and how it shaped her. She also shares the inspiration of The Sisters of Mercy in her calling to be a nun and a teacher and how that has informed her leadership of a higher education institution with a vision of active idealism.

Tom Emmett was born in Colorado to a family with roots in Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa. He grew up along the Little Thompson River on a small quarter horse ranch and, as the son of a United Airlines pilot, he was privileged to see the world. His diverse career has included being an antiques dealer, financial planner, pension plan president, senior pastor, and currently executive director of the http://dodgehouse.org/ (Historic General Dodge House) in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Tom shares his experiences as a gay activist, faith leader, and historian along with the wisdom he has acquired through an intriguing life.

In the wake of the February Level 3 Energy Emergency Alert and rolling energy blackouts across the Midwest and the traumatic debacle in Texas, my guest Eric Williams discusses the deceitfully opportunistic and ignorant claims made around the energy infrastructure crisis, and talks about climate change, environmental justice, the future for renewables, and more. Eric is the Natural Resources Planner at the https://www.papionrd.org/ (Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District) and the elected official for Subdivision 6 of the https://www.oppd.com/ (Omaha Public Power District). Note: All opinions expressed in the show are Eric’s own and not those of the organizations he works with.

Something of a Renaissance man, Jason Fischer is an artist, designer, photographer, film-maker, community activist and entrepreneur. His agency, Surreal Media Lab, is a place and a philosophy where Jason’s creativity, business, and community endeavors can be for profit and mindful of matters of humanity. In this conversation, Jason talks about his entrepreneurship, creative philosophy and work, and a little of his life and aspiration. This show, one of a year-long series, is supported in part by The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce.

Erin Vik is a well-known figure in the region’s food and hospitality landscape. Erin worked at local independent restaurants, private clubs and corporate hotels, and oversaw operations for the Institute for Culinary Arts at Metropolitan Community College, working with the culinary, hospitality and horticulture programs. His current role is Director, Nutrition at Westside School District, each day providing over 10,000 lunches and more. In our conversation, Erin talks about meal quality, sourcing ingredients, and the challenges of providing thousands of nutritious, tasty meals each day. He also shares his journey from early childhood food memories to the Omaha culinary scene.

Andrea Lawse is the founder of Artemis Tea and Botanical and is a Clinical Herbalist. She is a Ph.D Candidate working on a dissertation in Critical Plant Studies, specifically focused on relationships between humans and the vegetal. Her studies of the interconnection between the nonhuman and human worlds—all have culminated in building Artemis. Andrea says, however, it is without a doubt the garden she plants and tends, year after year, that offers her the greatest insight and wisdom. In this show, we talk among other topics about: The centuries of wisdom and folk knowledge around plants and how modern science and business has minimized that  How herbalism is a practice for Andrea, not just intellectual pursuit The alchemy behind Andrea’s creation of her tea blends, such as Einstein and Oracle The excruciating leap from academia to entrepreneur, including mentoring and modeling from other female entrepreneurs and lessons learned Tea sourcing and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on plants, such as echi

Sue Thaden founded Client Resources Inc., a women-owned IT talent and solutions business in 1999, growing to employ over 180 IT professionals with clients across numerous industries and geographies. Its innovation lab has spun out other successful endeavors, including From Now On, a sports and event based marketing and communication platform working with more than 100 U.S. college & athletic departments, college conferences and NCAA Championship events to drive fan engagement. In our recent conversation, Sue talks about the genesis of this business, the nature of entrepreneurship, as well as her personal character and journey as a female founder and leader, especially in a world where female-forward attitudes are in the minority. 

Poet Aisha Sharif is a Cave Canem fellow living near Kansas City, Missouri. In many ways, much of her poetry and nonfiction addresses the politics of “bordering identities.” As an African-American Muslim woman originally from the south, her work explores how racial, gender, and religious identities align, separate, and blend. Her poem, “Vanna White Reconsiders Her Pact with Her Jinn” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2019 and her poem “Why I Can Dance Down a Soul Train Line and Still be Muslim” was nominated in 2015. Her first book of poetry, To Keep From Undressing, was released by Spark Wheel Press in 2019. In this show we talk about the bordering identities she explores in her poems, how they express her own lived experiences, and where her poetic muses are calling her now.

Traci Ruble is a therapist formerly based in San Francisco and now in Heidelberg, Germany, and is the founder of Sidewalk Talk, a nonprofit dedicated to creating communities of listeners worldwide. Traci talks with me about her thoughts on belonging, parenthood, the challenges facing couples today, and how to approach 2021, as well as the need for hearing each other and being heard. She also shares how her life experiences shaped her personally and professionally and how she journeyed into this field.

The New Year’s Eve edition of Lives Radio Show & Podcast, which reflects back on a few guests from this past year, focusing on some poets, writers, and artists, who have brought me comfort and inspiration amid the trials of 2020. We will hear from artist Mark Gilbert, and listen to readings from Liz Kay, Rebecca Rotert, Sarah McKinstry-Brown, Carson Vaughan, Maritza Estrada, and - as a teaser for a forthcoming New Year show, Aisha Sharif. And I couldn't resist a few outtakes...