CT Liberty 2009 Forum Speakers and Bios

Attorney Michael H. Agranoff is a lifelong Connecticut resident. He graduated Hall High School in West Hartford, has a B.A. from the University of Hartford, and a J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law. He has been licensed to practice law in Connecticut since 1988.

Mike served three years in the U.S. Army, and was honorably discharged. He was employed as a computer programmer, analyst, and administrator for nearly 20 years before going to law school.

Since 1991, Mike has practiced DCF defense law, representing persons in administrative hearings, investigations, Juvenile Court hearings, and related court and school matters. He has also testified before the State Legislature on various DCF bills and proposed regulations.

His web site contains full DCF defense information, and numerous case summaries. Please see: www.agranofflaw.com.

Mike’s office is located on Crystal Lake in Ellington, CT. He currently employs two associate attorneys and a paralegal. They practice full-service DCF defense law in courts throughout the State. Mike will answer any reasonable legal questions. EMail: AttyMikeA@agranofflaw.com.

Jim Azzola grew up in CT. He attended high school in Meriden and went to Tufts, Berkeley and MIT, earning a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. After spending 8 years in the Semiconductor Equipment industry, Jim worked another 8 years in the Oil and Gas Industry and is now a consulting engineer with his own company, Thermal Science, specializing in the design of vacuum insulated tubing. Jim is a libertarian and an activist championing the cause of freedom.  He worked with the Ron Paul campaign in New Hampshire and subsequently hosted remote phone banks with a national grassroots network during the primaries in many states. Today Jim is busy building a coalition of liberty minded enthusiasts to further the American Freedom Movement.

Tanya Bachand went to her first protest rally in February 2009 in New York City. With a crowd of almost 300 people touting the policies of fiscal responsibility and individual liberty, Tanya quickly came to the conclusion that if this many people turned out in downtown New York City, surely Connecticut was not as blue as she thought. With nothing more than permit for Long Wharf, a Facebook account and lots of enthusiasm, Tanya organized the New Haven Tax Day Tea Party where about 2000 people cheered and chanted for over two hours, backing up traffic on I-95 and I-91 for 20 miles in every direction. Since then, Tanya and her son Chris have attended over 15 tea party rallies across the state of Connecticut, and Tanya became the Connecticut state coordinator for the national movement, the Tea Party Patriots.

Tanya is a trial lawyer and is a senior partner at Bachand DiScala, a Norwalk, CT litigation firm.

Elected in 2006, US Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota. In only her first term, Congresswoman Bachmann developed a reputation as a "principled reformer" who stays true to her conservative beliefs while pushing for real reform of the broken ways of Washington. And, her strong advocacy for her constituents earned her a second term in Congress in November 2008.

She is a leading advocate for bipartisan earmark reform and tax relief and is a staunch opponent of wasteful government spending. She is among the leaders in the U.S. House pushing for increased energy exploration in the U.S. to provide much needed relief at the pump for hard-working Americans and put our nation on the path to energy independence.

Prior to serving in the U.S. Congress, Bachmann served in the Minnesota State Senate. She was elected to the Minnesota State Senate in 2000 where she championed the Taxpayers Bill of Rights. And, prior to that, Bachmann spent five years as a federal tax litigation attorney, working on hundreds of civil and criminal cases. That experience solidified Bachmann’s strong support for efforts to simplify the Tax Code and reduce tax burdens on family and small business budgets.

Congresswoman Bachmann currently sits on the Financial Services Committee. This committee is tasked with the oversight of numerous financial sectors including housing, real estate and banking. This also gives the Congresswoman keen insight into the housing crisis and credit crunch, leading her to be a staunch opponent of the taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street. The 6th Congressional District of Minnesota contains parts of six counties, stretching from Stillwater past St. Cloud, including suburbs of the Twin Cities, which encompasses one of the nation’s largest financial services sectors, making Congresswoman Bachmann’s position on the Financial Services Committee particularly important.

Congresswoman Bachmann is a graduate of Anoka High School and Winona State University. Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, live in Stillwater where they own a small business mental health care practice that employs 42 people. The Bachmanns have five children, Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In addition, the Bachmanns have opened their home to 23 foster children, which has inspired Congresswoman Bachmann to become one of Congress’ leading advocates for foster and adopted children, earning her bipartisan praise for her efforts.

Dr. Armand Fusco has been a professional educator for his entire career. After serving in various teaching and administrative positions in education, Armand was appointed as superintendent of schools in Hadley, Massachusetts in 1971. In 1980, he resigned his position to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship with the Boston Labor Management Center, specializing in Total Quality Management principles and practices for school districts. Following his fellowship, he served as superintendent of schools in Branford, Connecticut from 1985 until his retirement in 1992. Dr. Fusco later became a professor of education and director of teacher intern programs at the University of Bridgeport.

He has authored many professional works and published numerous articles dealing with all aspects of school operations and activities. In 2005, he published School Corruption: Betrayal of Children and the Public Trust. His manuals include, Ending Corruption and Waste in Your Public Schools, and How To Reduce Property Taxes With A Citizen Audit Committee (both are available as a free downloads from yankeeinstitute.org.)

He is a passionate advocate for establishing Citizen Audit Committees in every school district to provide unbiased eyes for reviewing and analyzing school operations, procedures, practices, programs and policies for cost effectiveness, efficiency, and program need, as well as, ensuring that accountability, transparency and participation criteria are implemented. There are now 12 districts with citizen audit committees in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Dr. Fusco has a B.S. degree in education from Central Connecticut State Teachers College, a Master of Arts from Columbia University, a Professional Diploma from the University of Connecticut, and a doctorate degree from the University of Massachusetts.

He resides in Guilford, Connecticut, with his wife of 56 years, Dr. Constance M. Fusco, who is a retired assistant superintendent of schools. They have four children, fourteen grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Susan Kniep is the President of The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayers Organizations, Inc

The Federation is an umbrella organization for taxpayer groups throughout the State, providing networking resources, research, and representation at the State Legislature on issues to include, but not limited to, Taxes, Binding Arbitration, Prevailing Wage, Initiative and Referendum, and Eminent Domain.

Susan is a life long resident of East Hartford, where her family upon their migration from Sweden had founded the one of the first dairy farms in Connecticut, known as the Bergren Dairy. Susan lives in the old family homestead built in the 1840s with her husband, George, of 40 years. George is a retired engineer of an affiliate of Ingersoll Rand. Susan has one daughter, Jennifer, a middle school math teacher and graduate of St. Joseph College.

In addition to Susan’s business background, Susan has the distinction of breaking of many barriers in politics:

· Susan was elected the first woman mayor of East Hartford,

· She is the first Republican to have held the Mayor’s Office within the past 50 years, and

· She is the first and only Independent to have held office in East Hartford.

In business, Susan graduated from Bay Path College, worked for years in the stock and bond brokerage business, owned a floral business, and is now a Real Estate agent with Century 21.

In politics, Susan’s strong roots ultimately led to her successful election to East Hartford’s Town Council in 1983, where she served as Minority Leader until 1989. In 1989, Susan was elected the first woman Mayor of East Hartford where she served until 1993. Under a strong Mayor form of government, Susan instituted many changes, to include developing professional standards for Directors, as well as standards for contracts, bidding and ethics to avoid much of what we are witnessing in State government today. When Susan entered the Mayor’s office she was confronted with a $2 million deficit left by her predecessor. In 1993, Susan left the Town with a surplus unmatched by any of her predecessors, while imposing no tax increase. She again successfully sought the office of Town Council in 1995 as an independent candidate.

Susan practices that what Thomas Jefferson long advocated, which is ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY!

Pamela Kurtz – Co-Founder The Danbury Area 9/12er’s Meet-Up Group & Member of & Regional Coordinator for Independence Caucus http://www.meetup.com/The-Danbury-Area-Glenn-Beck-Meetup-Group/

http://icaucus.ning.com/

Pamela grew up in upstate NY. She received a BA in Business and Psychology from SUNY Albany. After her first job working in sales for Xerox for 5 years, she left to become part of the kitchen industry. Within a year, she had taught herself kitchen design, and in 1986 opened her own retail kitchen design showroom in Bedford Hills, NY. In 1997, she moved her firm to New Canaan, CT and imported handmade cabinets from the UK for clients all over the United States. In 2003, she sold her retail showroom and continued to import cabinets from her home office. When the US dollar became so weak the exchange rate was over $2.00 for one British Pound Sterling, it became untenable to continue importing. As a frustrated small business owner, for the first time in her life, she began to pay attention to politics. Listening to Glenn Beck encouraged her to take action. In March of 2009, with the help of two likeminded women she met on Internet message boards, she started the Danbury Area Glenn Beck Fans Meetup group. Subsequent to Glenn Beck’s call to action, her group changed their name to the Danbury Area 9/12ers. Since Beck’s 3/13/09 broadcast’s call to action, she has become involved with the Independence Caucus, whose mission is to “Remove compromised incumbents from office and replace them with good men and women who agree with our principles”. The IC principles are spelled out in videos at www.icaucus.org . The Independence Caucus is “A citizen’s movement to take back government from “Big Money” interests groups”. The IC succeeded in removing a 6 term incumbent in Utah with only 1,000 volunteers, despite the fact they were out spent six to one. They replaced the incumbent with Jason Chaffetz, (http://www.jasonforcongress.com/page/page/5011447.htm) who is for fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability and a strong national defense. The IC has the A-Z game plan on how to do replicate their success in every district in the US. Pamela is working to help the IC spread the word and help empower individuals to take back their government.

Bob MacGuffie, Co-founder Right Principles (www.RightPrinciples.com), grew up in Flushing, Queens in NYC. He received a BA in Economics from Queens College and a MBA in Finance from NYU. Initially he wanted to become a college history professor but instead pursued a career in corporate finance and insurance. He’s a lifelong Libertarian who reads history extensively and has closely followed the political scene since the early 1970s. He is dedicated to opposing the socialist agenda currently promoted by the country’s national leadership. In 2008 with four lifelong friends he formed Right Principles, a political action group with a PAC filed with the FEC to accept contributions. Right Principles celebrates the great principles on which our country was founded, and makes a point to remind our elected officials to legislate and govern based on these principles. The group is focused on organizing people around these principles on a local level and provides leadership for political action.

Born in 1984, Paul Maresca has grown up in Branford, CT in a family of small business owners and hard working professionals. He considers himself blessed for being brought up by a family who instilled in him values, principles, and respect as well as a keen understanding of common sense, personal responsibility, and work ethic. Driven by world events, growing government corruption, and increasing encroachment on American liberty, Paul sees much work to be done to get the country back on track.

Paul Maresca first became active in politics at Branford High School. He was a founder of the Young Republicans Club in his school and held offices of Treasurer and Vice President. He also held the office of Vice President in Model Congress and participated in other political student organizations such as Youth and Government. Since then, Paul has worked on many campaigns on the local and state level helping selectmen, and state senators get elected. He also spent a year serving as an intern to the former State Senator Aniskovich.

In business, Paul has bolstered his experiences working for many companies big and small including a management position with a Fortune 500 company as well as a private investigating agency. He is currently the President/CEO of Maresca Industries and the operations manager for his father's "dark-sky" lighting manufacturing company, Lighting By Branford.

Currently, Paul is serving as 3rd District Representative for the Independence Caucus and is a co-organizer for Southern CT 912. He has also been involved with the New Haven Tea Party movement and many other local events. Paul is a registered Libertarian.

At the CT Liberty Forum Paul Maresca’s topic will be “ What's Wrong With Washington And How To Fix It” -  How big money special interests have hijacked our elected representatives and what we can do to about it.   Paul presents The Proven Game Plan to find and elect representatives who will uphold the Constitution, be fiscally responsible and represent our interests as intended by our founding fathers, and allow us to govern ourselves as "We The People".

Joe Markley was state a CT Senator for the 16th District, representing Southington, Waterbury and Wolcott.  He chaired the Human Services Committee and the Welfare subcommittee of Appropriations and was also the founding chairman of the Connecticut Commission on Children.  Mr. Markley was also Southington’s Republican Town Committee chairman.  Joe ran Tom Scott's nearly successful Congressional campaign in 1990, and his quixotic but satisfying independent campaign for Governor in 1994.  As Executive Director of the Connecticut Taxpayers Committee, Joe organized the rally that drew 65,000 people to the capitol on October 5, 1991.  Also at various times he has taught English at the high school and college level. 

James Perloff is a free-lance writer based in Boston, Massachusetts.  He is a regular contributor to The New American magazine. His first book, The Shadows of Power, an exposé of private influence on American foreign policy, has sold over 100,000 copies. His most recent books, Tornado in a Junkyard and The Case Against Darwin, are laymen’s-level discussions of the growing scientific case against Darwin’s theory of evolution. Mr. Perloff has been a guest on well over 100 radio and television programs to discuss both history and the creation-evolution debate. He is also composer of the politically incorrect music CD Freedom Shall Return.

His Topic at the CT Liberty Forum is "American Sovereignty and the Coming World Government." James Perloff will explore evidence that a wealthy Establishment has exerted undue influence upon the federal government, particularly on foreign policy, in a direction that sacrifices American sovereignty and the U.S. Constitution in favor of world government. He will take a behind-the-headlines look at, among other things, events that have brought us into wars, the founding of the Federal Reserve, and the plan to transform NAFTA into a North American Union (just as the Common Market was transformed into the European Union) as a stepping stone to world government.

Walter Reddy has been a Constitutional Activist since 1970. Starting in 1970, he succeeded in collecting petitions which called for a Constitutional amendment, giving 18 year olds the right to vote, the 26th Amendment.

In 1994, he collaborated with a group of 10 Constitutional activists that lobbied Hawaii legislators and got them to introduce and pass a 10th Amendment resolution. Within 2 years, more than 22 States followed with similar legislation. Also in 1994, Walter and other patriots converged on the Philadelphia, PA State Capital and successfully lobbied State legislators to stop the calling for a Constitutional Convention that would seek to replace the U.S. constitution with a U.N."New States Constitution". In the winter of 1994/1995 he was working with an Orange County, NY Legislator to draft legislation that would revitalize the Orange County Militia. The Orange County Militia was organized during the Colonial time by Colonial statute, and later by State statute, up until the 1903 Dick Act by Congress (which unconstitutionally unorganized them). April 19, 1995 stopped this effort with the false flag operation. The bombing at Oklahoma City and the corporate media's demonizing the "militia". In 1996, he produced and hosted two television programs, Oklahoma City bombing - exposing the inside job with Brig.General Ben Partin and Votescam: the stealing of America - a documentary on vote fraud, with pioneer James Collier. In 2007 he teamed up with Dr. Edwin Vieira, after reading his new book, Constitutional Homeland Security: The Nation in Arms and in that same year he met Ron Paul at the New Hampshire Free State Project's Liberty Forum.

On Independence Day, July 4 2008, Walter Founded Committees of Safety organization, a national grassroots organization, with volunteers and organizer now in all 50 States. Committees of Safety is a non- profit, non-violent, non partisan, First Amendment organization. Organized at the county level, they are engaged in educating their community on the need to reclaim two vital powers, "the Power of the Purse and the Power of the Sword", getting others to volunteer and sign the Petition, which calls for a Sound monetary system based in gold and silver together with a Constitutional system of Security, Safety and Defense for the State. The goal is to get millions of these Petitions signed this year. The States having the most Petitions and volunteers organized and will be the States we will write model legislation for, then with mass support, lobby the State legislators to sponsor and vote for bills.

Andrew Schiff is a veteran media and marketing consultant in the financial services industry, Mr. Schiff serves as an integral component of the communications and media effort at Euro Pacific Capital. Working closely with Peter Schiff for more than five years, Andrew has helped develop, refine and target Euro Pacific strategic communications for media and clientele and has been instrumental in raising the firm's public profile. As a result he has gained unique understanding of the firm's economic outlook and investment strategy.
In his prior career, Andrew had consulted with many multi-billion dollar asset management firms in the development and execution of media strategy and communications. A holder of Series 7 and 63 licenses, Andrew has recently joined the firm full time in the New York City offices, where, in addition to his marketing duties, he will be working directly with clients.

Robert “Bob” Schulz is the founder and chairman of We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, Inc., and We The People Congress, Inc.

Bob was born in 1939 in New York City. Bob and Judith, his wife of 45 years, live on the east side of Lake George, in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, where they raised four children: Bob, Nancy, John and Mark.

Bob has an engineering degree from the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York (1963), and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio (1969). He completed most of the course work for a Ph.D. in Public Administration from the Graduate School of Public Affairs, State University of New York at Albany.

Bob has held significant positions in industry (Westinghouse and General Electric), in government (Director of a State Office in Connecticut and a State Office in New York, and full time advisor to the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency), on Wall Street (Prudential-Bache Securities), in business (founder and CEO of a consulting firm), and on the radio as a talk-show host (WROW-Albany).

However, this work and these assignments are not Bob’s principal reason for being.

Although he is not an attorney, Bob is not unskilled in the law. Since 1979, Bob has been occupied with an abiding concern about wrongful governmental behavior. He has been carefully scrutinizing Government’s behavior, comparing that behavior with the requirements of the State and Federal Constitutions and unhesitatingly confronting improprieties and conflicts, in the courts, professionally, intelligently and rationally. Bob has performed the research, prepared the briefs and argued cases in the highest state and federal courts. Over one hundred fourteen (155) decisions have been published in cases he has brought against unconstitutional and illegal behavior by those wielding governmental power.

Bob’s current focus is on the historical context and purpose of the last ten words of the First Amendment, what Bob refers to as the accountability clause.

Deborah Stevenson, mother of two children, Samantha and Cassandra, realized that homeschooling is what all parents do from the time children are born, and that it was a natural thing to continue to do so.  So she did.

Deborah became involved in legal work as a result of homeschooling her children.  She became involved in protecting her right to homeschool as a parent before she began attending law school.  She homeschooled, as well as drove her children to college, where they took courses during the day, and went to law school at night.  She currently practices Education law and Appellate law privately in addition to working as Executive Director of NHELD, LLC.

Ms. Stevenson formed Connecticut Citizens to Uphold the Right to Educate (C.U.R.E.) in 1989 in order to assist all parents in the state to retain their right to instruct their children at home without government interference.  Because she believed in the tenth amendment's provision that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government belong to the states and to the people, C.U.R.E. remained a state organization protecting the rights of citizens in the state.  It was not until 2003, when Deborah realized that there was a continuing effort by another organization to actively promote the adoption of federal regulation of homeschooling, that she decided to form National Home Education Legal Defense.  A national organization was necessary in order to inform and assist parents in all states in halting federal regulation and retaining authority in the states to instruct their children in freedom.

Deborah has no background in public education.  She does have an extensive background in home education, having taught both her children since birth at home.

Ms. Stevenson also has an extensive background as a public speaker.  She spent ten years as a reporter interviewing all sorts of interesting people from parents to Presidents.  She also hosted many radio programs on a variety of topics throughout her ten year career.  As a parent and an advocate, Deborah has been the guest on many radio and television programs throughout Connecticut and the country.  She has also conducted many workshops on homeschooling and the law.

You can find articles that Ms. Stevenson has published in Home Education Magazine, Family Times, and on NHELD, LLC's website, www.NHELD, LLC.com, to name a few.

Estelle Stevenson is a graduate of Georgian Court College in Lakewood, NJ with a BA in French and a minor in secondary education. Ms. Stevenson studied for a master’s in clinical psychology at Southern State University in New Haven, CT. She has been a realtor since 1981, and has a broker’s license. She has also been an office manager with multiple sales awards. Ms. Stevenson is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the NRA, the John Birch Society, Pi Delta Phi, charter member of the national World War II Memorial, and currently CT State Coordinator for the We the People Foundation.