John Mills has changed the way we live with fire through his 501c3 non-profit organization Watch Duty. John spent many years in Silicon Valley focusing on underserved markets that had been overlooked by technologists. In 2012 he founded Zenput as CTO, focused on retail food services operations which was acquired in 2022. After living in San Francisco for 16 years, he moved off-the-grid to Sonoma County in 2020 where he was faced with the terrifying reality of life in the wildlands without the in...
Aug 05, 2025•37 min•Ep. 547
Chessie Thacher is a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, where she devotes her time to First Amendment issues, government transparency, criminal justice reforms, and voting rights litigation. Prior to joining the ACLU, Chessie worked as an attorney at Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, a San Francisco-based law firm that focuses on high-stakes litigation and trials. While at the firm, Chessie developed a dynamic pro bono practice, partnering with the ACLU on several amicus b...
Jul 22, 2025•45 min•Ep. 546
Dr. Adwoa Opong is an Assistant Professor of History at Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University. Dr Opong earned a BA in history in the study of religions from the University of Ghana. She continued at the University of Ghana to pursue an MPhil in History, focusing on women’s organization and the nationalist struggles in Ghana. Adwoa received her PhD in History and also received her graduate certificate in the women, gender and sexuality studies program a...
Jul 08, 2025•58 min•Ep. 545
Takeo Rivera is a specialist in performance studies with a focus on race, sexuality, and gender in U.S. American cultural production. He is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Boston University. His current project, Model Minority Masochism: Performing the Cultural Politics of Asian American Masculinity (Oxford University Press, April 2022) is focused on masochism and techno-orientalism in Asian American cultural production across multiple media, including theater, literature, graphic...
May 27, 2025•38 min•Ep. 544
Abdi Soltani has served as the executive director of the ACLU of Northern California since 2009. During his tenure, he has pursued long-term priorities to deepen the ACLU’s presence in the California Central Valley and elevate the ACLU’s voice on state policy at the California state capitol. Through 2015, he co-chaired the Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy with then Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, where he helped draft the blueprint for safe and equitable legalization of marijuana in Califor...
May 06, 2025•47 min•Ep. 543
John Fischer has served as director of the Normal Public Library since 2023. In this role, Fischer leads teams responsible for the educational, cultural, informational and recreational resources provided by the library to enrich the quality of life for Normal citizens. Fischer has worked in public libraries for more than 20 years, including time at Bloomington Public Library and St. Louis County Library. Without Libraries was created to provide librarians a platform to share stories about educat...
Apr 24, 2025•4 min•Ep. 542
David Weinstein has been Trust for Public Land’s Western Conservation Finance Director for a decade. He advises local and state governments throughout the Western United States on how to design, pass, and implement legislative initiatives and ballot measures that create funding for land and water conservation and climate-smart solutions. A Wyss Foundation Fellow and Coloradoan, David has been involved in conservation politics and policy for more than a decade, formerly working for Outdoor Indust...
Apr 22, 2025•50 min•Ep. 541
Selicia Applegate is the Workshop Manager at Palatine Public Library. With over 10 years at the library, Selicia helped grow the department from a traditional tech support desk into a bustling makerspace that can run over 20 pieces of equipment at once—especially during the holidays. “I focus on hands-on, inclusive learning experiences through our makerspace. In 2024, I was honored with the ILA Crosman Memorial Award for innovation, dedication, and leadership potential. One highlight has been cr...
Apr 17, 2025•4 min•Ep. 540
Micol Hebron is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes studio work, curating, writing, social media, crowd-sourcing, teaching, public-speaking, and both individual and collaborative projects. She has been engaged in individual and collaborative projects in Los Angeles since 1992. Hebron is an Associate Professor of Art at Chapman University; the founder/director of The Situation Room resource space for the creative community; the Gallery Tally Poster Project about gender equity in c...
Apr 15, 2025•42 min•Ep. 539
Amy Vidlak Girmscheid is a professional librarian with over 30 years of experience in public and special libraries. She has served the Library community as an archivist, Collection Development Librarian, reference librarian, library director and overall change agent. Without Libraries was created to provide librarians a platform to share stories about education, discuss current programs, and consider life without libraries. Libraries provide access to information and educational resources, promo...
Apr 15, 2025•3 min•Ep. 538
Brian Fennessy became Fire Chief of the Orange County Fire Authority on April 16, 2018. Chief Fennessy began his career in 1978 with the US Department of Agriculture's United States Forest Service and the US Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management working as a hotshot crewmember, hotshot/helishot/helitack captain and ultimately crew superintendent. In 1990, Fennessy joined the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) and ultimately became Chief of the Department in 2015. One of his man...
Apr 08, 2025•55 min•Ep. 537
Alea Perez is a Youth Services Manager in the Chicago suburbs and she has worked in libraries for 16 years (10 in management). Alea grew up in libraries while her mother served as a Youth Services librarian for 30 years, starting when she was in elementary school. "Everyone thought I loved to read when I was young, but it wasn’t until I discovered sci-fi in 7th grade that I really fell in love with books and libraries. I have fond memories of spending time in the supply room of my childhood libr...
Apr 07, 2025•4 min•Ep. 536
Ricardo D. García serves as the Los Angeles County Public Defender, the first and largest public defender agency in the United States. He received his Juris Doctorate in 1995 from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and his Bachelor of Art in Politics in 1991 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. García started his legal career in 1995 with the San Diego Public Defender’s Office. In 1998, he was recruited to the Alternate Public Defender’s Office as the you...
Apr 01, 2025•38 min•Ep. 535
Kate Buckson serves as the library director of St. Charles Public Library in Illinois. She has worked in public libraries for over twenty years. Without Libraries was created to provide librarians a platform to share stories about education, discuss current programs, and consider life without libraries. Libraries provide access to information and educational resources, promoting literacy, critical thinking skills, and community building by offering a safe space for people to learn, research, and...
Mar 30, 2025•4 min•Ep. 534
Resa Mai is a hands-on public library Director in Illinois. She facilitates partnerships within her community and across the state to create engaging exciting programs. Currently while negotiating a large library addition she is a Lions Club International Vice President and Management Mentor. She has been an active Library advocate since early elementary school when she fell in love with the Velveteen Rabbit and with the idea that the entire world was accessible to her just inside the doors of h...
Mar 29, 2025•3 min•Ep. 533
Enyce Smith , born in Los Angeles, CA, is a multi-talented creator whose work includes music, dance, choreography, filmography, and ballroom MC known in the scene as “King of the West Coast.” Enyce has been voguing in ballroom since the age of 18 and writing and publishing music tracks for more than 10 years. Currently, Enyce is a vogue instructor, ballroom MC, and Beyond the Runway documentary director and producer. Beyond the Runway aims to highlight issues and luminaries within the Ballroom s...
Mar 25, 2025•30 min•Ep. 532
Dale Minami is a partner with Minami Tamaki in San Francisco specializing in the area of Personal Injury for which he has been named a SuperLawyer in Northern California for each year from 2004 through 2017 and a Top Ten SuperLawyer for the last 5 years. He received a law degree at Berkeley Law during a formative time of anti-war, counterculture, civil rights, and ethnic studies movements in the San Francisco Bay Area. After he graduated, Minami and fellow Asian American law students and graduat...
Mar 18, 2025•43 min•Ep. 531
Dr. Ronald J. Rivera is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Irvine and the Associate Clerkship Director for emergency medicine rotations. He completed medical school at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, and residency at SUNY Downstate / Kings County in Brooklyn, New York. After being elected to Chief of Education, he discovered a passion for teaching his peers much in the same way he advocates for improving bedside patien...
Mar 11, 2025•45 min•Ep. 530
Dr. Mark Skousen , Ph. D., editor of Forecasts & Strategies, is a nationally known investment expert, economist, university professor and author of more than 25 books. In July 2018 Dr Skousen was awarded the inaugural Triple Crown in Economics for his work in economic theory, history and education, is known as “America’s Economist” and has been identified as one of the 20 most influential living economists. He earned his Ph. D. in monetary economics at George Washington University in 1977. H...
Mar 03, 2025•38 min•Ep. 529
Mitchell Kaplan is best known for the creation of the Miami Book Fair International, the largest community book festival in the United States and a model for book fairs across the country. Kaplan began his working career as a high school English teacher. Two years after opening an independent bookstore, Books & Books, Kaplan, along with the Dade County Library and other independent bookstore owners, was asked by the president of the downtown Wolfson campus of the Miami-Dade College, Eduardo ...
Mar 03, 2025•27 min•Ep. 528
Arianna Barrios has spent her life living, working, and volunteering in her hometown of Orang where she serves on the Orange City Council, representing the Old Towne Orange area of the City in District One. Today, Arianna lives and runs a small business in the City’s historic district as the owner of Communications LAB, a boutique Public Relations and Community Outreach firm that employs 11 communications professionals. In 2018, Arianna was recognized by Assembly Member Dr. Steven Choi and the S...
Mar 03, 2025•37 min•Ep. 527
Peggy Nagae received her A.B., cum laude, from Vassar College in East Asian Studies, a J.D. degree with honors from Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College, a M.A in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica, and a Bachelor of Illumination Sciences from the Jwalan Muktikã School for Illumination. She has practiced law as a criminal and civil trial attorney, worked as director of associates at a Seattle litigation firm, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs at the Unive...
Feb 25, 2025•33 min•Ep. 526
Nick Mott is a journalist and podcast producer. His podcast work has received a Peabody and two National Edward R. Murrow Awards. His print and audio reporting has been published in the Atlantic , NPR, High Country News , and the Washington Post , among many other outlets. Justin Angle is a professor and the Poe Family Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the University of Montana College of Business. His work has been published in Journal of Marketing , Journal of Consumer Research , and the Washing...
Feb 18, 2025•42 min•Ep. 525
Donald K. Tamaki received his BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of California at Berkeley in 1973, and also received his JD from Berkeley in 1976. He is a Senior Counsel at Minami Tamaki LLP. Prior to January 1, 2021, he was the firm’s Managing Partner. From 1980 to 1983, he was Executive Director of the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, and served on the legal team which reopened the 1944 U.S. Supreme Court case of Fred Korematsu, overturning his criminal conviction for defying the remov...
Feb 11, 2025•35 min•Ep. 524
John Vaillant ’s acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction books, The Golden Spruce and The Tiger , were national bestsellers. His debut novel, The Jaguar’s Children , was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. Vaillant has received the Governor General’s Literary Award, British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, and the Pearson Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. He has written for, a...
Jan 15, 2025•39 min•Ep. 523
Kirn Kim was a former honor student and son of a prominent physician in the Fullerton Korean community. However, at age 16, he was sentenced as an adult to life in prison as part of a high-profile case that became known as the “Honor Roll Murder.” He earned parole after serving 20 years. Kirn became active in justice reform advocacy, leading to his hiring as the first formerly-incarcerated employee of The California Endowment. Currently working as a software developer, Kirn continues speaking on...
Dec 10, 2024•32 min•Ep. 522
Tarell Alvin McCraney is Artistic Director of Geffen Playhouse. In this role, he is responsible for identifying, developing, and programming new works and re-envisioned classics. He sets the strategic artistic course for the Geffen's Gil Cates and Audrey Skirball Kenis Theaters. McCraney is an award-winning writer, producer, and educator, best known for his acclaimed trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays . His script In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue is the basis for the Oscar–winning film Moonlight...
Nov 05, 2024•37 min•Ep. 521
Teresa Watanabe covers education for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the Times in 1989, she has covered immigration, ethnic communities, religion, Pacific Rim business and served as Tokyo correspondent and bureau chief. She also covered Asia, national affairs and state government for the San Jose Mercury News and wrote editorials for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. A Seattle native, she graduated from USC in journalism and in East Asian languages and culture. Chapters is a multi-part serie...
Oct 29, 2024•33 min•Ep. 520
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is a professor of Asian American Studies, the director of the Humanities Center, and the director of Center for Liberation, Anti-Racism, and Belonging (C-LAB) at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from Stanford University and previously taught at Ohio State University. She authored Dr. Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: the Life of a Wartime Celebrity (University of California Press, 2005) and Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, ...
May 28, 2024•28 min•Ep. 519
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is a professor of Asian American Studies, the director of the Humanities Center, and the director of Center for Liberation, Anti-Racism, and Belonging (C-LAB) at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from Stanford University and previously taught at Ohio State University. She authored Dr. Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: the Life of a Wartime Celebrity (University of California Press, 2005) and Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, ...
May 21, 2024•32 min•Ep. 518
