![Steve Ambrose](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Steve-Ambrose-208x300.jpg)
Steve Ambrose is a sought out speaker who brings warmth, credibility, and delivers with a powerful sense of purpose. He co-founded a company whose mission is to teach, empower, and grow more civility and inclusion for individuals and company teams. His developed 2020 online learning program ‘WALKING THE RIDGE’ is growing in viewership and implementation. He is a prior healthcare provider, software entrepreneur, podcast host, and author.
![Amy Ashton](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/AmyAshton-195x300.png)
![Susan Barr](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SueBarr-215x300.jpg)
Cryptoquip Contest
Cryptoquips are cryptograms with a witty saying. Come join in the contest to see how many you can complete in the time allotted. No prior cryptogram solving experience is necessary.
Susan is a certified yoga instructor registered with the Yoga Alliance. She first became a Mensa member in 1988, and after a long hiatus she rejoined Mensa again last year. Susan has been teaching yoga since 2017, primarily to beginners new to yoga. She welcomes all to her class, and looks forward to sharing yoga with you.
Pictorial Trivia
“Jana Bickel will be repeating her successful Pictorial Trivia from last year with a list of new images and questions. Teams of six will compete by identifying the images shown on a screen and answering a series of questions about them.
Images will include people from a variety of walks of life: like politics, arts and entertainment, sports, buildings and structures from around the world, and natural history. Start getting your team together now.”
![Jason Civalleri](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/JasonCivalleri-225x300.jpg)
Jason Civalleri, Esq. is an expert in data privacy and blockchain who has been working in them decentralized space for nearly five years. As an attorney, he represents some of the most renowned exchanges, organizations, and start-ups working to bring us closer to a decentralized future. He is also the Chief Compliance Officer of MyCrypto, a prominent “wallet” serving the Ethereum blockchain community. Jason is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he teaches law students and practicing attorneys about the intersection of blockchain and data privacy regulation. Jason was a Co-Founder of the Splytcore Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to using blockchain technology to take down Amazon with easier, safer, more private, and cheaper online retail e-commerce experiences.
Linda Dorfmont has been doing other peoples taxes for over 40 years. She has taught taxation for the Small Business Development Centers, the IRS TCE/VITA Program, the College for Financial Planning, local colleges, and private education providers. She is a frequent speaker at Mensa events, and, as of a few months ago, is now a full-fledged member of Mensa.
![Jonathan Elliott](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/JonathanElliott-1-300x225.jpg)
![David Fenig](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DavidFenig-300x254.jpg)
![Jay Friedlander](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/JayFriedlander-300x225.jpg)
![Amber Ginsberg](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Amber-Ginsberg-258x300.jpeg)
![Gordon Glattenberg](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/GordonGlattenberg-300x200.jpg)
Gordon was born in Los Angeles and has lived all his life in Southern California, the last 52 years in Santa Clarita. He attended Hollywood High School and Caltech and is a Registered Professional Engineer. His photography hobby has led to extensive travel, including 45 countries and all 50 states. Despite the travel, he’s never been tempted to move away from here!
![Mark Greenberg](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/MarkGreenberg-1-240x300.jpg)
Mark Greenberg has been a member of Mensa since 2005. For the past ten years he has taught AP Physics at a local high school in the South Bay. Mark has been recognized for exceptional physics teaching by Stanford, MIT, The US Air Force, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine. In 2019, Mark Greenberg was selected by the Department of Education as a U.S. Presidential Scholar Distinguished Teacher in Washington D.C.
![Ina Hillebrandt](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Ina_Hillebrandt_red-278x300.png)
Ina Hillebrandt is a nationally known writer, speaker, writing coach and editor/publisher with 20+ years of experience in memoir, fiction, mystery, comedy and self-help. Her own books include How to Write Your Memoirs…Fun Prompts To Make Reading…And Writing…Your Life Stories A Pleasure!; Pawprints; The Student Prints — Pawprints curriculum companion, and her latest, You Are Who You Eat, The Revolutionary New Cannibal Diet, now in the Billy Ireland Library and Museum. Writers she’s coached, individually and in classes, include new and published authors, Fortune 500 clients, and educators. More info
![Dr. H. Stan Jones](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/StanJones-1-225x300.jpg)
Stan has been a professional speaker for many years. He has spoken to audiences consisting of hundreds around the world. He sharpened his skills in the political area – winning and losing public office. Dr. Jones was Treasurer and active member of the National Speakers Association.
![Sarah Kramer](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SarahKramer-200x300.jpg)
–Bo Diddley once said of Sarah Kramer’s trumpet playing after performing together at the House of Blues.
Raised in West Orange, New Jersey, Sarah Kramer began playing trumpet at the tender age of nine. At sixteen Kramer picked up the guitar and started writing her own songs. Soon she was taking the train to New York City to busk in Washington Square Park. While an undergrad at Bard on a Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz scholarship awarded by trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith, she frequently crossed the mighty Hudson River to play Woodstock’s renowned Tinker St. Cafe.
After college Kramer headed south to New Orleans, where she spent eight years exploring and honing her craft within a wide variety of musical styles: Blues, Jazz, Latin, Brass Band, Reggae, Klezmer, Alternative Rock, etc. While sitting in with legends like Levon Helm, Eddie Bo, Cyril Neville, Snooks Eaglin, Walter “Wolfman” Washington (and many more) she also developed her own sound while performing original songs with her band, The Sarah Kramer Project. She played trumpet on the title track of Leonard Cohen’s Dear Heather.
Sarah Kramer continues to perform her own material and to work as a studio musician. She can also be heard regularly sitting in with Jacksh*t at McCabe’s Guitar Shop and The Baked Potato. She currently resides in Hollywood, CA.
![Darrell Kunitomi](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DarrellKunitomi-300x201.jpeg)
Darrell Kunitomi is a 42-veteran of The Times, working in Archives, Circulation and now Communications. He is The Times historian, and well remembers Jack Smith, Jim Murray, Art Seidenbaum and Charles Champlin. He is also one of the few employees to have met Dorothy and Otis Chandler.
![Craig Lancaster](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/craig-266x300.jpg)
A Day in the Life: American (and British) Popular Music 1960–69
This second of two programs about popular music of the 1960s focuses on rock, which was born in the 1950s and was reintroduced, reimagined and revolutionized in the 1960s. The songs you will hear in this program can be described as the Very Best of 1960s Rock.
This year Craig continues his relentless assault on the history of American popular music. For those who may be new to these programs (where have you been?), these are his 10th and 11th music programs in a series that started in 2015. You are warned that Craig has no musical talent whatsoever, as he amply demonstrated in an embarrassing Karaoke performance at last year’s RG. This year he focuses on the music of the 1960s. Showing no reluctance to expand his musical horizons, he will include British popular music, which some people might consider relevant to American popular music of the 1960s.
![Julian Lozos](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Julian-Lozos-200x300.jpg)
Julian Lozos is a seismologist whose work focuses on using computer models to understand how fault complexity and interaction affects the physics of the earthquake process. He is particularly interested in earthquakes within the San Andreas Fault system, and in using a combination of geologic data, historic accounts, and physics-based modeling to investigate old earthquakes. He got his PhD from UC Riverside in 2013, and did postdoctoral research at the U.S. Geological Survey and Stanford University under a NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship. He is currently an assistant professor of geophysics at California State University, Northridge.
![Angela Madsen](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/20160104_214504A-1-300x225.jpg)
Angela is a masters student in entomology and ecology at CSU Bakersfield. She has worked with butterflies in the past, and now studies ant foraging behavior as well as flying insect behavior around solar farms. She was a mathematics minor and now a budding statistician. This year she graduates from school and is off to be a real adult in the real world.
![Sue Michiels](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SueMichiels-200x300.jpg)
Sue received FEMA intensive training as a result of the Northridge Earthquake representing LAUSD. She is a Community Emergency Response Team member and represents the Neighborhood Council -Woodland Hills/Warner Center for Public Safety. She makes free specialized presentations to students, teachers, parents and to community groups.
![Erik Passoja](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Erik-Passoja-165x300.png)
Recent comedy credits include “Gotham Comedy Live”, Byron Allen’s “Comics Unleashed”, Comedy Central, and a standup comedy concert film entitled, “Spiritually Incorrect Comedy”. A lifetime member of the world famous Actors Studio, recent TV acting credits include NCIS, Criminal Minds, a recurring role on “True Blood” on HBO, “Hawaii Five-0” on CBS, “Reconstruction” on NBC, and CSI. He has also performed overseas for our troops in Japan and Korea.
![Ronni Peck](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/RonniPeck-300x300.jpg)
Ronni Peck lives in the Burbank area with her husband and three children, ages 8, 5, and 2. She homeschools, gardens, raises chickens, DIYs, overthinks, teaches math online, has a blog, and writes scripts.
![Frean D. Quill](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/headshot-Jan-2020-300x300.jpg)
A Prosperous Future Depends on Women
An improved future depends on women being empowered far beyond suffrage and other basic ‘rights’. Learn what greatly increased responsibility and authority they must obtain to fulfill their essential role in society. Understand why no one else may contest a woman’s exercise of her increased role.
Born in Santa Monica, Mr. Quill graduated from San Fernando High School, and attended ‘some’ Junior College classes but has no additional certificates or degrees. He spent about half of his career as a woodworker, and then as a computer programmer, now retired. This makes him obviously unqualified to promote any suggestions for meaningful social change. Nevertheless he invites you to consider some exceptional ideas and concepts in a short time.
![Leo Rossi](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/LeoRossi-201x300.png)
“A Knights Tale” takes you on a once in a lifetime extraordinary journey giving the ultimate backstage pass of life on the road with these mega stars.
It’s about a very young boy growing up and reconciling life with legendary artists of the day and sustaining a career for over 4 decades. The entertaining “A Knights Tale” empowers people of all ages with its core message of turning negatives into positives through determination, sacrifice, fate and destiny along with the value of dedication, love and passion.
![Dave Schrader](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Dave-Pic-2018-223x300.jpg)
Dr Dave Schrader has been a long-standing member of the Los Angeles Civil War Roundtable and has presented 13 talks on the Civil War. He focuses on “the rest of the story” (cue Paul Harvey), picking topics other than the battles, and digging into details of people you might not know much about but who played subsidiary roles behind the main historical characters.
![Alan Stillson](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/AlanStillson.jpg)
This is an interactive humor piece written by Alan Stillson, combining groaners with an homage to the pop music industry. Attendees will compete to try to figure out the title of the song. Here’s an example:
A few months before the start of 1964, the Beatles and a few friends were playing 5-card draw poker to relax before their big plans to become music sensations in the United States. Paul was getting nervous. He bet with a pair of queens. George and Ringo folded. John called the bet. Paul and John each drew 3 cards. Paul didn’t improve his pair but, knowing that the odds were still good, made a small bet. John followed with a large raise.
Paul knew, from previous experience, that John rarely bluffs. Reluctantly, Paul folded and blurted out, “I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND.”
Alan Stillson has been a Mensa member since 1987. He’s the puzzle editor of LAMentary and Oracle. He leads two SIGs, folk singing and the writers group. Alan recently retired as an adjunct mathematics professor and actively works as an author. He has eleven published puzzle books, has two produced musical shows and is working on the production of a peace concert.
Name That Tune
This long-standing RG tradition is back again this year. How’s your long-term memory in the area of recognizing melodies? The host is Alan Stillson, leader of the GLAAM Folksong SIG.
Author Alan Stillson and other members of the Mensa Writers Group will read excerpts of finished works and works in process. Questions and answers will follow.
![Ron Streicher](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/RDS-HEADSHOT-rev-220x300.jpg)
” With “The Music Always Comes First!” as his lifelong motto, Ron Streicher earned a BA in Music from UCLA and a MA in Communications Arts from Loyola University. His love for opera was kindled while playing tympani in the pit orchestra of the UCLA Opera Theatre and rapidly grew to an overwhelming passion.
His interest in audio production evolved into a career that now spans more than five decades as an independent audio consultant and recording engineer specializing in live performances. Ron has had the pleasure of working with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Bolshoi, and the Philadelphia Orchestras; the touring companies of the New York City Opera and Metropolitan Opera; and during his eighteen summers with the Aspen Music Festival and School, he served as the recording engineer and sound designer for more than fifty opera productions.
His book, The New Stereo Soundbook is now in its third edition and has gained worldwide recognition as a standard reference on the subject of stereophonic perception, recording, and reproduction techniques.
A former member of Mensa (GLAAM), Ron also is a Fellow and Life Member of the Audio Engineering Society, and served on its Board of Governors for more than 25 years and as AES President in 2003/4. He continues to be actively involved with its educational activities and has given numerous presentations to AES meetings throughout the world. In recognition of his long-term service to the Society, Ron was awarded the AES Bronze Medal in 1995 and the Distinguished Service Medal in 2010.”
![Bernie Unger](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/BernieUnger-300x225.jpg)
Bernie joined Mensa in 1966. He’s a Caltech and UCSB graduate, now retired with his wife Judy in Discovery Bay, CA after a career in Chemical Engineering. He now spends his time trying hard to keep the boat docked in his backyard running and sea-worthy, all made possible because of events described in this presentation.
![Gregory Williamson](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/GLW-Photo-1-300x199.jpg)
Gregory is a filmmaker and has been a member of Mensa since 2006 when he was living in Oregon and studying Creative Writing at Portland State University. In 2007 he moved to Prague, Czech Republic where he studied filmmaking at The Film & Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts. In 2008 he moved to Los Angeles where he joined Greater Los Angeles Area Mensa and began the program where he would eventually receive a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Television Production from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. Currently Gregory is doing community engagement work with the U.S. Census Bureau, specializing in entertainment industry and LGBTQIA organizations.
![Jack Winnick](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/9-09-IMG_3213-192x300.jpg)
About Jack Winnick:
Engineering Professor, 40 years, Georgia Institute of Technology; intermittent with employment in the U.S. government at The Atomic Energy Commission, NASA, and State Dept. Also in private Aerospace, Power, Chemical and Petroleum Industries.
Author of multiple technical books and articles based on thermodynamics and electro-chemical engineering.
Seven U.S. Patents involved with industrial waste clean-up.
Author of four published novels on middle-east conflict and terrorism.
![Ed You](https://www.glaam.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/EdYou-300x225.jpg)
Big Bang Trivia
Test your knowledge on this TV series, which features a cluster of Mensa type characters. Challenges in the game are resolved with an extended rochambeau of “rock, paper, scizzors, LIZARD, SPOCK.
Werewolves
Each player picks a card to find out their character. Everyone tries to find out who is the werewolf, but sometimes a villager gets kicked out instead. Watch out for a werewolf pretending to be a villager. The group can usually play 3 rounds in an hour.
43rd Annual DooDah Parade Discussion
Join us in Hospitality on Sunday morning at 10:00 AM, or catch Ed You anytime at the RG, to discuss IF, and HOW, we should march in this parade, which is a parody of The Rose Parade. We need to know how many Mensas want to march, what we’ll wear, will we perform, and any other brainstorming ideas that you want to discuss. The parade “marches” for a 6-8 block distance, and takes place in Pasadena, in November of 2020, in a yet to be determined date.
Ed You is a lifetime member, with his incredible wife, Viki. They have 3 adorable cats, Pixie, Cassie and Buffy. As a retired clinical pharmacist, game entrepreneur, and actor, you might know him as “Mr. Mensa 2014,” the “Palabra Pimp,” the “Alpha Wolf” when playing Werewolf, “Sister Mary Ignatius,” and the overworked, and NOT incompetent, “Inspector You” from the Mensa Murder Mystery series.