September 29 - 30, 2010
Theme: U.S. – Asia Relations
Loyola University, Chicago, IL and Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL
During two days at the end of September, Ray carried out an APEF program organized by two universities in Illinois. The idea began with an invitation from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, in the southeastern part of the state, to give the keynote speech at a conference on U.S.-China relations. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) wrote to Ray to support the university’s invitation. Working with the university, we shaped this visit into something that satisfied our concept of an APEF program – with press interviews, separate meetings with the business community and the local mayor, a round-table with students from Taiwan (mostly from the nearby Indiana University branch in Terre Haute), and invitations/advertisements to ensure the conference brought in attendees from as wide an area as possible. Ambassador Charles Salmon, President of the Friends of EWC, a member of the EWC Foundation board, and Senior Advisor from APCSS also attended, at the invitation of the university, as a commentator on Ray’s keynote speech. Over 100 faculty, students, local business people, and even the official Taiwan representative in Chicago, attended the speech on September 29th. Amb. Salmon’s participation, answering questions from the floor that were in his areas of expertise, helped greatly to make this a lively session. The university president hosted a dinner with the business community before the speech. The short program in Chicago was organized by a professor at Loyola University’s business school, who had recently asked Ray to write an article on U.S.-Vietnam normalization for a business-related academic journal. When he learned Ray would be in the state, the professor invited him to visit Loyola in downtown Chicago to speak to faculty and students about current issues in U.S.-Asia relations. Ray spoke and fielded questions for well over an hour to a well-informed lunch-time group of about 50 on September 28. All expenses for this program were covered by the two universities and other local organizations in Charleston, Illinois.
In September, Director Ray Burghardt carried out a one-man APEF program in Rochester, New York. He spoke on the evening of September 15 th to a Rochester Committee on Foreign Relations audience of about eighty on “U.S. – China Relations: Competition and Cooperation.” Earlier that morning, Ray spoke on “Asia and the Economic Crisis” to about thirty local business leaders (Xerox, Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, Hickey Freeman etc.) at a breakfast discussion organized by the companies themselves. Ray fielded numerous excellent questions about doing business in Asia and likely future trends. Later that afternoon, Ray was interviewed by the local NPR station for two separate programs they planned to run, one on how the economic crisis is affecting Asia and another on U.S.-Vietnam relations.