TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

2019 TEDxSalem

Come for TEDxSalem, stay for the sights

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You don’t have to leave Salem once the TEDxSalem par­ty is over. Stay. Explore. Enjoy.

We think Salem rocks, which is why we work so hard to bring you TEDxSalem, a show­case for just how cool this city, and our com­mu­ni­ty, is.

Here are a few ideas to help you get to know us.

Ice Skat­ing. Try your skills at Salem’s newest attrac­tion: Salem on Ice, an ice skat­ing rink at Salem’s River­front Park.

The Capi­tol. Guid­ed tours occur on week­days only, but it’s worth wan­der­ing in just to see the rotun­da.

The Elsi­nore The­atre. This beau­ti­ful his­toric the­ater shows clas­sic films, com­mu­ni­ty per­for­mances and nation­al tour­ing enter­tain­ment.

Eat your way through down­town. You’ll already be down­town for TEDxSalem, so why not do some explor­ing? We have clas­sic, long-stand­ing lunch coun­ters, qual­i­ty Ital­ian, Span­ish and French restau­rants, local­ly beloved estab­lish­ments and cozy cof­fee shops.

River­front Park from City of Salem web­site

Head to the river­front. You could stroll the pedes­tri­an bridge, go for a spin on the Carousel or just soak up the atmos­phere. Use the new Minto Island bicy­cle and pedes­tri­an bridge to walk to Minto-Brown Island Park.

Taste the best wine Ore­gon has to offer. We’re pret­ty par­tial to Pinots. There are dozens of world class vine­yards and winer­ies just out­side city lim­its, many of them offer­ing wood-fire piz­zas, cheese plates or full kitchen options. Yum!

Take in a show, comedic or musi­cal. The options are darn near end­less. There’s fam­i­ly-friend­ly improv at Capi­tol City, the hottest indie films at Salem Cin­e­ma, and the lat­est musi­cal from the Pen­ta­cle The­atre (The Lit­tle Mer­maid launch­es the same week­end as TEDxSalem!).

Feel col­le­giate at Willamette. Our local uni­ver­si­ty has one gor­geous cam­pus, with wind­ing trails and autumn leaves just beg­ging for a leisure­ly stroll.

Art? Check. His­to­ry? Check. See the lat­est exhib­it at the Hal­lie Ford Muse­um of Art, peruse the finest pieces for sale at the Bush Barn Art Cen­ter, see the film-famous Ore­gon State Hos­pi­tal muse­um or soak up local his­to­ry at the Willamette Her­itage Cen­ter.

If wine isn’t your thing, maybe beer is? Our small but wild­ly tal­ent­ed (and deli­cious) col­lec­tion of brew­eries are win­ning awards and mak­ing head­lines.

Still need a place to stay? May we rec­om­mend the Grand Hotel in down­town Salem? Not only is it right next door to the Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, but TEDxSalem atten­dees get a dis­count! Just men­tion that you’ll be at the con­fer­ence, and you will get the dis­count­ed rate of $139 plus tax.

Look­ing for oth­er must-see tips about Salem? Ask any of our vol­un­teers or team mem­bers!

Still need tick­ets for TEDxSalem? Nev­er fear, they’re still avail­able online.

Workplace guru Moe Carrick finds inspiration at home for her TEDx talk

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Author and entre­pre­neur Moe Car­rick makes work­places fit for human life.

“Work at its best builds us up, lifts our hearts, chal­lenges our minds, solves big prob­lems, and con­nects us to oth­ers,” she said.

At its worst, work can make us sick, angry, sad and mis­er­able. A bad boss, for exam­ple, who doesn’t lis­ten, man­age or tell the truth or a bad job fit, can affect every­thing from our moti­va­tion and morale to our health and rela­tion­ships.

Car­rick runs a con­sult­ing firm and pub­lished her first book “Fit Mat­ters: How to Love Your Job” in 2017. Her next book, “Brave­space” is due out in 2019. She also deliv­ered two TEDx talks on the impor­tance of a healthy work life.

The three things that mat­ter most at work, she said, are feel­ing seen (pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships with your boss and col­leagues), feel­ing pur­pose (being able to feel that your work mat­ters) and cul­ture (the way things are done is con­sis­tent with your val­ues.)

But that’s not what she’s talk­ing about Jan. 5.

Car­rick is going deep­er and pick­ing a top­ic clos­er to home. She will explore the idea of women advo­cat­ing for men in a world that is redefin­ing mas­culin­i­ty.

“It’s a bit clos­er to my heart, my per­son­al sto­ry, not just my work sto­ry,” she said.

The moth­er of three was inspired by her most impor­tant job: rais­ing two sons, ages 23 and 26, and a daugh­ter, 17.

“What I’ve seen in rais­ing my sons in par­tic­u­lar is the notion of what it means to be a man today is a bit wonky,” she said.

Her sons and her children’s friends have strug­gled with expec­ta­tions, roles and iden­ti­ty, and she wants to explore ways that women can sup­port men in nav­i­gat­ing the chang­ing land­scape.

Car­rick, who is also an orga­niz­er for TEDxBend, is look­ing for­ward to her third time as a speak­er on a TEDx stage and learn­ing from the oth­er pre­sen­ters.

“For me it’s a fun way to offer con­tent and to think about ideas that make our world bet­ter,” she said.

“I always learn some­thing.”

Moe Carrick

Age: 56

Edu­ca­tion: BA from Uni­ver­si­ty of New Hamp­shire, MS from Anti­och Uni­ver­si­ty New Eng­land and Dare to Lead cer­ti­fied facil­i­ta­tor

Hob­bies: Run­ning, cof­fee and rid­ing her horse Gra­cie

Sur­pris­ing job: She worked for Out­ward Bound where she led adven­tures for chem­i­cal­ly depen­dent kids, tak­ing them back­pack­ing, sail­ing and canoe­ing.

Favorite book: “Angle of Repose” by Wal­lace Steg­n­er

Favorite food: Fresh bread

Favorite Ted Talk: “Brenè Brown: The pow­er of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty”

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Elizabeth Fournier found comfort, purpose and love in the funeral industry

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Fournier was always drawn to funer­als. They helped her make sense of los­ing sev­er­al fam­i­ly mem­bers in quick suc­ces­sion.

After earn­ing a degree in com­mu­ni­ca­tions from Lin­field Col­lege, there was only one career for her: Mor­ti­cian. She under­stood bet­ter than most what griev­ing fam­i­lies go through, and it helped her con­nect.

“If I had some­one pass­ing,” she said, “what would I want? I would want some­one to gen­tly hold my hand and be kind.”

Despite find­ing suc­cess in her field, she had not found her true love, yet. Over the course of one year, she braved 77 blind dates to find the one. She met a lot of nice guys, she said, but it was her col­league who lis­tened to her sto­ries about each date who turned out to be the best fit.

“Lit­tle did I know the guy who worked in the base­ment who I brand­ed Creep­er McCreep­er­son (the cre­ma­to­ri­um tech­ni­cian) would end up being my one true love,” she said.

“We have been hap­pi­ly mar­ried for 13 years.”

Now Fournier owns and oper­ates Cor­ner­stone Funer­al Ser­vice with her husband’s help in Bor­ing, Ore­gon. He works behind the scenes, and she is the one who answers the phone when­ev­er a fam­i­ly needs her, 24/7. They also run a res­cue farm as a way to unwind.

“We have goats and sheep that we hug and kiss, sing to, pat and take pic­tures of,” she said.

“Okay, it’s only me that hugs and kiss­es, sings and takes pic­tures of them. I would say tak­ing care of them and spend­ing time with them is def­i­nite­ly my main form of self-care.”

Fournier is known for blaz­ing a trail in envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly buri­als. She wrote two books on the top­ic: “The Green Bur­ial Guide­book,” and “The Green Reaper: Mem­oirs of an Eco-Mor­ti­cian.”

She is also known for giv­ing fam­i­lies the free­dom to say good­bye in their own way whether that is a daugh­ter dri­ving her dad in his favorite truck one last time or lay­ing a moth­er to rest on fam­i­ly-owned prop­er­ty.

In addi­tion to “Green Reaper,” she is also called the under­tak­er of Bor­ing, Ore­gon. She loves both titles equal­ly.

Hear her sto­ry and how your last act in the world can be your green­est at TEDxSalem Jan. 5.

Elizabeth Fournier

Home­town: Port­land, Ore­gon

Fam­i­ly:  Hus­band Michael and Daugh­ter Sofia.

Hob­bies: Pay­ing it for­ward. I also enjoy sneak­ing into friends’ pantries and rear­rang­ing their canned food.

Music: Any­thing that grooves my soul.

Favorite author: I like to flip through the dic­tio­nary and learn new words.

Favorite food: What’s not to like?

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Geri Richmond: Learning with lasers

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Geri Rich­mond has a pas­sion for lasers that stretch­es back over 40 years.

Like dis­sect­ing a sen­tence down to the let­ters of every word, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon chem­istry pro­fes­sor uses laser tech­nol­o­gy to dis­cov­er the fun­da­men­tal nature of the phys­i­cal world.

“You’re always after find­ing out the details that make things go,” she said.

Lasers have come a long way since her days in grad­u­ate school in 1976 when she first got wind of the bur­geon­ing tech­nol­o­gy. She had nev­er done much with build­ing machines or elec­tron­ics before that, she said.

It was the com­bi­na­tion of optics, light, elec­tron­ics and the con­struct­ing of machine com­po­nents that hooked her, she said, as well as the con­stant evo­lu­tion of the tech­nol­o­gy.

“It’s just been won­der­ful to see the progress,” she says.

Lasers can be used to study just about any­thing, but for Rich­mond her pas­sion is the envi­ron­ment. In par­tic­u­lar, Richmond’s dis­cov­er­ies seek to pro­vide key insight into cur­rent issues like clean drink­ing water or envi­ron­men­tal cleanup and response. She will share one of her key find­ings at this year’s TEDx Salem VI.

Rich­mond is also pas­sion­ate about pro­mot­ing women in sci­ence. Com­ing up in the field in the 1980s, she wit­nessed a num­ber of female col­leagues drop out as a result of being mar­gin­al­ized in the class­room.

“I thought that was a tremen­dous waste,” she said.

As part of the orga­ni­za­tion COACh at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon, Rich­mond has ven­tured around the world in order to reach out to women and encour­age gov­ern­ments and uni­ver­si­ties to encour­age women to learn sci­ence.

The best part of her work she says is teach­ing, as she’s done at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon in a career that has spanned over 33 years. She was award­ed the Nation­al Medal of Sci­ence by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma in 2013 in part for her effort to pro­mote women in sci­ence.

 “There is noth­ing more pre­cious than being able to work with my stu­dents,” she said, “and see them advance in their careers.”

Name: Geri Rich­mond

Age: 65

Title: Pres­i­den­tial Chair of Sci­ence and Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon

Home­town: Linds­boro, KS

Fam­i­ly: Hus­band of 42 years, two grown sons

Pets: 2 ter­ri­ers, some chick­ens

Favorite Book: The Giv­er, by Lois Lowry. “It reach­es all ages, and it makes you think pret­ty deeply about a lot of things.”

Favorite Music: Any­thing by Pink Mar­ti­ni

Favorite Movie: It’s a Won­der­ful Life

Hob­bies: Gar­den­ing, sewing.

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

DeafBlind, but Definitely Not Disconnected

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Here’s what Jen­ny­Lynn Diet­rich would like you to know about her:

She’s tak­en ser­vice learn­ing trips to Guatemala and Ghana. She’s a choco­late snob who wouldn’t dare touch the gener­ic stuff. She’s engaged to be mar­ried next year. She loves to paint, draw, and per­form on the the­ater stage. And she’s pas­sion­ate about help­ing oth­ers, point­ing them toward the resources that could help them change their lives.

You might learn these things if you just ask her. But Diet­rich says peo­ple are often too afraid or intim­i­dat­ed by two of her more obvi­ous traits: she is deaf and blind.

One of the main points Diet­rich hopes to make in her TEDxSalem talk, enti­tled “Deaf­Blind: Blind but Not Blind,” is that peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties val­ue auton­o­my — they want to be seen as reg­u­lar pro­duc­tive mem­bers of soci­ety, just like those with­out dis­abil­i­ties.

“We don’t want people’s pity,” she says. “We just want to be accept­ed as equals.”

Born with a rare hered­i­tary con­di­tion called Stick­ler syn­drome, Diet­rich is ful­ly blind in her left eye and has lim­it­ed vision in her right. She’s also pro­found­ly deaf in her left ear, but she can hear a bit in her right with a hear­ing aid. Her pre­ferred method to com­mu­ni­cate is Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage. She also uses a form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion called Pro­Tac­tile — devel­oped by the Deaf­Blind com­mu­ni­ty — that involves sign­ing on someone’s hand or using parts of their body to help give visu­al or emo­tion­al cues.

Dur­ing her ear­ly years grow­ing up in Okla­homa, Diet­rich attend­ed a main­stream school. It wasn’t until high school that she went to a state school for the deaf. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies from Gal­laudet Uni­ver­si­ty in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Ulti­mate­ly she moved to Seat­tle to work as a Case Man­ag­er at the Deaf­Blind Ser­vice Cen­ter. She helped oth­er Deaf­Blind peo­ple by pro­vid­ing ser­vices to make their lives eas­i­er — includ­ing advo­ca­cy, infor­ma­tion and refer­rals, edu­ca­tion, and out­reach — and she ulti­mate­ly dis­cov­ered she had a pas­sion for help­ing oth­ers.

One of the most use­ful resources Diet­rich found in Seat­tle was Sup­port Ser­vice Providers (SSPs) — sight­ed guides who pro­vide Deaf­Blind peo­ple with visu­al infor­ma­tion about their envi­ron­ment so that they can par­tic­i­pate in reg­u­lar main­stream activ­i­ties such as gro­cery shop­ping, read­ing mail, or bank­ing.

“When I moved to Ore­gon, it was a chal­lenge because there’s not an SSP pro­gram here for peo­ple like me to access,” she says. “I’ve been work­ing hard this year to get some­thing like that estab­lished here by reach­ing out to oth­er Deaf­Blind peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty and lead­ers in pub­lic ser­vice.”

Diet­rich came to the Willamette Val­ley to pur­sue grad­u­ate stud­ies at West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty. She is no longer a stu­dent there, but she is focus­ing her time on attempt­ing to devel­op sup­ports for Deaf­Blind peo­ple in the state. She is cur­rent­ly a facil­i­ta­tor for a non­prof­it called the Ore­gon Deaf­Blind Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance Net­work, some­thing she hopes will become a larg­er statewide orga­ni­za­tion to help pro­vide resources to those who need it.

Advo­ca­cy would be a crit­i­cal part of their work — to help the gen­er­al pub­lic look beyond their dis­abil­i­ties and learn about their inter­ests, their per­son­al­i­ties, and their goals.

“Instead of watch­ing us in fear from afar,” she says, “be brave, and come and learn from us by engag­ing with us!”

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Popular healthstyle blogger Darya Rose comes to TEDxSalem

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Darya Rose is a neu­ro­sci­en­tist, author and pop­u­lar blog­ger who has trained her sights and tal­ents on solv­ing the age-old prob­lem of eat­ing healthy and los­ing weight.

Her holis­tic approach to food and health is a breath of fresh air com­pared to the stuffy super­mar­ket shelves of diet shakes and appetite sup­pres­sants.

After receiv­ing her BA in Mol­e­c­u­lar and Cell Biol­o­gy from UC Berke­ley, Rose received her PhD from UC San Fran­cis­co and writes about food, health and weight loss. Her web­site ‘Sum­mer Toma­to’ was one of TIME’s top 50 web­sites in 2011 and if social media is any indi­ca­tor, her mes­sage that “life should be awe­some” is reach­ing far and wide.

Rose describes her­self as a “food­ist”, which is a term for some­one who has aban­doned diet­ing to enjoy life using real food and also the name of her book – Food­ist: Using Real Food and Real Sci­ence to Lose Weight With­out Diet­ing. After going through the mul­ti­verse of diet­ing from a young age, Rose has first-hand knowl­edge of why diets don’t work and the things peo­ple do to make them­selves an excep­tion to that rule.

Almost 10,000 peo­ple have joined Rose for one of her ongo­ing Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenges, and the feed­back speaks for itself.

“The feed­back I get from read­ers and stu­dents is by far the most reward­ing part of what I do. Hear­ing that some­one has end­ed their life­long strug­gle with diet­ing or their kids have learned to love cau­li­flower fills me with pride and joy.”

TEDx Salem VI is your oppor­tu­ni­ty to join Darya Rose as she dis­cuss­es how psy­chol­o­gy impacts our abil­i­ty to cre­ate healthy eat­ing habits. In the mean­time, we offer you a Q and A with Rose.

What is your top food indul­gence and how often do you eat it?

Peo­ple are often sur­prised to learn that I love burg­ers. I’m picky about where the ingre­di­ents come from (espe­cial­ly the meat), of course. But it is some­thing I indulge in about once a month.

Has preg­nan­cy changed your rela­tion­ship with food or your phi­los­o­phy and under­stand­ing of a healthy diet?

Preg­nan­cy has giv­en me much more of an appre­ci­a­tion for the influ­ences of hor­mones and phys­i­cal require­ments on hunger and crav­ings. I’ve learned there real­ly isn’t a lot you can do about how hun­gry you are or what you need to eat while preg­nant, not to men­tion while still nurs­ing. So I’ve been extra care­ful to try and make as many healthy choic­es as I can and stay active.

What is the Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenge and how is it dif­fer­ent than a diet?

The Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenge is designed to help some­one begin a mind­ful eat­ing prac­tice, which is a lot eas­i­er said than done. It’s only 5 days, focus­es on one meal a day, and does­n’t resem­ble a diet at all.

Does your approach work for every­one? Are there mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors includ­ing genes, health his­to­ry and life-long strug­gles with sig­nif­i­cant weight swings? 

I believe my approach does work for every­one in the sense that any­one can make improve­ments in their habits for the health­i­er and keep them. In terms of weight loss, every­one’s jour­ney is dif­fer­ent and there are a lot of fac­tors that can impact how dif­fi­cult or easy it is, includ­ing bio­log­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions and per­son­al cir­cum­stances. What’s impor­tant is that you main­tain a mind­set that this isn’t a sin­gle prob­lem with a sin­gle solu­tion, and you need to be will­ing to exper­i­ment. Good health is made up of many small, dai­ly habits, but not all those habits need to look the same for every­one. Be curi­ous about your­self, be will­ing to try many things, and most of all have patience. Healthy lifestyles aren’t built overnight.

Any­thing else that read­ers should know?

I’ve taught myself to like dozens of foods I used to despise, includ­ing cilantro (I have the gene!), beets, spinach, fen­nel, egg­plant, brus­sels sprouts, cucum­bers, lamb, liv­er, olives, oily fish, sea urchin, and prob­a­bly a bunch of stuff I’ve for­got­ten. I still strug­gle a bit with nat­to and car­doons, but I’ll eat them.

Darya Rose

Home­town: Orange, CA

Fam­i­ly: Hus­band Kevin, daugh­ter Zel­da, mini labradoo­dle Toast­er + new baby on the way (we’ve play­ful­ly nick­named her Smelda––Smelda Rose LOL)

Hob­bies: read­ing, hik­ing, cook­ing, eat­ing

Favorite Music: The Bea­t­les

Favorite author or book: “Foun­da­tion” by Isaac Asi­mov

How did you name your dog and baby? We named our dog Toast­er, because we were obsessed with Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca when we got him and we’re pret­ty sure he’s a Cylon.

We named our daugh­ter Zel­da, because I played over 200 hours of the lat­est game Breath of the Wild on Nin­ten­do Switch.

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.