Yesterday I am sitting on the bus bench looking at these two good ol boys come out of a black Japanese-built beater – with a Confederate flag on top. They had big guts and grey hair. They were letting it all hang out after Franklin Graham gave our President ABSOLUTION in the White House Rose Garden. They then went inside a phone store. I debated about crossing the street and yanking that flag from atop the car. These seniors were about my age. Were they looking to go down in a blaze of glory? I then thought about going over and talking to them, inform them I am about to form a branch of the Black Panther Party called…
MARIN SHIPMATES
I bought MARINSHIPMATES.COM before I went to see my doctor. The night before, I watched a old movie about MARINSHIP. It was about the Government BUYING land in Marin County, and city named MARIN CITY to build Liberty Ships – and oil tankers. Then I see King Faidal and his bodyguards coming aboard the flag ship
THE TAMALPIAS
These oil tankers are going to be carrying oil to Japan to help in the war effort – after Japan surrendered! WTF!? Where is this oil coming from? Did the United States just SUPPLY the King with a OIL FLEET built by black workers who were lured from the deep South to work in the shipyards scattered around the San Francisco Bay? I asked myself how many black men have made over a million dollars in the Oil Trade?
Here are aspects of the Buck Foundation that was legally established by the law firm of Robert Brevoort Buck. Robert mishandled the estate of my late sister, the world famous artist, Christine Rosamond Benton. I am going to leave the amazing family history I have compiled in my newspaper-blog, to David Hunt, my daughter’s half brother. David father was a Black Panther. I see a all black San Francisco Bay Coast Guard stationed in a United States Reservation for Descendants of Native Africans. I believe the land the U.S. government purchased for Marinship – still belongs to the People of the United States – who were deceived into believing the Marinship ships would benefit the American Taxpayer. I will be applying for several grants from the Buck Institute.
In these historic photographs we are seeing the birth of ISIS and 911. Osama Bin Laden waged war against the corrupt Marriage Contract with Islam and Cooperate Christianity which was pushed by Franklin Graham, and the Red State Neo-Confederate President of One Party that was co-founded by my Abolitionist kinfolk, John Fremont.
As for enlightening Springfield’s branch of the Racist Red Right, they surely would have used weapons on me at the end of my short history lesson, they hearing enough in the first twenty seconds.
There is much controversy about the intentions of Beryl Buck when she willed her fortune to the poor people of Marin – which would be the poor backs living in Marin City who came to work on King Faisal oil tankers. Her kin, Frank Buck was a oil and lumber tycoon. He raped the woods around Springfield. She wanted a “religious” foundation of a unspecified nature. Alcohol Justice comes close because AA is a spiritual program. This is why I see Briarcliff College moving into the Buck Institute. Below are images of Ghana’s Navy after the display of what looks like a Black Muslin party in Marin.
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
EXTRA! On August 30, 2020 while rereading this post, I found Richard Rosenberg. He was on the bard of directors of the Buck Institute and Commander of the Naval Reserves. I will be contacting him. In this video we see a Liberty Ship that Richard may have served on. In this video he talks about being poor during the Depression and not being esteemed like the boy in the photo above. Richard head the Naval War College.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/naval-war-college-foundation-inc
The Foundation enriches and further enhances Naval War College programs as defense dollars diminish and the need for officers educated in international security affairs grows. The following are among the many important activities supported by the Foundation: Increasing public awareness of the Naval War College mission, capabilities and accomplishments. Providing financial support to many academic programs and activities at the College for which public funds are not available. These projects range from faculty research, curriculum development and endowed academic chairs to nationally recognized speakers for guest lectures, academic awards for student achievement, and historical document and artifact acquisition for the library and Naval War College Museum.
https://www.usni.org/people/richard-rosenberg
https://www.usni.org/about-us/mission-and-vision
https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marinship_to_Marin_City:_How_a_Shipyard_Built_a_City
https://www.marincf.org/resources/racial-justice
The San Francisco Foundation: The Dilemma of The Buck Trust (A)
1998|Case No.SI106A
When Beryl Buck, a Marin County, California widow, died on May 30, 1975 at the age of 75, she left $7.6 million “for exclusively nonprofit charitable, religious or educational purposes in providing care for the needy in Marin County, California, and for other nonprofit charitable, religious or educational purposes in that county.” For many years, Buck and her husband, a physician, had lived in Ross, a wealthy town in Marin County, just north of San Francisco.
When Buck died, the money was mostly invested in Belridge Oil stock. The oil company was privately held and owned land that was rich in heavy crude oil reserves in Southern California. By the time the lengthy probate proceedings had ended, Belridge Oil had been sold to Shell Oil Company and the total amount in the Buck Trust skyrocketed from $7.6 million to $260 million.
Giving is personal.
Perhaps there’s a cause or an organization that’s special to you. Perhaps giving is a family tradition. Or maybe you want to start a family tradition. Whatever the reason, you want to partner with someone who understands you and your goals and can make your experience easy, effective and joyful.
Welcome to MCF.
We’re here to provide access to the people, resources and issue-area expertise to transform your philanthropic ambitions into reality.
Here are some of our recommendations for your consideration (with organizations led by a person of color noted by asterisk):
Racial Justice Organizations
Advocacy and Civic Engagement
Black Futures Lab works with Black people to transform communities, building Black political power and changing the way that power operates—locally, statewide, and nationally. It works to understand the dynamics impacting Black communities, build the capacity of communities to govern, and engage and include Black people in the decisions that impact their lives. blackfutureslab.org/ *
Note: Black Futures Lab is fiscally sponsored by Chinese Progressive Association.
Black Lives Matter is a global organization in the U.S., U.K., and Canada whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities. blacklivesmatter.com/ *
Note: Black Lives Matter is fiscally sponsored by Tides Foundation.
BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) is a national training, coaching and technical assistance program focused on strengthening Black social justice infrastructure by transforming the practice of Black organizers in the US to increase their alignment, impact and sustainability to win progressive change. boldorganizing.org/ *
Note: BOLD is fiscally sponsored by Highlander Center.
BVM (Black Voters Matter) Capacity Building Institute aims to increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities. BVM supports community-based organizations with funding, strategy, and technical assistance to help mobilize voters for elections at various levels and strive to obtain social justice throughout the year. bvmcapacitybuilding.org *
Californians for Justice is a statewide, youth-powered organization fighting for racial justice, with a special focus in Fresno, Long Beach, Oakland, and San Jose. It works to improve the lives of people of color, immigrants, those from low-income backgrounds, LGBTQ individuals, and those from other marginalized communities. It focuses its work on achieving relationship-centered schools, equitable school funding, and youth voice in democracy. caljustice.org/ *
Color of Change is a national online effort, driven by 1.7 million members, to move decision-makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America. They use an innovative combination of technology, research, media savvy, and local community engagement to build powerful movements and change the industries that affect Black people’s lives—in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington, prosecutor offices, capitol hills, and city halls around the country. colorofchange.org/ *
Equal Justice Society transforms the nation’s consciousness on race through law, social science, and the arts. Its strategy aims to broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination to include unconscious and structural bias by using social science, structural analysis, and real-life experience. equaljusticesociety.org *
Movement for Black Lives creates a space for over 100 Black organizations across the country to debate and discuss the current political conditions; develop shared assessments of the political interventions that are necessary to achieve key policy, cultural, and political wins; and convene organizational leadership in order to debate and co-create a movement-wide strategy. m4bl.org/ *
Note: Movement for Black Lives is fiscally sponsored by the Alliance for Global Justice.
National Coalition on Black Civic Participation is a non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing civic engagement and voter participation in Black and underserved communities. It strives to create an enlightened community by engaging people in all aspects of public life through service/volunteerism, advocacy, leadership development, and voting. It includes a Bay Area chapter. ncbcp.org/ *
Oakland Rising educates and mobilizes local voters to speak up for and take charge of the issues impacting their lives. Their work focuses on three major goals—to build permanent political/electoral infrastructure, exercise and expand political influence, and align organizations and coordinate with other progressive forces. oaklandrising.org/
Note: Oakland Rising is fiscally sponsored by Movement Strategy Center.
Frank H. Buck’s Big Oil Spill
Who paid for the clean-up? Did Robert Buck hide the history of his ancestor? How many seabirds were shot dead in Marin County? Who paid for the shotgun shells?
Jon Presco
San Francisco Bay, 1937
Not much is known about the immediate environmental effects of San Francisco Bay’s worst oil spill. That’s mainly because it took place in the late 1930s, when we just weren’t paying much attention to ecological issues.
But what we do know about the incident is that the passenger ship President Coolidge rammed the oil tanker Frank H. Buck at Lands End just outside the Golden Gate Bridge on March 6, 1937, and that the Buck then spilled about 2.73 million gallons of crude oil into the water — either immediately, or after storms thwarted halting efforts to pump remaining oil out of the ruined ship’s cargo tanks.
According to witnesses of the day, more than 20,000 birds died of oil contamination in the days after the collision. Rehabilitation efforts were nonexistent, and members of the SPCA patrolled local beaches with shotguns to put ailing birds out of their misery.
Frank H. Buck, who is president of the Frank H. Buck Company, a prominent fruit growing and shipping concern of San Francisco, is descended from ancestors who have been outstanding figures in the history of California in the days gone past. He was born on a ranch near Vacaville, Solano county, California, September 23, 1887, and is a son of Frank H. and Annie E. (Stevenson) Buck.
The Buck family is of English origin. Leonard W. Buck, the grandfather of Frank H., was a first lieutenant in the Union Army during the Civil war, and served as state senator from Solano county in 1891-93. Frank H. Buck, the father of the immediate subject of this biography, was his son, and was born June 8, 1859. He was the founder of the fruit growing and shipping business, in 1886, which is now under the management of his son. On the maternal side of Mr. Buck’s family, the Stevenson family is Scotch. Andrew M. Stevenson, his grandfather, was a lieutenant colonel in a Kentucky regiment during the Mexican war, and after the close of hostilities he settled in Vacaville, California, where he engaged in cattle raising. With his brother, George Bushrod Stevenson, he constructed the Vaca Valley & Clear Lake Railroad, which is now a part of the Southern Pacific railway system. He was state senator from Solano county about 1855. He was a first cousin of Adlai Stevenson, vice president of the United States from 1893 to 1897. Annie E. (Stevenson) Buck, mother of Frank H. Buck, was born January 20, 1861.
With the class of 1903, Mr. Buck graduated from the high school in Vacaville, and then took up his advanced studies at the University of California, from which he received the Bachelor of Letters degree in 1908. He then entered upon the study of law at Harvard, and in 1911 this famed institution conferred upon him the Bachelor of Laws degree. He was admitted to the California state bar in November, 1911, and from 1912 to 1917 he maintained a law office in the city of San Francisco. He actually resided in this city during his first year in the practice, but since has made his home in Piedmont, although he retains his old legal residence in Vacaville. In 1916, he became manager in charge of the interests of the Buck estate, his father having passed away in that year. The latter started the business of this organization in 1886, and it was incorporated in 1902. The purpose of the concern is the growing and shipping of decidnous fruit. Frank H. Buck was elected president at his father’s death. In 1919, he became a director in the Associated Oil Company and was made a member of its executive committee in 1922. In 1916 he became a director in the Belridge Oil Company; in 1916 a director in the Booth Kelly Lumber Company; and in 1918 a director in the West Coast Oil Company. He is also interested in the Tidewater Associated Oil Company, and in various banking and kindred associations. He is president of the California Growers and Shippers Protective League, and is vice president of the American Fruit and Vegetable Shippers Association. He has attained an influential position among the growers and shippers of fruit in California, and he is known as a business man who follows a careful and intelligent course in any activity which he may undertake.
Mr. Buck was married first in 1911, and by this union became the father of four children, namely: Frank H., Jr., Margaret Anne, C. Brevoort, and Elias Z., now (1931) being nineteen, eighteen, sixteen, and fourteen years of age, respectively. All of the children reside with their father at 17 Sotelo avenue in Piedmont, Mr. Buck was married secondly in Alameda, California, to Eva Benson, a daughter of Martin Benson and born May 18, 1899. Her mother is deceased. Mrs. Buck has a fine interest in various affairs of public nature. She is a director of the Women’s Athletic Club of Oakland, California, and also a director of the Baby Hospital Association in the same city.
The democratic party has been Mr. Buck’s choice of political affiliation. He is a member of the executive committee of the state central committee, and was a delegate to the 1928 democratic convention. He was a write in candidate for congressman from the third district in 1930, with democratic endorsement, as there were no party nominees at this election. He worships in the Presbyterian Church. He belongs to the Theta Delta Chi collegiate fraternity, and from 1919 to 1923 he was president of the grand lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His name is also on the membership rolls of the Sutter Club of Sacramento; the Bohemian, Pacific Union, and Commonwealth Clubs of San Francisco; the Claremont Country and Athens Athletic Clubs of Oakland; and the Mount Diablo Country Club, He has given generously of his time and means to many enterprises of public nature in the bay district, and throughout his career has followed a thoroughly public spirited course of action. When the United States was engaged in war with Germany, he gave notable service locally. He was a member of the San Francisco legal advisory board; of the Vacaville council of defense; and of the prune advisory board under the food administration.
From:
The History of San Francisco, California
Lewis Francis Byington, Supervising Editor
Oscar Lewis, Associate Editor
The S. J. Clark Publishing Company
Chicago-San Francisco 1931
Big Buck Think Tank
Why all this BRAIN POWER? What good is it? This BUCK BUNCH didn’t keep Von Trump out of the White House, and, never considered doing so, because………….? Are they Republicans? What an exotic group of peacocks, who are all about preseriving the Republican Clique, the old Money Guard. They have been gathered together on Peacock Island where the strut about showing off their BIG BRAINS. What are they good for? Their Grand Peacock In Chief has laid a rotten egg about bloody bullets, and Pershing. Of course they pretend not to notice, lest someone ask for their opinion. They go into a Huddle of Smartness, instead.
“Are we ready for our first test? People are beginning to think our Longevity Program is a fraud, even a CIA front.”
“Come on Barry. No one’s THINKING that. No one knows we exist. It’s your GUILTY CONCIENCE acting up again. Here! Open up and take our new Freedom Pill.”
Here is the Senior Vice President at the Buck Institute for Aging Research yammering on about some problem in North Africa that needs our immediate attention – NOT! Don’t we have enough MANPOWER on this, and – MONEY? Most folks with brains are concluding all THEIR PROBLEMS arise from sectarian bickering that has been going on for thousands of years. In other words, this is Bible, Torah, and Koran crap!
As you know I am one of the few people trying to preserve the Legacy of the Peaceful and Creative Hippie and Bohemian Culture, that is at loggerheads with religious nuts carrying guns and shooting their mouths off. In my musical there will be ‘The Fan Dance of The Giant Eggheads’. Here is a good spread, the opening of Raja Kamal’s fantastic fan!
Don’t you love this name………..Richard “Dick” Bodman. Biggus Dickus? This is why they hate hippies – on acid! Beryl Buck was not THINKING GLOBAL AFFAIRS when she left her wealth to ‘The Poor and Stupid of Marin’. All these BBs cant grasp this problem. Perhaps they should elect a poor and stupid Marinite to the board, just to study him, or her, and, stay focused on THE BIG PROBLEM – that Jesus handled – with ease!
I am the guy who hopped the fence at the Buck Institute, and have been brought before Emperor Buckus Dickus. Robert ‘BIG BUCKS’ Buck.
P.S. Robert Brevoort Buck may not be stable. If Von Trump see this name “MILLION AIR” there’s going to be a boastful war of words. BILLION AIR.COM is taken. POOR AIR.COM is available.
Jon Presco
Robert B. Buck 72 yrs
Carmel, CA | Monterey, CA | Palo Alto, CA
- Marin Community Foundation
- Heisinger Buck & Morris
- Immediate Past Chair – Buck Institute For Age Rese
- Del Monte Aviation …
Robert B Buck is 72 years old. Robert lives in Carmel, CA, but has also spent time in Monterey, CA; Palo Alto, CA; Pebble Beach, CA and Fort Collins, CO. Robert has worked for Marin Community Foundation, Heisinger Buck & Morris, Del Monte Aviation, Green Acres Family Holdings and Speedy. Alexander R
Raja Kamal is the Senior Vice President at the Buck Institute for Aging Research. Previously, Dr. Kamal was the Senior Associate Dean at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Prior to that position, Dr. Kamal was Director of New Initiatives and International Development at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. During his sixteen years at Harvard, Dr. Kamal successfully internationalized the activities of the Kennedy School and negotiated dozens of programs with governments and leading private sector organizations in the United States and around the world.
An economist by training, Dr. Kamal was an adjunct professor of economics and international business at Boston University and previously at Wheelock College. He holds advanced graduate degrees in economics, mass communication, and administrative sciences and is a frequent contributor to newspapers in the United States and abroad. He contributed editorials on global affairs to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Providence Journal, The Scotsman, The Union Leader, Times of Japan, Middle East Times, The Daily Star, and San Diego Union Tribune among many others. His work has also been published in Arabic, Chinese, German, French, Russian, and Spanish newspapers.
Buck’s Hidden State Department
DynCorp mercenaries to replace Blackwater in Yemen
(Press TV, 7 March 2016) ~ The first batch of mercenaries from the private US military firm DynCorp has arrived in the Yemeni city of Aden to replace paid militants from another American company.
Under a USD-3-billion contract between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and DynCorp, mercenaries from the company are to be deployed to Yemen, where UAE forces are fighting against the Yemeni army and Popular Committees on Saudi orders, Khabar News Agency quoted an official with Yemeni Defense Ministry as saying.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the first group of the mercenaries recently arrived in the port city of Aden to replace those of Blackwater, a notorious American group now renamed Academi.
The Buck Foundation has been invaded by foriegners that are now in ‘The Story of Rosamond’. We are intertwined. Just follow the rouge thread into the Labyrinth. It looks like the Buck Institute is a secret embassy for foreign affairs. I am reminded of the CIA-Contra slush fund. Anyone who comes in contact with the Buck Bunch, is going to be overwhelmed. There is a cache of Insider Information disguised as charity. The Buck Bunch are running roughshod over the Poor – who have no power! Beryl Buck wanted to empower the poor, make sure they have enough to eat, and a place to dwell, so they will not sell themselves, and their children, to the very rich!
Jon Presco
Two men added to the institute’s board of trustees in particular raised concerns: Fouad Makhzoumi, a Lebanese native and CEO of Future Group, who joined the board in 2014; and Rubar Sandi, chairman of the Sandi Group, who joined the board in 2015. Sandi is an Iraqi from a wealthy Kurdish family who immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s.
The Sandi Group’s work with Texas-based DynCorp has been investigated by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, according to David Phinney, a Washington, D.C.-based freelance reporter whose work includes a series on contractors and private military companies working in Iraq.
Phinney said the Sandi Group teamed with DynCorp on a massive multi-year U.S. State Department contract to train more than 100,000 Iraqi police officers, as well as dozens of other projects.
CNN reported in 2007 that the “State Department had been unable to account for most of $1.2 billion in funding that it gave to DynCorp International to train Iraqi police.”
Buck senior vice president Raja Kamal — implemented a strategy of aggressively seeking international donors, many of them from the Middle East. Kamal, who was hired in December 2010, also resigned in June 2016.
Buck insiders said the faculty balked when Kennedy floated the idea of naming a school of geroscience at the institute after King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in hopes of securing a $5 million donation. That idea was eventually abandoned.
Insiders also said that Sandi and Jostein Eikeland, a Norwegian-born entrepreneur, each pledged $5 million to the institute, but Sandi reneged on his pledge and Eikeland ultimately limited his contribution to $1 million.
https://rosamondpress.com/2017/07/31/homeland-security-buck/
In 1984, Makhzoumi co-founded Future Pipe Industries, and was CEO from 1986 to 2003, when his son, Rami Makhzoumi, took over as CEO, with Makhzoumi as chairman until 2011, when he resumed the CEO role.[3]
In the 1980s, Makhzoumi recruited the “disgraced Conservative politician” Jonathan Aitken as a board director of one of his companies, Aitken failed to declare this, and as the government minister in charge of arms sales, promoted a military equipment deal involving Makhzoumi in the 1990s, all of which played a part in Aitken’s being jailed for libel in 1999.[4]
In 2017, it was reported by The Guardian that François Fillon, the French presidential candidate had allegedly been paid $50,000 to arrange a meeting between Makhzoumi, the Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Patrick Pouyane, the chief executive of the French energy multinational Total.[1]
http://www.thebuck.org/buck-news/makhzoumi-award
About the Buck Advisory Council (BAC)
The BAC comprises a diverse group of individuals from the United States and around the world. Members include leaders in government, business, finance, pharmaceuticals, law and other fields of endeavors. Many have served as advisors to governments, public commissions and nonprofit commissions. These leaders provide advice on strategic priorities, serve as ambassadors to raise the visibility of Institute achievements, and set the pace for philanthropy at the Institute. The BAC meets twice each year: in the San Francisco Bay Area each spring and in a foreign destination each fall. At these meetings, members participate in panel discussions with faculty and other experts and develop ideas to promote the Buck Institute globally as a leader in research on aging and age-related disease.
May 18, 2014, Novato, California The Buck Advisory Council (BAC) has awarded its 2014 Global Humanitarian Award to May Makhzoumi, President of the Makhzoumi Foundation. The Foundation, headquartered in Beirut, was the first organization in Lebanon to partner with the UN Refugee Agency to provide relief to those fleeing Syria.
By Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal
Brian Kennedy resigned on Oct. 28 as chief executive officer of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato. (IJ file photo)A sweeping leadership change at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging comes as the institute emerges from the most trying financial period in its history, and it’s “not out of the woods yet,” a board member says.
“Over the last several years we’ve been working very hard to maintain a positive cash flow and a balanced budget, and that has been a challenge,” said Edward Lanphier, a member of the Buck Institute’s Board of Trustees since 2012.
Lanphier, who also serves on the board’s finance committee, briefly served as the institute’s CEO after Brian Kennedy resigned on Oct. 28.
The board on Nov. 18 announced that Dr. Eric Verdin, an expert on aging research and a former associate director and senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute for Virology and Immunology, will take the helm of the institute as CEO and president.
Along with that announcement, board members pledged $10 million in donations to the institute.
“Over the last six to nine months, we’ve had more success in terms of grant revenues,” Lanphier said. “That said, we’re not out of the woods yet.
“When you’re in a tight budget situation you fund the things you really, really, need to fund and some things don’t get funded,” he said. “That has been true over the last several years.
“We need to address the aging infrastructure at the Buck; we need to address equipment needs. With the unprecedented gift of our board, things have changed materially.”
Kennedy’s resignation was followed on Nov. 1 by the resignation of Mary McEachron, the institute’s chief administrative officer and general counsel. The resignations came as the institute was involved in possible merger talks with Gladstone Institutes, a San Francisco-based foundation.
“There are no business discussions ongoing with Gladstone,” Lanphier said.
McEachron became chief administrative officer in April 2010 shortly before Kennedy was hired in June 2010. Kennedy and McEachron — working along with former Buck senior vice president Raja Kamal — implemented a strategy of aggressively seeking international donors, many of them from the Middle East. Kamal, who was hired in December 2010, also resigned in June 2016.
Faculty unease cited
According to institute insiders who requested anonymity, some faculty members expressed unease about a few of the associations made during this period.
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Two men added to the institute’s board of trustees in particular raised concerns: Fouad Makhzoumi, a Lebanese native and CEO of Future Group, who joined the board in 2014; and Rubar Sandi, chairman of the Sandi Group, who joined the board in 2015. Sandi is an Iraqi from a wealthy Kurdish family who immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s.
The Sandi Group’s work with Texas-based DynCorp has been investigated by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, according to David Phinney, a Washington, D.C.-based freelance reporter whose work includes a series on contractors and private military companies working in Iraq.
Phinney said the Sandi Group teamed with DynCorp on a massive multi-year U.S. State Department contract to train more than 100,000 Iraqi police officers, as well as dozens of other projects.
CNN reported in 2007 that the “State Department had been unable to account for most of $1.2 billion in funding that it gave to DynCorp International to train Iraqi police.”
Phinney said the matter has never been fully resolved.
“There is a DynCorp fraud case that has been reintroduced after a five-year hiatus that involves Sandi,” Phinney said in an interview.
According to The Guardian newspaper, Makhzoumi “was involved in the scandal which brought down the disgraced Conservative politician Jonathan Aitken.”
Aitken served as Minister of State for Defense Procurement under former Conservative British Prime Minister John Major.
The Guardian reported that Makhzoumi “recruited Aitken to the board of one of his companies in the 1980s. But Aitken failed to declare the directorship and, as the arms sales minister, promoted a military equipment deal for his friend in the 1990s.”
But McEachron, who spoke to the Independent Journal soon after her resignation, said, “I don’t know anything like that about him. He runs the largest charity in Lebanon. To my knowledge, there was never any controversy about any members of the board.”
In May 2014, the Buck Advisory Council awarded Makhzoumi’s wife, May, its Global Humanitarian Award. The council was created in 2010 in an effort to cultivate international donors. The award came a year after May Makhzoumi made headlines when it became known that she had contributed over 1 million British pounds to Britain’s Conservative Party since 2010.
Saudi honor scuttled
Buck insiders said the faculty balked when Kennedy floated the idea of naming a school of geroscience at the institute after King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in hopes of securing a $5 million donation. That idea was eventually abandoned.
Insiders also said that Sandi and Jostein Eikeland, a Norwegian-born entrepreneur, each pledged $5 million to the institute, but Sandi reneged on his pledge and Eikeland ultimately limited his contribution to $1 million.
Lanphier confirmed that the pledges fell short of what had been promised.
“These were new board members that were brought on, mostly of an international background,” Lanphier said.
Regarding the $10 million in new pledges, Lanphier declined to say which board members had made them, but he said they were solid and would be redeemed over the next three to five years.
“Everybody who is involved in this particular gift and these pledges is both local as well as having a long and serious dedicated history of giving to the Buck,” Lanphier said.
Interviewed in early October, when news of merger talks between the Buck Institute and Gladstone Institutes became public, McEachron said the institute was “doing better financially than in our entire history.”
She rejected the notion that the overture to Gladstone came due to any financial crisis within the institute.
“There has been borrowing in the past; it’s now pay as you go,” McEachron said. “We’re making all our loan payments as they come due, and we’re nevertheless experiencing a significant surplus from operations.”
‘Weathered the worst’
After her resignation, McEachron shared a copy of a PowerPoint presentation that Kennedy made to the institute’s board prior to his resignation. The presentation was titled, “Financially, we have already weathered the worst.” It detailed how the institute had coped with the loss of $10 million in revenue over the past five years.
The presentation stated that the institute spent $450,000 on legal expenses related to a $12 million lawsuit filed against it by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2014.
The Buck Institute paid $2 million to terminate an interest rate swap with Lehman Brothers soon after the firm filed for bankruptcy in September 2008. The swap was designed to reduce the risk on floating rate bonds the institute was holding.
Lehman Brothers sued, asserting that the institute underpaid by more than $12 million when it canceled the swap. The two parties settled the matter out of court in February for an undisclosed sum.
“I can’t give you an exact number; that is part of the settlement,” Lanphier said.
Kennedy’s PowerPoint presentation stated that between fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2016 two of the institute’s major grant programs concluded — a $5 million geroscience grant from the National Institutes of Health and a $2 million stem cell shared research and training grant from California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
The PowerPoint presentation recalled that after sequestration of federal funds began in March 2013, the institute experienced budgetary reductions in previously awarded grants ranging from 3 to 5 percent — requiring a 5 percent cut in the fiscal 2013 budget.
The presentation also cited $1.5 million in increased debt payments, and showed that the number of faculty members declined from 23 in fiscal 2015 to 21 in fiscal 2016. It projected 18 faculty members in fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018.
Leasing revenue
McEachron, however, said the institute had benefited from significant revenue growth over the past two years from leasing space at the institute and corporate-sponsored research. Revenue from these two sources grew from $1.2 million in fiscal 2014 to $2.5 million in fiscal 2015.
The institute is currently leasing 27,000 square feet of its 245,000-square-foot campus to for-profit businesses. These include BioMarin, Ultragenyx, Cellular Dynamics, An2H Discovery Limited and Excel Venture Management.
In fiscal 2017, leasing and corporate-sponsored research are each expected to account for about 9 percent of the Buck’s revenue.
Lanphier said he expects corporate-sponsored research and leasing to continue to be important revenue sources for the institute. Regarding the leased space, however, he added, “Ultimately we’d love to have that space occupied by faculty doing research.”
About the Author
http://www.layalina.tv/publications/an-egyptian-tragedy-by-raja-kamal-phd/
Board of Trustees
Members of the 2017 Board of Trustees
| Bill R. Poland Chair of the Board of Trustees |
Richard “Dick” Bodman
Chairman and CEO of PurThread Technologies, Inc.;
Chairman, TDF Ventures;
Managing General Partner of VMS Group;
General Manager of Bodman Oil & Gas, LLC;
Served as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior and Assistant Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Lisa Wilcox Corning
Co-founder of Healy-Wilcox Marketing Group, a market research and strategy company, and partner at Brand Paradigm, a business strategy consultancy. Formerly a lawyer at Orrick in San Francisco. Current member of the Board of Directors of Friends of Laguna Honda Hospital and the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation’s Women and Children’s Leadership Council.
Darla Flanagan
General Partner of MKD Investments, managing a portfolio of real estate assets for the family investment company; she founded FowlerFlanagan Partners, a commercial real estate investment company. She is on the Board of Directors of Catellus Development Company, Adopt a Family of Marin, The Branson School, and San Francisco Architectural Heritage, among others.
M. Arthur Gensler Jr.
FAIA Founder Gensler, a global architecture, design, planning and strategic consulting firm
Executive Committee, SFMOMA
Executive Committee California College of the Arts
Louis C. Gerken
Founder of San Francisco Bay Area-based Gerken Capital Associates, an alternative asset fund management firm, with a particular focus on the emerging markets. Formerly a Managing Director and Group Head of Prudential Securities Investment Banking Division. Author of The Little Book of Venture Capital Investing, published by Wiley. Prior chairman of the Film Institute of Northern California.
W. Robert Griswold Jr.
Retired President and CEO, Bank of Marin. Former board member of Marin YMCA, Buck Institute for Education, Film Institute of Northern California, North Bay Leadership Council, and Canine Companions for Independence. Former Director of the Marin School to Career Partnership.
Edward O. Lanphier III
Former President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and
a Trustee since 2012. He is the founder and former President and CEO of Sangamo BioSciences. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Sangamo and serves as a member on the Board of the Biotechnology Institute and for the Dean’s Advisory Board for the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He received his B.A. in Biochemistry from Knox College
John W. Larson
Retired San Francisco lawyer with over 40 years of practice devoted to high-tech and life science companies;
Former Chair of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and President of the Branson School;
Current Chairman of WageWorks, a NYSE company
Afaf Meleis, PhD
Former dean at the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. Former faculty at UCSF and UCLA. Involved in projects in China, Sydney and Kuwait. Recipient of numerous international awards for professional and scholarly achievements.
Bill Poland
Founder and President of Bay West Group, a commercial real estate development company; Georgia Tech Advisory Board; Urban Land Institute; past Chairman of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau; Board of the Steers Global Real Estate Center at Georgetown University; past Councilmember of the town of Ross, CA; past president of the Olympic Club in San Francisco.
Thomas A. Rando, MD, PhD
Professor of Neurology at Stanford University School of Medicine and Director of Stanford’s Glenn Laboratories for the Biology of Aging, as well as the Deputy Director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Director of the Rehabilitation, Research & Development Center of Excellence at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Chair of the Buck Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board.
E. Lewis Reid
Former Chair of Buck BOT;
Former President and CEO, The California Endowment
Larry E. Rosenberger
Former President and CEO and current Research Fellow of Fair Isaac;Co-author ofThe Deciding Factor: The Power of Analytics to Make Every Decision a WinnMS in Physics, and Masters in Engineering from University of California, Berkeley
Richard Rosenberg
Former Chairman and CEO of Bank of America. Retired commander in the US Naval Reserves. Board memberships on the San Francisco Symphony, the Naval War College Foundation and Chairman of the University of California, San Francisco Foundation.
Ramzi Sanbar, PhD
Founder and Chairman, SDC group, international project development in the US, Europe, Middle East, Northern Africa and China. Served as Board of Director at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard and the Eurasia Center at Cambridge University.
Barbara Schraeger
Retired labor-management consultant focused on conflict resolution, group problem solving, and collaborative bargaining techniques in unionized companies and government agencies. Former Instructor in the Human Resources and Organizational Behavior program at the University of San Francisco. Former Board Member of the Institute On Aging. Former public (non-attorney) member on the CA Commission on Judicial Performance.
Dick Spalding
Former CFO for Fusion Medical Technologies and Portal Software, and Managing Director for Kearny Venture Partners. Before Fusion Medical Technologies, Mr. Spalding was a partner at Brobeck Phleger & Harrison law firm and at Alex Brown, an Investment banking firm. Mr. Spalding has over 30 years of experience advising public and private companies, and holds an A.B from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Richard Stone
Founder and Chairman of Private Ocean, a financial advisement organization and a Certified Financial Planner. Mr. Stone serves as Chairman of the Personal Financial Planning Advisory Board at UC Berkeley Extension. He is a Trustee at Dominican University and served on the board of the International Association of Financial Planners, and was a past member of the Global Business Council at San Jose State University.
Wells Whitney, ScD
Doctorate degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retired from Raychem Corporation in Menlo Park after developing multi-million dollar product lines. Serves on several nonprofit boards, three which are related to lung cancer.
Raja Kamal is the Senior Vice President at the Buck Institute for Aging Research. Previously, Dr. Kamal was the Senior Associate Dean at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Prior to that position, Dr. Kamal was Director of New Initiatives and International Development at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. During his sixteen years at Harvard, Dr. Kamal successfully internationalized the activities of the Kennedy School and negotiated dozens of programs with governments and leading private sector organizations in the United States and around the world.
An economist by training, Dr. Kamal was an adjunct professor of economics and international business at Boston University and previously at Wheelock College. He holds advanced graduate degrees in economics, mass communication, and administrative sciences and is a frequent contributor to newspapers in the United States and abroad. He contributed editorials on global affairs to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Providence Journal, The Scotsman, The Union Leader, Times of Japan, Middle East Times, The Daily Star, and San Diego Union Tribune among many others. His work has also been published in Arabic, Chinese, German, French, Russian, and Spanish newspapers.
http://www.layalina.tv/publications/an-egyptian-tragedy-by-raja-kamal-phd/
Rosamond Press 
Reblogged this on Rosamond Press and commented:
I have been advocating a new Military and Naval presence in the Pacific for over a year.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/confronting-russia-will-deter-china-says-japanese-defense-minister/ar-AAX06PZ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=b6152519b1c1474c9ebed1941109d014