December 2024
Francis D.R. Coleman:
Mr. Coleman retired and moved to Bloomfield, NY in 2005. Since then, he served for several years as a member of the board of trustees of the Village of Bloomfield.
Francis currently serves on the board of trustees of the Bloomfield Public Library. He is a*co-founder of Ontario County Values, Inc, a not-for-profit local tax analysis company, and the Bloomfield Economic Discussion Group. (*With the late Bill Compton, former Supervisor of the Town of East Bloomfield.)
He volunteers with hospice in Ontario County. and his interests include painting, gardening, opera, history, and economics.
Before retiring, Mr. Coleman pursued careers in engineering and law.
Most recently, he served as Vice President – Law and Policy and General Counsel at GNR Ltd., the global registry for the Internet “.name” domain, headquartered in London,UK, as part of a senior management team brought in to successfully turn the company around with new marketing, financing and regulatory approvals.
Before joining GNR Ltd, Mr. Coleman served as Vice President – Regulatory Affairs for Mpower Communications, a competitive local exchange carrier based in Rochester, New York. He designed and implemented Mpower’s regulatory strategy at the FCC to provide local service nationally, while serving as the first chair of the United States Telecom Association’s CLEC Council in Washington, D.C.
Francis served for 3 years in Washington as Director of Regulatory Affairs – North America at ICO Global Communications, for its planned launch of 12 medium-earth-orbit satellites to provide voice and data service globally. He designed and implemented ICO’s regulatory strategies at the FCC in Washington, in Industry Canada in Ottawa, and at the European Commission in Brussels, to enable ICO’s planned multi-billion-dollar systems of satellites, earth stations, and global networks to compete in the US and Canadian markets. This strategy included novel approaches for satellite access to crowded spectrum, and a number of related
economic, technical, and legal matters.
Mr. Coleman had previously served for over 10 years as secretary and corporate counsel to ACC Corp., a publicly traded telecommunications holding company headquartered in Rochester, New York. He was in charge of ACC’s legal and regulatory affairs worldwide, specializing in identifying and overcoming barriers to entry in foreign markets, and he directed its efforts in the areas of corporate governance, regulatory compliance, acquisitions and dispositions, litigation management, and legal counseling.
He designed and implemented ACC’s successful international regulatory strategy in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and elsewhere. Other accomplishments include successfully negotiating and securing the world’s first international simple resale (ISR) license from the British Government and obtaining the first ISR license from the US Federal Communications Commission. These licenses permitted international service between the United States and the United Kingdom on leased lines exempt from settlement charges.
Mr. Coleman served for several years in the Law Department of the City of Rochester, specializing in economic development and the environment, after practicing law at the Chamberlain, D’Amanda firm in Rochester.
Prior to his career in law, Mr. Coleman was an engineer at Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. on Long Island, NY where he worked on the design of new aircraft and spacecraft including the Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter and the NASA Lunar Module.
Mr. Coleman is a founder of the Genesee Telephone Company, a non-wireline cellular telephone company, and Vehicare Inc, a supplier of on-site services to large vehicle fleets.
Mr. Coleman has three children and six grandchildren. He holds a BA in history from Franklin and Marshall College, a BAE in aeronautical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an MS in management engineering from Long Island University, and a JD in law from Cornell Law School.
November 2024
Our speaker on this night is our own Travis Piper, who will be talking about his experience and accomplishments in computer business career.
A little more about Travis Piper, our speaker:
From the Mainframe to the Phone – or – How I Survived 40 Years of the Evolution of the Computer
While Kodak was inventing the digital camera, Xerox was innovating Computer Based Training (CBT) on equipment never intended for that purpose. Starting with a pilot project in New York City, just 8 years later the company logged over 80,000 annual connect hours of training for administrative personnel on how to use their new computer terminals and how to do their jobs such as Order Entry, Billing, and Credit and Collections – no more trips to Leesburg for classroom training.
Our own Travis Piper was a key player in that evolution for not only Xerox, but he left Xerox in 1982 to start the world’s first custom Computer-based Training development company right here in Bloomfield.
As the computer industry evolved from the mainframe, so too did the company. The name was “Creative Approaches” and that’s what it took to keep up with the major changes from mainframe to PC, to DOS, IBM’s OS/2, Apple’s Windows, and running training programs from CDs and DVDs as storage technologies developed rapidly as well. Then there was the Internet and many, many changes again.
The firm’s early courses only ran on IBM mainframes and magnetic tapes were the vehicle for distributing the courses to new clients.
The last course being developed when Travis sold the firm in 2014 was designed to run on the cell phones of sales reps for a pharmaceutical firm.
That is a LOT of evolution. So, hang on tight and after I cover his Bio, Travis will tell us how he survived 40 years of computer evolution.
Bio:
Travis Piper was born in Los Angeles. The family moved to Ventura, California when he was five.
After graduating from UCLA as a Speech major and a stint in Vietnam in the Marine Corps, Travis was hired by Xerox in 1970 as an Equipment Control Manager at Western Region Headquarters in Santa Ana, California. He oversaw 12 administrators who received documents mailed in from the 16 Western Region Branches and prepared them for input into two IBM mainframe computers. There were keypunch cards and error registers everywhere. After a year and a half, he was transferred to the Anaheim branch to supervise the people who prepared the documents that were being sent to the Region. Then, another year and a half later he was transferred to Rochester as part of a Branch Data Entry task force for automating all field offices with computers.
Travis Piper was a key player in helping Xerox and other Fortune 500 companies cross the giant hurdle of putting a computer on the desk of every administrative employee using CBT as the onsite, on demand trainer. In 1982, in Bloomfield, New York, he formed the world’s first custom CBT development company which is still in business today.
October 2024
Michael Northrup, the Ontario County Republican Commissioner of Elections and Albert Magnan, the Ontario County Democratic Commissioner of Elections who will give a presentation about how elections in New York are run and the safeguards used to protect the vote. Our presenters will also talk about the mechanics of elections. The discussion will not be political but will be about all the steps required before and after the election to safeguard the accuracy of the vote.
A little information on our speakers:
**Mike Northrup, Republican Commissioner of Elections appointed to the Board of Elections March 1, 2000. Served as Chief of Staff to Assembly Member Craig Doran from February 1994 until December of 1999. Married to former Bloomfield resident, Karen Erdle with two adult children Ben and Taylor. Served as President of the NYS Election Commissioners’ Association in 2015-2016. Past Fire Chief and current Life Member of the Cheshire Volunteer Fire Department and Past Member of the Ontario County High Angle Rope Rescue Team.
**Democratic Commissioner A.J. Magnan moved to Ontario County in 2010 and was appointed to the Board of Elections on January 1, 2023. Prior to his appointment, he served as the senior Democratic elections technician and retired from the Ferro Corporation where he had worked as a maintenance and production supervisor. Originally from Waterford, Michigan, Commissioner Magnan moved to Ontario County with his family when he retired from a twenty-two year career as a U.S. Navy surface warfare officer. During his naval service, he led Sailors onboard four different warships, qualified and served as a Chief Engineer in nuclear powered ships, completed advanced education at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy (Tufts University) and Marine Corps Command & Staff College, and lived in eight different cities including Washington DC, Norfolk and Cairo, Egypt. Commissioner Magnan and his wife (Carrie) live in Bristol and two adult sons who live in Canandaigua and Albany.
June 2024
Yearly planning meeting with a discussion by Jack Kowiak who will speak on “The Whys of Genocide.”
May 2024
Dr. Robert Ryan – Optometrist – Associate Professor in Ophthalmology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and has lectured and published extensively on issues pertaining to anterior segment topics. He has participated as an FDA Clinical Investigator for many contact lens and pharmaceutical manufacturers in addition to providing consultative services.
April 2024
Dr. Art Reardon, Metallurgist. Metallurgy of steel tool alloys. This is a continuation of the past presentation that Dr. Reardon gave to the Bloomfield Scientific Club in October 2023.
March 2024
Camille Caceci, Invasive Species Project Coordinator, for the Finger Lakes Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (FL-PRISM).
February 2024
Meeting by Mercy Flight Central of Ontario County. Meeting to be held at Mercy Flight headquarters on Brickyard Road in Canandaigua, NY. A tour and a discussion of the intricacies of the lifesaving service.
January 2024
Dr. Joseph Rosenshein, Ophthalmologist, Inventor, and Groundhog Day Extraordinaire will discuss the social, philosophical and entertaining aspects of February 2nd and the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day.
December 2023
Chad Klotzsbach, owner of Alleghany Drainage Co., Basom, NY. Chad will be speaking about the history of changes in agricultural drainage practices in New York, current drainage and tiling techniques, and the future of the industry.
November 2023
Mr. James Paul Selph, a Certified Prosthetic Associate with the Hanger Clinic who will speak on “Lower Extremity Prosthetics.”
October 2023
Dr. Arthur C. Reardon who served as the corporate metallurgist for The Gleason Works in Rochester, New York and he will speak on the metallurgy of tool steels.