Held at the Palm Beach Convention Center and hosted with the Business
Development Board. In 2010 its Board of Governors introduced the “New Florida Initiative,” part of an overall approach Frank Brogan launched to systematically transform and diversify the state’s economy from its dependence on agriculture and tourism to include and emphasize knowledge-intensive industries. This event will feature a presentation by Mr. Brogan outlining the program’s goals and current directions, along with an update on companies that have located in Palm Beach County since the arrival of Scripps and Max Planck. A new corporate announcement in the life science industry is expected, as well as an FAU Medical School update.

A poetry workshop featuring post-Modern poet Sarah Brown Weitzman – certain to delight anyone enamored with literature and the printed word. Everyone has a story to tell, his own or someone’s who should be remembered. Come to this workshop to learn how to write that story. 
 Weitzman has had more than 200 poems published in journals such as The North American Review, American Writing, Potomac Review, and America. Her second chapbook, The Forbidden (2003, Pudding House) was followed by Never Far From Flesh, a full-length volume of poems (Pure Heart/Main Street Rag, 2005). The workshop will begin at 10:30 a.m. and is limited to 20 attendees, so reserve early. Non-Members $50.

February 10, 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. – Don Thompson – Don Thompson is an economist and professor of marketing and strategy at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. He has taught at Harvard Business School and the London School of Economics. He is the author of ten books, including 2008’s The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art.  Shark has been published in eleven languages. Shark delves into the economics and psychology of the very top end of the contemporary art market: dealers, auction houses, and collectors. Shark was lauded by Richard Morrison, book review editor of The Times (London) as "If you read no other book about art in your life, read the one that's gripped me like a thriller for the past two days." This event will take place at The Colony. At 2:30 p.m. we will go to the home of Ruth and Ted Baum. Their collection emphasizes the late 50’s, 60’s, and early 70’s including abstract expressionism, art povera, the zero school and pop art. They have been recognized as one of the top 100 art collectors in the United States. Non-Members $150

The Naval War College Foundation invites the Coudert Institute to a Continental Breakfast and Conversation:
“A View From The Heart of The Gulf” With Ambassador Deborah K. Jones
Tuesday, February 14, 2012, 9:30 am
The Colony Hotel
155 Hammon Avenue, Palm Beach, Florida

You can register for the event online at

registration.nwcfoundation.org/palmbeach2012

or by calling Steve Stasiuk at 401.848.8308
Space is limited and reservations for the event are available on a first come, first served basis.

Ambassador Jones arrived in Newport in September 2011, following completion of her assignment as the fifteenth United States Ambassador to the State of Kuwait, from April 2008-June 2011.
Ambassador Jones is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, with the personal rank of Minister-Counselor, having been with the Department of State since 1982. Prior to her assignment as Ambassador, she served as Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey. Her previous overseas assignments include: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Baghdad, Iraq; Damascus, Syria; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Her service in Washington, D.C. includes two years as Country Director of the Office of Arabian Peninsula and Iran Affairs and assignments as Staff Assistant to Assistant Secretary for Near East and South Asia Affairs Richard Murphy; Acting Public Affairs Advisor to Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs, Robert Pelletreau; Country Desk Officer for Jordan; and Senior Watch Officer in the Department's Operations Center. Ms. Jones was also assigned to the Foreign Service Institute's Arabic language course in Rosslyn, Virginia and the FSI Field School in Tunis, Tunisia from 1988-1990. She has also served on the Board of Examiners for the Foreign Service.
Ambassador Jones is a graduate of Brigham Young University with a B.S. in history (magna cum laude) and a "Distinguished Graduate" of the National War College of the National Defense University, with an M.S. in National Security Strategy. Her foreign languages are Spanish, Arabic and French.

March 12, 9:30 a.m. Amory Lovins – An American environmental scientist and writer, Mr. Lovins serves as Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has worked in energy policy and related fields for more than four decades. Harvard-educated, Mr. Lovins was named by Time magazine as one of the “World’s Most Influential People” in 2009. He will introduce and discuss his new book, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions to a New Energy Era.

March 11^th 5:30 pm

Cocktails and Buffet Dinner at the Sailfish Club

1338 North Lake Way

Palm Beach, FL 33480

Monday, March 12th, 2012

Breakfast and Discussion

9:30 a.m. Colony Palm Beach

155 Hammon Avenue, Palm Beach

"He is an original thinker and a visionary. He knows that the most important question of the twenty-first century is ‘the how to question ideas into working solutions’. Reinventing Fire is a wide, detailed and comprehensive blueprint for gathering the technologies for energy use and putting them to work right now to create jobs and new companies."

  – Bill Clinton

 He will introduce and discuss his new book, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions to a New Energy Era.

Non-Members $250 – cocktails, dinner buffet and breakfast included.

RSVP to Deborah Agold at 561-659-9752 or coudertinstitute@aol.com

March 21 – 7:00 p.m. Reception for Anne Sebba

Anne Sebba is a biographer, lecturer and former Reuters foreign correspondent.  She is a prolific writer and has published eight books including Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image; American Jennie, a biography of Winston Churchill’s mother; Laura Ashley: A Life by Design; Battling for News, a history of women reporters; and The Exiled Collector, the biography of William Bankes of Kingston Lacy, one of Britain’s great country houses. Her most recent book is That Woman – The Duchess of Windsor and the Scandal that Brought Down a King, published by St. Martin’s Press in 2012. Anne Sebba also writes for The Times and other publications, as well as writes and presents programs for BBC Radio. She has lectured widely in the UK and US, sits on the Committee of the Society of Authors, and has worked for many years for the Writers in Prison Committee of PEN. Her particular interests are music and the arts, freedom of expression and the ethics of biography. She lives near London with her husband. They have three children and two grandchildren.

On March 29 there will be a special musical presentation by Yehuda Hanani (cello) and Alexander Beridze (piano) on the works and influence of Franz Liszt, the innovative genius whose compositions blazed the way for Impressionism, Romanticism and atonality. This Liszt program will encompass his pictorial piano solo works, some of the many composers he generously promoted and the works of Mendelssohn, his ideological rival, as well as four recently published works for cello and piano transcribed by Liszt himself. This program is being underwritten by Peter Hoffman and Howard Lepow. This musical program will be held at the Royal Poinciana Chapel at 7:00 p.m. Non-Members $25.