Center for Visionary Law, Business, and Public Policy

The Center for Visionary Law, Business, and Public Policy is the non-profit educational organization that publishes and promotes Radical Middle newsletter.

The Center was founded on May 14, 1998, in Denver, Colo., by Kurt Colburn, a corporate attorney from Denver; Roger Pritchard, a business advisor and investor from Berkeley, Calif.; and David Yamada, a labor and employment law professor from Boston, Mass.

The three founders represent three generations: Roger was born in 1940, David in the late 50s, and Kurt at the end of the 60s. And they embody one of the themes of the newsletter, The World Is Here: David is Japanese-American -- Roger is a British citizen -- Kurt is third-generation Coloradan.

The founders constituted the Board of Directors from 1998-2001. Kurt became president of the Center as the year 2001 began, and the other two founders stepped down. Kurt was joined on the Board by Mark Satin, Executive Director of the Center and editor of Radical Middle newsletter, and by Allen Parker, chief financial officer of a rising high-tech firm near Boston. Allen stepped down as 2005 began and was replaced by Terrye Wilder, mother of two and retired executive secretary of the San Francisco Municipal Court.

The Directors meet formally each year by conference call, and check in with each other a lot more often than that.

The Center's founding documents authorize not only a newsletter, but such complementary activities as:

-- other politically informed writings;

-- an annual Political Book Award;

-- a biennial Congressional Voting Index;

-- seminars and conferences;

-- “test cases” brought by the Executive Director and student interns to prod institutions to move in the directions suggested by Radical Middle newsletter.

In 1998, the Center's first Political Book Award was handed out. In 2002, the Center's first Congressional Voting Index was published (and was soon incorporated into Project Vote Smart's definitive website). In 2004, the Center's first book was published (by Westview Press / Perseus Books Group). The Center -- not Mark Satin -- holds copyright to the book.

In 2005, the Center decided to entirely replace the handsome but pricey print version of Radical Middle newsletter with the freely available online version you're reading now.

Along with most of the members of the Radical Middle Newsletter Board of Advisors, the Center's Board of Advisors includes visionary law professors Saul Mendlovitz (Rutgers School of Law, Newark NJ), Lewis Solomon (George Washington University School of Law, Washington DC), and David Yamada (Suffolk University Law School, Boston MA).

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