Tag Archives: John

Re-Learning the San Francisco Mission

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I am enjoying working at Everwise in San Francisco as their new Vice President – Mentoring.  It is particularly fun to get re-acquainted with my hometown. I worked for years in our family business – in a building that does not exist any more.  It was on Steuart Street at the base of Mission, across from what is now the Rincon Center but used to be the Rincon Annex US Post Office.  I used to love looking at the WPA murals while waiting in line to refill our postal meter.

In the last two weeks, I have discovered an inexpensive place to park ($10/day instead of the $28/day I paid at first), and delightful places to eat closeby:

I have also admired the newly refurbished LeRoy King carousel and plan to ride it soon!

I am still working out how best to manage the San Jose – SF – San Jose commute.  This takes between 1 hour 30 minutes, and 2 hours each way – depending on when I start. My husband John and I have both driven and taken the train. When he works from home, I have driven alone. Caltrain is less expensive ($18/day round trip) but I need to walk a mile from the station – so I arrive later and have to leave earlier. There are very few express (“Baby Bullet”) trains.  If I ride a milk train, the trip is 50 minutes longer. Driving costs about $38/day ($.55/mile x 50 miles + $10 parking) but allows a flexible work schedule.

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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New Job: Everwise Vice President – Mentoring

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Last week, I started as the new Vice President – Mentoring at Everwise in San Francisco. I am delighted to join a team helping progressive, successful corporations and non-profits to create world-class mentoring programs. My first big project will be with InovAtiva and entrepreneurs in Brazil!

Here is some of what drew me to Everwise:

  • Everwise connects professionals with the people and insights that can help them succeed at every stage of their career.
  • Everwise has re-engineered workplace mentoring using best practices culled from industry’s most effective mentoring programs and real-world experience guiding more than 60,000 successful mentoring partnerships over the course of 20 years.
  • The Everwise platform is built on the unified view that data, technology and workforce science can dramatically improve the way organizations develop their people.
  • Everwise has offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Minneapolis.

My new position at Everwise coordinates well with my ongoing activities. I will continue as the Chief Operating Officer for People to People (pro bono), as a volunteer for the TechWomen mentoring program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, as an accredited EfM Mentor, and as a member of the Anita Borg Institute Advisory Board.

My husband John and I will be commuting to work together from San Jose to SF, where he is the Principle Architect, Open Storage at EVault (Seagate). Since our son Paul is graduating this month from Foothill College and transferring to San Jose State University in September, he can get to class more easily on public transit.

Image Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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Ethiopian Icons

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My Episcopal home church in Saratoga, California, is spare in design – with most of the color coming from huge stained glass windows by Mark Adams. Visiting Ethiopian Orthodox churches and the Ethiopian Ethnological Museum last month presented me with the new world of brightly colored Ethiopian icons. Some were new and others were ancient but the color palette, style, and topics were similar regardless of age.

The icon topic that was very surprising to me was the Trinity (as seen in the last photo below). In my Protestant Christian faith tradition, Jesus is commonly represented in art but only rarely are God and the Holy Spirit shown, except symbolically (such as when the Holy Spirit is shown as a dove). Ethiopian icons showing the Trinity as three mature, identical, kingly men with haloes sitting in a row were disturbing.

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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People to People Radio: US Ambassador to Ethiopia Patricia M. Haslach Interview

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I just got back from a trip to Ethiopia during which I was honored to interview US Ambassador to Ethiopia, Patricia M. Haslach, on behalf of People To People Radio. Check out her advice to women and girls in the just-posted video. Thanks to my husband John Plocher for managing the recording and processing!

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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Great Ethiopian Food: Injera and Coffee

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Ethiopian coffee is some of the best in the world. According to the displays in the delightful Ethnological Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is the original home of the Coffee Aribica plant, and the word coffee refers to the Ethiopian province of Kaffa. We enjoyed the coffee ceremony which formalizes the roasting, grinding, and serving of the beverage.

While in Ethiopia last week, John and I regularly ate meals on injera (a sourdough-risen flatbread with a unique, slightly spongy texture traditionally made out of indigenous teff flour), followed by wonderful coffee, sometimes accompanied by popcorn.  Injera is served either in rolls or as the platter for a variety of wat or tsebhi (stew).  We particularly liked the fasting (non-meat) wat – largely made from lentils or chickpeas.  We often drank St. George beer with the meal (or Ambo sparkling water), with coffee after.

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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Lalibela, Ethiopia

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15 years ago in California, I bought a silver cross inspired in design by Bet Giorgis, the Church of St. George, in Lalibela Ethiopia. A few days ago, John and I finally visited Lalibela and saw the inspiring medieval monolithic cave churches in this World Heritage Site for ourselves.  Mostly built in the 12th century, Lalibela today is a major tourist and pilgrimage site, featuring good food (especially at the Mountain View Hotel, and the interestingly modern Ben Abeba restaurant) and comfortable hotels with lovely views.

John and I only had one day to visit Lalibela. After the early morning flight from Addis, we saw the cave church at Na’akueto La’ab, the northwestern church group, and Bet Giorgis. The building outsides are well maintained, and the churches themselves are in active use by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Inside are ancient painting and icons, worn rugs, big drums, and benches. Long curtains protect the holy space – inside of which is a replica of the tablets in the original Ark of the Covenant – itself said to be in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion (in the town of Axum in the Tigray Province, Ethiopia). There are remains of frescoes on some church walls plus elaborate ceiling carvings.  The churches vary in size and design but all are carved from red basalt below ground level – from the living rock.

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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Pan-African Medical Conference, African Union, Addis

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Last week, People to People was a host organization for the first-ever Pan-African Medical Doctors & Healthcare Conference, held in the African Union Hall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The conference Keynote Speaker was Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission. Other remarkable dignitaries who attended included Mulatu Teshome Wirtu (President, Ethiopia) who addressed the conference after Dr. Zuma, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ethiopia). Former President of Ethiopia Girma Wolde-Giorgis joined the closing dinner for the conference. PAMDHC brought together leading professionals in their areas of expertise – including a People to People panel on Triangular Partnership, moderated by former US Ambassador to Ethiopia, David Shinn. Panelists included:

  • Dr. Costantinos BT Costantinos, Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies, Addis Ababa University.
  • Dr. Anteneh Habte, Chairman of People to People’s Board of Directors, and Medical Director, Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Martinsburg, WV).
  • Dr. Egbe Osifo-Dawodu, Founding Partner at the Anadach Group,  global healthcare strategy firm.
  • Dr. Dawd S. Siraj, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University.

The conference was put on by US Doctors for Africa, People to People, and Zambian International and Investment Centre (ZITIC).  I had to leave the conference during the first morning to interview US Ambassador to Ethiopia Patricia M. Haslach for People to People Radio – more about that in a later blog.

Internet access and wifi in the otherwise-excellent Capital Hotel and in the African Union building were not reliable – so this is my first opportunity to post to my blog since 19 May.

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Here is what the African Union campus looks like from the air – on 22 May as we flew from Addis to Lalibela:
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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

19 October 2019: Links Updated.

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