Bill Kiehnbaum provided today's "Member Minute". Bill describes himself as a "river rat", having grown up in the river town of Winona, MN. He and wife Jean have two adult daughters, both of whom are involved in the medical profession, so he has had lots of advice during the past year of the pandemic. Bill has been involved with Shoreview's "Sister City" program for many years and has visited our sister city in Germany a number of times. He and Jean have also taken many trips to the Rocky Mountains to pursue their passion for hiking. Bill is retired from his career as a Certified Internal Auditor and affirms that - yes - often times good people do bad things!
Paul Gardner, who spoke to us recently about his work heading up the state board which oversees clean water activities, was again present, this time as a stand-in for the scheduled speaker. Paul is a guy of many interests and so he graciously agreed to share information about one of this avocations - the subject of genetic geneology, which he described as a "side hustle". Many of us have submitted DNA samples to Ancestry or 23 And Me in order to learn more about where our ancestors come from. Paul has taken it much further and learned how to solve mysteries using these databases. He has helped two people find birth fathers and also solved a missing persons case. The ever-increasing amount of DNA information now available online has begun helping police solve cases that have gone cold. The most well publicized of these was the identification of the "Golden State Killer" in 2018, who has been charged with 13 murders and 50 rapes dating back to the '70's and '80's. Not everyone supports the wide-spread availability of this information due to privacy concerns. Not everyone wants to be found and not all stories have happy endings.