April 25, 2015

Finest Hour 117, Winter 2002-03

Page 13

Daniel N. Myers

Churchill Centre Executive Director

A member of The Churchill Centre since 1992, Daniel N. (Dan) Myers, 60, traces his enthusiasm to Martin Gilbert’s Churchill: A Life, presented to him as a Christmas gift by his wife Eileen. Opening our first fulltime office in Washington on January 1st, Dan is excited about the opportunities for the Centre to reach out to young people through targeted programs at the high school level, knowing they can be turned on to the life of a man who, despite a mixed showing in school, led a swashbuckling life and was revered as one of the greatest statesmen of all time.

A native of Kansas, Dan is a graduate of Coffeyville, Kansas, Community College and the University of Oklahoma and holds a law degree from Georgetown University Law Centre in Washington. He served in the Army Security Agency from 1964 to 1968, then moved to Washington, where he and Eileen lived for twenty years. Dan began his career in association management as manager of Federal Legislative Affairs with the American Institute of CPAs. In 1977, he joined the nowNational Propane Gas Association as Director of Legislative Affairs and Associate Counsel. He was soon promoted to Vice President Government Affairs and General Counsel; in 1989 he moved to Chicago, and was designated the chief staff executive officer of this 3700 member trade association from which he retired in 2002.

Dan has found that the teachings of Winston Churchill have much relevance in the field of association management. Churchill was a great believer in the power of personal diplomacy. No matter how sophisticated our communications technology may become, ultimately associations are a “people” business that depend upon the successful amalgam of varying backgrounds and interests, frequently requiring faceto-face meetings not unlike those of the “Big Three” during World War II.

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Associations also live or die on their ability to communicate their mission and their vision, and Churchill the great communicator, would have excelled in Dan’s role. Association executives cannot order or dictate; they must convince, persuade and cajole— skills which Churchill honed to perfection. Dan says these qualities, coupled with Churchill’s admonition to to look at the Big Picture while keeping your eye on the details, has stood him in good stead in his professional career.

Dan’s wife Eileen is an Irish citizen and the two travel frequently to Dublin to visit her family. They have two children: their daughter Yvette, an elementary school teacher, is married and lives in France with a six-year-old son; their son John is a naval architect living in Seattle with his wife and their newly-born son.

LAURENCE GELLER

Churchill Centre Vice Chairman

Transplanted to Memphis, Tennessee, Londoners Ruth and Laurence Geller decided in 1982 to buy a flat in Westminster, a stone’s throw from Parliament, to keep “one foot in our native England.” Plaques on buildings testifying to Churchill’s onetime presence fueled Laurence’s curiosity. Biographies were bought and a passion born, its flames fueled by Laurence’s father Harold, an eminent bandleader, who told myriad stories of performing in front of Churchill in postwar London.

Today Laurence, an avid student of Churchill, is Vice Chairman of The Churchill Centre and Chairman of “Campaign D-Day,” its 2003 fundraising campaign. He wrote our powerful new mission statement (page 2) and is our house expert on Churchill’s involvement with Free Masonry.

Born in London in 1947, Laurence decided early to become a hotelier and at the age of 16 started his career as “the lowest form of hotel life”— a kitchen porter in the bowels of a Swiss hotel. A one-time chef at the Connaught Hotel in London, he worked his way up to senior executive positions, being recruited to join Holiday Inn in Memphis in 1976 to oversee their international division.

Living in Chicago for the past fifteen years, in 1997 Laurence founded and is chairman and CEO of Strategic Hotel Capital, which currently owns twenty-seven luxury and upscale hotels in North America and Europe. The company’s advertisement series featuring Winston Churchill has been featured in Finest Hour 112 and 114.

A sought-after speaker in the Tourism Industry, Laurence peppers his speeches with Churchill quotations, anecdotes and lessons. He lights up when asked why Churchill became his inspiration: “I’ve been knocked down so many times professionally, as had Churchill, that knowing he had the persistence, fortitude and above all belief in himself to bounce back and finally to realize his full potential forced me time and again to dust myself off and get back into the fray.”

A runner with twenty marathon medals to his credit, a board member of Children’s Hospital in Chicago and other civic and educational institutions, Laurence is supported by “his tower of strength and long suffering wife” Ruth and three grown children.

On January 30th, Laurence received the Anti-Defamation League’s 2003 Horatio Alger Award, which honors “achievements of outstanding individuals who have emigrated to the United States, succeeded in the face of adversity, made exceptional commitment to business and philanthropy, and championed the well-being of the nation through their words and deeds.” The Churchill Centre is proud to be associated with these two accomplished leaders and is highly confident in their abilities which will help lead us “Onwards to Victory.”