By Diana Brement,
JTNews Columnist
Standing on a beach, or a bluff overlooking the ocean, we are impressed by the power of crashing waves, and opening our electric or gas bill we are distressed by the cost of powering our lives.
Alla Weinstein came up with a way to link the two by designing a buoy that generates electricity as it bobs up and down on the waves.
An emigrant from the former Soviet Union, Alla arrived in New York when she was just 21. Housed with her family at a welfare hotel in Manhattan, she says, “I cried for the first two weeks.”
Motivated to complete the engineering degree she started in the Soviet Union, she enrolled first at Yeshiva University then at Stevens Institute of Technology, where they gladly gave her credit for the classes in math and science she took in Russia, but refused to give her credit for a course on history of the Communist Party.
She completed her degree in two years, then met and married her husband Dennis.
Her specialty in high-frequency processing landed her a job with Honeywell, moving first to Minneapolis, then to Phoenix, and finally to Seattle in 1997 with their kids, Michelle and Joshua.
In 1999, after designing and installing navigation systems on Russian airplanes, Alla left Honeywell to become a consultant. During that time, she learned about wave energy technology and was inspired to start her own company, AquaEnergy Group. Her plan was to work with the waves in Neah Bay on Washington’s northwest coast to generate electricity.
“I thought I knew something about running a business,” Alla says. “I had been a successful corporate employee. Now I say, “˜Could I have been more naïve?'”
Yet the company succeeded and in 2006 she sold it to a Canadian firm.
“There is no school and no work experience that can prepare you for a startup, especially in an industry that doesn’t exist,” Alla reflects. ” I just had to plug in and go forward.”
The biggest obstacle to developing wave and other alternative energies is money, plain and simple. Weinstein is continually frustrated by public and political figures’ lack of interest in investing the billions of dollars to develop energy alternatives.
“It takes a lot of business and ethical will,” she says, “It can’t be driven by where the profits are,” but what the future will bring.
Alla continues to work in renewable energy in a new company called Principle Power, focusing on offshore wind and solar power. She’s very excited about offshore wind, which takes away the visual pollution of land-bound wind farms, putting the wind towers out of sight of the shore. “Half of what we generate today could come from offshore renewables,” such as algae, she notes.
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Terry Azose of Mercer Island has been appointed to a second term as a member of the World ORT constitution and bylaws committee.
Founded over 100 years ago, ORT — the Organization for Rehabilitation and Training — provides training and education that helps over 300,000 people each year in 62 countries.
An ORT member for 30 years, Azose has served in many capacities locally, nationally and internationally, including as vice president of leadership development and outreach on the executive committee of Women’s American ORT.
This past February, Terry met with Israel’s Minister of Education and a group of Israeli mayors to launch Phase 6 of WO’s Science Journey program and to dedicate new technology in the organization’s Kadoorie youth village. The human resource coordinator for Morris Piha Real Estate Services, Terry is also on the Los Angeles ORT Technical Institute board.
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Goldie Silverman recently retired from a volunteer job she’s held for 19 years at New Beginnings, a shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence.
Over the years the local author (Backpacking With Babies and Small Children and a series of healthy cookbooks with Jacquie Williams) has done many things there, from office work to counseling.
Her involvement in New Beginnings started as research for a novel.
“It was an old-fashioned romance,” she says, but the main female character worked in a domestic violence center. To develop the character, Goldie took the New Beginnings training and committed to one year as a volunteer. “They needed me, so I just stayed on…It’s a wonderful agency.”
She would have completed the full 20 years, but a back injury sidelined her in June, and it seemed like a good time to stop. She stepped down from the religious practices committee at Temple Beth Am at the same time, but hasn’t stopped volunteering.
“I’m going to do short term projects,” she says.
She’s currently involved with Seattle Freelances, meets regularly with her writer’s group, and keeps fit with exercise classes and a weekly hiking group. She and her husband Don travel often and will go to India this fall. They spend every Tuesday babysitting their granddaughter, Nina.
“I’m still pretty busy,” says Goldie.