Bats Attract for Water Conservation Message

Published October 18, 2009

By Mae Lee Sun
TNAZ Regional Correspondent

Participants in an earthworks workshop led by Emily Brott, of the Sonoran Institute, used ancient technologies to build a basin for rainwater capture at the Ward One Tucson City Council office.
Credit: Sonoran Institute

The late summer launch at dusk of 40,000 Mexican free-tail bats from under a Campbell Avenue bridge.

Two new water-harvesting ordinances to go into effect in January.

A group of volunteers working with landowners to repair the ecosystem in a 70,000-square-mile region of the Southwest known as Sky Island.

These three are faces of conservation science applied for Tucson’s future.

The Sky Island Alliance, for example, is working to bring water back to natural areas endangered by off-road recreation, development and inadequate agricultural practices, said Melanie Emerson, the group’s executive director.

“We’re primarily working with private landowners of large tracts in the region on simple, implementable methods,” she said. “That most definitely includes technology that has been used for millennia like one rock dams and gabions (sand-filled cages).”

The alliance melds the science of conservation biology with on-the-ground restoration done by volunteers.

Efforts to restore grasses and native vegetation have created natural habitat that attract insects, birds and mid- to larger-sized mammals and predators, which in turn Emerson said, has helped revive populations of endangered species like the Chiricahua leopard frog.

Sweat Tech hasn’t changed much since the Hohokam, but tools look different, certainly.
Credit: Sonoran Institute

Emerson said her group “connects the dots” between conservation planning and conservation action.

The City of Tucson is using the law to put conservation into action.

In January, 50 percent of the water used for landscaping commercial buildings must come from water harvesting. Currently, 40 percent of Tucson’s drinking water is being used on landscaping. Emily Brott, project manager for the Sun Corridor Legacy Program of the Sonoran Institute, described water harvesting in Tucson as a process based on the ancient engineering of the Hokoham and Anasazis, who used systems of dams, canals and terracing to ensure their crops had enough water.

“The first line of defense, if you will, is the application of earthworks,” she said. “That means going back to building berms and basins that use gravity to direct the rain where you want it to go.”

She pointed out that this methodology is cheaper than using more costly gutters and cisterns to gather water off roofs.

“If you do your calculations right, you can gather enough … to use only water harvested from monsoon season and rain to water landscaping that consists primarily of native plants,” Brott said.

Instead of watching water run through the streets — which have essentially functioned as gutters — the city is implementing curb cuts to ease flooding and accommodate landscaping in medians and sidewalk areas. As water gets redirected, it eases the buildup of oil, trash and grim that ends up in washes and overloads the ecosystem.

Additionally a second new ordinance calls on all new residential construction to have a gray water stub-out. “Your washing machine, for example, has to be plumbed to bring the water outside, if the homeowner chooses to do so,” Brott said.

Last month, the dusk launch of 40,000 free-tail bats attracted hundreds in Tucson to the banks of the Rillito River. Hosted by the Rillito River Project, water conservation and diversity were the themes, and large, white balloons helped to depict changing water levels.
Credit: Mae Lee Sun

Gray water is wastewater that can be used for irrigation of gardens and other landscaping.

Now, about those bats.

The Rillito River Project, an arts organization, has had at least four presentations to increase awareness of the vanishing rivers of the Southwest, and this September used the summer flight of the bats to draw attention to the region’s water issues.

Before the 40,000 bats took off from under the bridge that spans the Rillito for their nightly feeding of mosquitoes and other insects, local actor Sean Dupont spoke to the crowd gathered in the dry riverbed of the river’s history, offering a sort of water timeline.

“1775, when the Spanish Presidio was established in downtown Tucson, the Rillito River flowed four feet deep,” Dupont said. “There was water in the river where Saint Xavier Mission stands. “

The water table has risen and fallen during the past several hundred years, starting with how the Hohokam harvested water to grow beans, corn and squash, cholla buds and mesquite beans, Dupont said.

With the increase in Anglo settlers and agricultural development, he said, Tucson established a municipal water system in the 1900s — initially through tapping a spring and directing it through gravity feeds that eventually required pump technology to supply volume.

By the 1950s, the water table sunk from 20 feet underground to 75 feet underground.

For more information:
Sonoran Institute (520) 290-0828 www.sonoraninstitute.org
Sky Island Alliance (520) 624-7080 www.skyislandalliance.org
Rillito River Project (520) 955-3429 www.rillitoriverproject.org

Sports Drink Founder says the Secret is All in the Mix

Published October 9, 2009

By Mae Lee Sun
Regional Correspondent, TNAZ

Drs. Lou Lancero and Sal Tirrito
Credit: Mae Lee Sun

When two driven medical students met, they might have foreseen becoming well respected cardiologists. But even given their shared commitment to endurance sports like competitive cycling and triathlon, for Tucson-based physicians Sal Tirrito and Lou Lancero, it was unlikely that they could have foreseen the success of what together they would create, XOOD, a sports endurance drink. But once they started, their intense competitive spirits wanted to blow any other product out of the water.

“Being in the sport (of triathlon) I’ve tried all the endurance drink products out there. As physicians, Lou and I looked at the ingredients and said we could do better. It didn’t have to be artificially neon blue or orange. We wanted to make a product that was pure and not full of empty calories,” says Tirrito, who took the lead in developing XOOD.

According to Tirrito, manufacturers, attempting to keep their costs and resale prices down, add inexpensive and largely ineffective ingredients like artificial preservatives and emulsifying agents. Even when some so-called ‘natural’ ingredients are added like stevia, sourced from a South American herb and used as a sugar substitute for its sweetness, the nutritional value is up for question.

However, including certain kinds of proteins and carbohydrates and finding the right ratio of protein to carbs was what Tirrito was shooting for in his formulation of XOOD. While supplying nutrition, Tirrito sought to make a drink that would convert efficiently to useable energy. Like any good scientist, he conducted his own experiment, followed by a field test to establish the validity of his claims.

” I went shopping at GNC and bought all the raw ingredients of what I thought would benefit athletes the most in their performance — vitamins, minerals, herbs, flavors, carbs and specific kind of proteins. For six months I tested the basic formula out on my friends who were athletes and got feedback. I started asking myself what if it also had health benefits in addition to performance?” he recalled. Tirrito then took the rough product to a nutritional chemist to refine the mix that would become XOOD.

At the Asheville, NC, half marathon in September 2009, Marcus Hille, 36, placed 6th at 1:28. He credits XOOD for his kick performances.
Credit: Marcus Hille

In his first attempts at marketing the product, Tirrito met with resistance. Manufacturers suggested he add certain chemicals, preservatives, colors and artificial sweeteners. They didn’t seem to understand why he’d want to use ingredients that were more costly than what was common in more standard energy drinks.

Tirrito found success in refining the mix when Arthur Winegrad became involved. Winegrad is a chemist and vice-president for research and development with Arizona Nutritional Supplements in Chandler. Winegrad was able to deliver the ingredients and end product Tirrito had envisioned.

“I’ve worked in this field for 13 years and with a lot of sports drink clients,” says Winegrad. “Dr Tirrito’s formula was really different. He wanted the product to be easy on the stomach, water soluble and have a specific carb-to-protein ratio along with very specific amounts of electrolytes, vitamins, and minerals per serving. Anytime you have an all natural formula, you’re going to pay more. Right down to the flavors, there’s no synthetics in XOOD which is very different from what’s on the market,” says Winegrad. If synthetics were used, it would reduce the retail cost of XOOD by one half to two thirds.

The real role Winegrad says he played was helping Tirrito get the active ingredients and amounts right. There are no FDC colors or flavors. Instead, the three different flavors that XOOD comes in — Pomegranate, Mangosteen and Green Tea with Lemon — are actually sourced from those ingredients. The subtle, pink color of the powdered mix comes from beet root and not a synthetic dye. When the final product was ready, Tirrito launched it at sporting events like marathons and triathlons, which attracted athletes like 36-year-old Marcus Hille, at six-foot eight inches tall, a competitive distance runner from Sedona.

“It is important to me as an endurance athlete to know that what I am putting into my body is going to provide me with the energy I need to sustain the intensity I desire, and that it’s also good for me with no extra junk that may be harmful in the long term. I will often slam a Green Tea XOOD before hitting the road to give me an energy boost and Pomegranate is good for long runs of up to three hours or more,” says Hille.

In addition to sponsoring both pro and amateur athletes and launching a XOOD cycling and triathlon team, Tirrito and Lancero have headed back to the labs to work on yet another new product – a readymade drink in the XOOD line geared toward the health club market.

This Beer is Crafted! Old World Technology, New Tastes Brewing

Published September 3, 2009

Tech News Arizona

By Mae Lee Sun
TNAZ Regional Correspondent

Dennis Arnold of Barrio Brewing and Gentle Ben’s in Tucson is here “metering-in” beer through a stainless filter chamber.
Credit: Mae Lee Sun

Brew master Dennis Arnold is really a chemist seeking to clone his creations.

If a craft brewer doesn’t understand the intricacies of balancing ingredients, Arnold, co-owner of Tucson’s Barrio Brewing Co., said, “You’ve got nothing.”

“Every beer style has its parameters in a dozen different objective and subjective tastes, aromas and mouth-feel observations,” he said. “The beauty about any given beer style is that you will end up with thousands of different beers crafted even when every brewer is looking at the same definition of a given style.”

Skilled brewers recognize the variables and how to counteract combinations so one’s beer is as close to a clone as possible to the last batch, Arnold said.

“Not even Budweiser can brew the exact beer every time, so they as a practice, blend 10 different batches every time to homogenize the end product,” he explained.

Arnold said he has been blending and brewing various lambics, ales, lagers and stouts since he graduated from college in the early ‘80s and visited brewpubs in San Francisco.

The craft-beer “movement,” as he called it, was on the fringe and considered a tradition of the past, relegated to the basements of European homes and monasteries.

Beer connoisseurs, though, who felt the quality of beer suffered in mass production, started to go back to the basics by either investing in or opening their own breweries, according to the Brewers Association, based in Boulder, Colo.

Julie Herz, the association’s craft beer program director, said the American palate is changing and craft brew masters have the flexibility to experiment.

“Americans now want different style beers for different occasions and not just the standard lager for everything,” she said. “If you look at what’s going on with wines, chocolate and coffee, it’s the same thing, right?”

For example, Papago Brewing Co. in Scottsdale, which sells brews made for them by Oak Creek Brewing in Sedona and Sonora Brewing Co. in Scottsdale, sells “Coconut Joe” milk stout with desserts and Hawaiian-style pizza. Old World Brewery in Phoenix crafts its own Summer Saguaro Wheat Ale, which has fresh saguaro fruit pulp added, to pair with fish, Italian food, burgers and hot dogs.

During University of Arizona Wildcat’s basketball season, Barrio Brewing offers NCAALE, an English double-strong ale with a full-bodied malt flavor.

Stainless fermentation tanks at Old World Brewery in Phoenix.
Credit: Perry Parmely, Old World Brewery

Again, it’s all in the chemistry.

Is that sudsy, golden, slightly bitter taste of your favorite ale on tap from the malt? Is it the proportion of hops and measure of bitterness? Live cultures and morphing bacteria?

Considered an old-world technology, aging beer in used, wooden barrels is the newest development, Herz said, in the craft-brewing arena because of the fermentation process that takes place in wooden barrels.

The barrels are inoculated with wild bacteria to impart additional flavors that may already be present in the wood, like the rum or chardonnay previously stored in some.

“It’s taken awhile for beer quality to get to this level, but it’s a good example of the way in which the allied trade and suppliers have adjusted to smaller, craft brewers becoming players in what’s available in varieties of beer,” Herz said.

“We don’t have any beer under wood right now,” says Barrio’s Arnold. “Barrels make a great brew, and we’d been making one we really liked from bourbon casks. But as soon as casking got popular, barrel prices have gone way up, and the good ones are tough to get now,” he adds.

And as the quality of ingredients – the main three always yeast, barley and hops — has changed through more advanced farming techniques and the addition of spices and exotic flavors, so too has the available quantity of these.

Vermont, widely known for its rich, agricultural land, has the greatest number of breweries per capita and an article in the summer 2009 edition of Local Banquet magazine reported that many of the ingredients in those beers, like barley, hops, wheat, raspberries, pumpkin and honey are now being sourced within the state by encouraging local farms to become more sustainable.

The number of U.S. breweries is the highest it’s been in 100 years. Although 56 breweries closed throughout the country last year, another 122 opened. The microbrew sector in general has grown to approximately 1,500 breweries in the U.S., generating close to $6 billion a year.

There are approximately 30 craft breweries across Arizona.

In this state, breweries have suffered a bit by the global increase in pricing and shortage of hops and barley. Electric Brewing Company, a boutique brewery in Bisbee, closed after seven years of doing business.

“Survival depends on thinking globally and drinking locally,” Arnold said.

For more information on Arizona craft breweries, brewpubs and seasonal beers:
www.seasonalbeerandfood.org
www.beertown.org

Tri’ing Is Good For Tech & Business: pt 2

Published August 20, 2009

By Mae Lee Sun
TNAZ Regional Correspondent

Training Bible coach, Tom Manzi, of Tubac & New Jersey, conducts an open water swim clinic for Tucson TriGirls triathlon club, at Lake Patagonia.
Credit: Mae Lee Sun

Floyd Landis, (seated far left) and his cycling team, Team Ouch, visited TriSports.com earlier this year to market the team products the store carries.
Credit: Mae Lee Sun

Nutritional performance products like XOOD and Clif are continually tested in the field by competitive triathletes like Tom Manzi (smiling), sponsored by both companies.
Credit: Mae Lee Sun

Corporate Internships Pave the Way for San Miguel Students

Biz Tucson Magazine- Summer 2009

By Mae Lee Sun

To Jared Juan, doubt is “only a temporary state of mind.”  And it was the farthest thing from Juan’s mind when he and 23 other students graduated from San Miguel High School on May 23.

“The real world seems like a daunting place,” Juan said in his speedch to fellow classmates, family, friends and others gathered to celebrate San Miguel’s second graduating class.

But Juan said he and classmates “will definitely be ready for the corporate world upon graduation” from the colleges and universities where all 24 graduates will enroll this fall.

Juan attributed their readiness to San Miguel’s Corporate Internship Program- an innovative program that requires each San Miguel student to work one day a week at entry-level jobs in professional settings around Tucson.

The money each student earns is poured back into San Miguel, on Tucson’s south side, where it covers about half the cost of each student’s $8,500 annual tuition.  Donations cover 30 percent, and parents-most of them low-income, many of whon never graduated from high school-pay the remaining 10 percent.

San Miguel High School, started in 2004, is one of 22 private Catholic high schools in the nationwide Cristo Rey network.

Humberto Stevens of Commerce Bank of Arizona with Elizabeth Goettel, President of San Miguel High School

The Corporate Internship program is Cristo Rey’s cornerstone, providing students with entry-level jobs wtih lawyers, bankers, doctors, engineers, accountants and others.

Juan worked for four years at the Tucson Citizen and will enroll at Northern Arizona University this fall.

Classmate Margarita Quinones will go to Pima Community College for two years, then transfer to Arizona State University or The University of Arizona. She interned this last year with El Rio Community Health Centers, where she helped with filing, called patients to remind them of appointments, and mailed out physician referral slips.

Because of her experience with El Rio children’s clinic, Quinones wants to become a pediatrician or a children’s dentist.

All 37 of San Miguel’s seniors graduated last year, and went onto college.  The same is true of all 24 of this year’s seniors.  “You’re going to be the leaders of the community, once you graduate from the college of your choice,” honorary speaker Jim Click told the students.  Click also was an honorary speaker at last year’s graduation, San Miguel’s first.

He also is one of the community leaders credited with starting San Miguel High School, and he is one of its top donors.

“I thought, ‘My kids had the benefit of a private, college-prep high school-they both went to Salpointe- and I thought, why shouldn’t kids on the south side have the same advantage,” Click told BizTucson.

“We’re changing lives,” he said.  “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done since I’ve been in Tucson.”

Elizabeth Goettel, president of San Miguel High School for the past three years, calls the Corporate Internship Program “a very practical way to serve our population of students who typically could not access a private, college-prepatory education and on-the-job-training.”

During the school’s first two years, it was under-enrolled, Goettel said.  “The families in the neighborhood did no necessarily have the benefit of a secondary or college education themselves,” she said.  “A cultural shift had to happen.  The word had to get out into the community.  This year, we met and exceeded our enrollment goal.”

The school’s Corporate Internship Program draws support from 65 of the city’s business and education leaders, including Commerce Bank of Arizona, Carondelet Health Network, The University of Arizona, Jim Click Automotive Team, Pima Community College, Cox Communications and ABA Architects.

San Miguel is a win-win for students, businesses and ultimately the community, said Humberto Stevens, vice president of business development at Commerce Bank.  He also serves on the board at San Miguel High School and is president of the Hipsanic Alumni Association at the UA.

“It really helps the students learn the skills necessary to be part of a team and blossom into an adult,” Stevens said.

Carlos Ibarra, 17, just finished his junior year at San Miguel while working in the administrative offices at Commerce Bank of Arizona.

“I can do everything except handle money, because of my age,” Ibarra said.  “I’m learning more about the business world and myself.  I feel I can either go on to become a teller or even to owning a bank.  It’s also helping me to narrow the options-what I want and don’t want.”

BizTucson contributing writer Jane Erikson contributed to this story

BizFACTS

San Miguel High School

• A total of 243 students were enrolled this past school year.  The school expects an enrollment of 360 this fall.
• Enrollment is 85 percent Hispanic; 10 percent Native American; and 5 percent African-American, Anglo and Asian.
• The school has 18 teachers and 15 staff members.

To learn more about the Corporate Intership Program, contact program director Mark Neimeyer at (520) 294-6403, ext. 1429.

Fantasy Game-Ware Helps Heart, Parkinson’s Patients

Photo by Mae Lee Sun UA professor Ann Linda Baldwin is using a biofeedback video game to help people with Parkinsons disease

Tucson company leads bio-surveillance, disease tracking tech

Dr. Xiaohui Zhang, Chief Scientist for Scientific Technologies Credit: Mae Lee Sun

Toros season off to strong start – on and off field

By Mae Lee Sun, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, June 12, 2009

Already a month into their new season, the Tucson Toros have exceeded expectations.

The independent league baseball team has split their first 10 home games with an average attendance of 4,000 fans and has sold their first player to a major league team.

Earlier this month, the Toros sold right-handed pitcher Andrew Romo to the San Francisco Giants.

Jay Zucker. Mae Lee Sun photo Advertisement

The Toros began their season in mid-May and will play home games at Hi Cortbett Field in Reid Park through Aug. 27. The team is due back in town Friday (June 19) for a three-game home stand against the Yuma Scorpians.

It was 1997, the final season for the Toros at Hi Corbett Field. The team had been a Triple-A minor league baseball franchise since 1969. The next year, after affiliating with Major League Baseball’s new Arizona Diamondbacks, Tucson’s minor league team became the Sidewinders and started playing at Tucson Electric Park. That ended last year, after owner and native Tucsonan, Jay Zucker, sold the team because it was an ‘underperforming’ market Pacific Coast League standards and new owners wanted to take it Reno.

Technically, though, when the Toros moved out of Hi Corbett, the team went to Fresno, Calif., where the team is now known as the Fresno Grizzlies, the Triple-A team for the San Francisco Giants. The Sidewinders were actually birthed from the Phoenix Firebirds, who had been the Giants’ minor league team.

Read more…link to Inside Tucson Business

New, greener Tucson Toros return to Hi Corbett field

By Mae Lee Sun, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, May 08, 2009

Back in the day, Eric May, now director of stadium operations for the Tucson Toros, was amazed at how much trash was left behind after every baseball game. There were plastic bottles, aluminum cans, cardboard and cups that all got tossed into dumpsters and taken to the landfill to be buried. May, who has worked the baseball scene for the Toros, Tucson Sidewinders and the Arizona Diamondbacks, says he wants all that to change. He has made it both a personal and professional initiative to turn the Toros operations green.

“We are a throwaway society and I’ve been aware of this ever since I was a kid.  It always bothered me, so in my personal life I’ve made it a point to be conscious of what I’m doing to not create unnecessary trash.  So when I became facilities manager at Tucson Electric Park, which was prior to the Toros coming back, I tried to implement a recycling program. I tried for three years to no avail and was told it was too costly, took too much labor, too much time and there were too many perceived barriers to get a recycling program going.  The push for green wasn’t there like it is now. In coming over to the Toros operation this year, I decided it was that important that I was going to ram it through no matter what anyone else thought.  Because the timing was right, we’ve now got the City of Tucson and Tucson Clean and Beautiful on board,” he says.

Read more…link will go to Inside Tucson Business

First-ever business-to-business green event is Friday

By Mae Lee Sun, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, April 17, 2009

The newly formed Green Media Alliance, a partnership of media related firms, will hold its first-ever business-to-business event, “How to Survive in Tough Times” Friday (April 24).

The half-day of events will feature a morning workshop, Green Marketing 101, followed by networking and exhibits and then a luncheon with the aim to bring businesses together to share solutions capitalizing on growing consumer trends demanding a green marketplace.

Jacquelyn Ottman, a Manhattan-based consultant to Fortune 500 companies, is the keynote speaker. She is responsible for the EPA’s Energy Star program that has become a familiar signpost on consumer appliances.The move to green can be a significant financial investment for a business, especially in these recessionary times, but when asked if she sees it paying off, Ottman says, business should be able to more than recoup their initial financial costs.

Read more…link will take you to Inside Tucson Business

CEO membership group expands as economy in general shrinks

By Mae Lee Sun, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, January 23, 2009

Just over fifty years ago, in 1957, Robert Norse, a CEO from Milwaukee, was quick to notice that it was ‘lonely at the top’.  Few executives in C-level positions could argue against that notion, making it easy for Norse to gather together and find solace and counsel in the company of others who felt the same.  This group of peers formally became known as the Executive Committee-TEC, and more recently, re-branded itself as, Vistage International, the world’s first and largest executive membership organization.

Based in San Diego, and operating under the original premise that it’s lonely at the top, Vistage now boasts 15,000 members worldwide in 15 countries including China.  Collectively, member companies generate over 300 billion dollars and have direct access to one another via a secured website.  Tucson came on board as one of four new markets Vistage opened in 2008, contributing to a record year for Vistage of 1,800 new members organization-wide—an eight percent increase over 2007.   Gary Hirsch, an executive with an impressive corporate background in consulting and C-level management is Vistage’s first Tucson chairperson and there are more than 12 Vistage groups with over 150 members who meet regularly in Phoenix.

Read more »

Teahouses brew community, one pot at a time

Tucson Green Times

Published January 15, 2009

By Mae Lee Sun
Just before three-thirty on a Friday afternoon, in the middle of Tucson’s Sam Hughes neighborhood, Zhu Ping Hodge puts on a pot of boiling water in preparation for an open tea tasting that takes place at the same time every week.  She’s recently returned to her shop, Seven Cups Teahouse, from China after spending several months there researching and buying new and varietals selections of high grade organic teas.

Having opened Seven Cups only four years ago, she is pleased at how popular the place has become.  Like in China and other countries around the globe, the teahouse in Tucson attracts those who are looking for everything from a serene environment in which to contemplate and rest, or come seeking education on tea culture and a comfortable place forge meaningful relationships.

Simon Smith and friends Melissa Nagelspach, Lauren Woods, and Heather Wallace enjoy good conversation over a cup of tea at Seven Cups Teahouse in Tucson. Photo by Mae Lee Sun

“Ever since the emperors and high officials made it popular to drink tea in their palaces hundreds of years ago, the common people followed.  At first, drinking tea was ceremonial, a tradition to show respect for your ancestors. But it was during the Tang dynasty in the 1300s that families adopted it as a necessary part of daily life,” She says.

Read more »

UA’s Eller College of Management to ride tailwind of green MBA trend

By Mae Lee Sun
Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, September 05, 2008

The Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona will be adding “green” coursework to its MBA curriculm.

Paul Portney, dean of the Eller College, unofficially made that announcement at a presentation he gave recently to the Sunbelt World Trade Association.

Read more »

Brooklyn Pizza gets Smart for delivery

By Mae Lee Sun
Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, August 22, 2008

By outward appearances Tony Vaccaro’s Brooklyn Pizza is a normal, successful, pizzeria. The storefront, at 534 N. Fourth Ave., is brightly painted lime-green, orange and black. A small group of hip-looking teenagers crowds around a few chrome café tables on the sidewalk, enthusiastically eating wide slices of thin crusty pizza. It’s a Friday night and Brooklyn Pizza is packed.

Inside, behind the counter, two white-aproned guys and a woman with flour-dusted faces are tossing dough, smearing sauce and dealing pepperoni as fast as they can to keep up with incoming orders. Some of those pizzas are about to be delivered by 21-year-old Fred Bohnen in Brooklyn Pizza’s newly purchased Smart car. Acquiring the car was a weighty financial decision for Vaccaro. As were other environmentally conscious changes.

Read more »

BICAS: where every part contributes to the whole

Downtown Tucsonan
April 2008
by Mae Lee Sun

“Bicas is synonymous with sustainability and social justice,” says McKinley. “Reusing bicycle parts is ecologically and economically critical for the populations we serve whose main issue is affordable transportation and often only rely on a bike. We find it important to make those resources affordable in a hands-on sort of way.”

Read more (link goes to another website-Downtown Tucsonan)

Faces of Buddhism: Tucson is becoming a hotbed of Buddhist activity. Is the religion’s popularity a significant trend or just a passing fad?

Tucson Weekly
July 12, 2007
by Mae Lee Sun

Part-time Tucsonan John Brady has made a habit out of trekking on foot up steep mountainsides and bouncing around SUVs on rugged dirt roads in the Himalayas, battling harsh conditions and struggling with language along the way.

He does all of this while searching for sacred Buddhist books called pechas. In Ladakh, the northeast region of India bordering Tibet, he’s found some. They’re at Lamayuru, a spectacular Buddhist monastery built in the 10th century at an altitude of 12,000 feet.

The great mahasiddha (mystic) Naropa is said to have meditated here, possibly reading or writing the Kangyur, as some of these pechas are called, which contain the actual words of the Buddha; or perhaps the Tengyur, those pechas that possess commentaries.

Read more…(link will go to the Tucson Weekly)

The blossoming of Menlo Park’s Linda Avenue

Downtown Tucsonan

Published May 2007

by Mae Lee Sun

ust west of I-10, sandwiched between Congress Street, St. Mary’s Road, and Silverbell Road, sits Menlo Park—one of Tucson’s oldest neighborhoods. Mac Hudson, president of the Menlo Park Neighborhood Association (MPNA) has family who’s lived there for years, although not as long as some residents whose family history in Menlo Park spans multiple generations. Most have gone about their business, working close to Downtown, where access to services like shopping and banking were convenient. When many of those businesses closed in the 70s and 80s, including El Banco, the white building that sat on the corner of Linda Avenue and Congress Street, some residents moved out, leaving older adobe and brick bungalows and former agricultural land to fall into disrepair or be abandoned.

In 2003 however, Hudson, along with a few friends and neighbors, poked around the scrubby, vacant lots, scattered with mesquites and thought these structures could somehow regain their use. One idea they had was to transform a crumbling 1905-era double-brick home with a detached coach house at 17 North Linda Avenue into a community center and public garden. After the house was purchased by Pima County in the 1980s, it served as a residence for county employees, including Ward 1’s present City Council Member, Jose Ibarra.

Hudson says, “Myself, along with other Menlo Park residents and neighborhood association members, formed the Linda Avenue (LA) Subcommittee to talk about what we wanted to see happen with the house and the land. We knew from the beginning, having spoken with past neighborhood leaders who had saved the place from destruction in the 90s that we wanted to honor the architecture and cultural traditions of the past. But we also wanted to be forward-thinking by making Linda Avenue sustainable beyond that, creating a space the neighborhood could use and learn from.”

Read more »

Home tour to help Habitat for Humanity Architects to show off achievements

Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.01.2006
By Mae Lee Sun
Special to the Arizona Daily Star

When Sonya Sotinsky and her husband, Miguel Fuentevilla, owners of FORSarchitecture + Interiors, moved into a 1928, red-brick bungalow in the Sam Hughes neighborhood, there was no question that major remodeling was needed.

Not just because they are modernist architects, but because they felt the quaint, 1,200-square-foot house wasn’t functional for their modern family of four.

Read more »

Downtown year round, the desert blooms

Downtown Tucsonan

Published, August 2006

by Mae Lee Sun

hortly after noon on a Saturday, Claudette Myers arrives at 27 N. Stone Avenue to open the doors to her enchanting women’s boutique, Desert Bloom. “You’re late Claudette! I’ve got to have those shoes I tried on yesterday. You didn’t sell them, did you?”, a loyal customer teases, yet undoubtedly knows that her fashion dream may have been thwarted by someone who called Myers, the evening before, asking her to remain open so she could pick up those very same shoes. After all, Friday is ‘shoe’ day, a day when the UPS man arrives like Santa Claus with boxes of four-inch stilettos, sequined espadrilles, rhinestone-covered slippers and simple business-style pumps. This scenario is one of many played out seven days a week in a place that women–and the men who love them–have come to adore since July 2003.

Read more…(link will take you to the Downtown Tucsonan)

Desert Mothers: Three women nurture engaged spirituality in Tucson

Tucson Weekly

Published October 4, 2001

By Mae Lee Sun

Since ancient times, the world’s deserts have been the preferred environment into which have ventured many a mystic, ascetic, shaman and sage. These spiritual seekers come to the desert to confront the essential questions of human existence and the meaning of life. From Egypt to Arizona, Moses to Castañeda, the arid, austere nature of the desert has enabled a deeper, more pure connection with “God,” “spirit” or “The Great Mystery.” Void of material reference points and worldly distractions, the desert’s empty, vast expanse is conducive to silent contemplation. With tranquil mind, heaven and earth can meet and the devotee ultimately engages in a mystical experience of harmony and oneness with everything.

In Western Christian history, venturesome spiritual hermits, from about the third century onward, were known as the Abbas, or Desert Fathers. Characteristically, they were monastic males, wrestling with their inner demons and passions in the sanctity of solitude, later returning to the monastery with heart and mind cleansed and free of sin, sex, women and temptation.

While the revelations and accounts of the Desert Fathers are important confirmations of the spiritual path, many remarkable women through the ages also shared in the quest for divine union. Although pushed to the margins of written history, they, too, ventured into the desert and lived as recluses, or in community with other women. These Ammas, or Desert Mothers, faced the same pragmatic and soul-searching challenges as their male counterparts, augmented by the cultural overlay of being female in a predominantly male tradition.

Read more…link goes to the Tucson Weekly