• Kelly Ayotte
• Jim Bender
• Ovide Lamontagne

Time:       5:30pm   Buffet Dinner ($14)
                6:30pm   Meeting

Place:      Shanghai Restaurant
                331 South Main Street
                Laconia, NH
                (603) 524-4100
                (see map below)

Agenda:

Special Speakers

Bob and Marion Bestani will celebrate their thirty-sixth wedding anniversary this year. They met while students at the University of Chicago. Theirs was a quick courtship; engaged in two weeks and married five months later, just before Christmas. Thus began an adventure spanning many years and continents. Bob and Marion have two grown children: William, an attorney and Elizabeth, a high school guidance counselor.

Bob Bestani is a businessman and a financial expert who is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects at  Stanford University. As a resident of Newmarket, he is the former Chairman of both the Municipal Audit and Energy Committees and serves as a member of the Municipal Budget Committee.  He is also a member of the Republican State Committee and Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Rockingham County Republican Committee.

Until May of 2008, Bob served as the Director General of Private Sector Finance at the Asian Development Bank, a multilateral bank dedicated to alleviating poverty in Asia. In the six years in which he served in that capacity, ADB’s private sector financings and earnings grew by over 40 times their 2001 levels, while portfolio quality and earnings steadily improved. Working closely with most of the countries of Asia, the Private Sector Department grew from the smallest of ADB’s departments to the largest and most successful operating unit of the ADB. In March of 2008 the Bank’s Board adopted private sector financings as the leading priority of the ADB for the years ahead.

Prior to joining the ADB Bob was a Managing Director and Senior Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP. For most of his career, he has been in  banking and corporate finance, working at a variety of Fortune 100 companies.  Bob has long covered the High Tech, Petroleum/Oil & Gas and Power Industries.

Bob also served in the U.S. Department of the Treasury during the first Bush Administration (GHWB 1989-1992).  His principal responsibilities included: the G-7 negotiations and the Paris and Houston Presidential Summit Meetings, several international trade and financial services negotiations, US-IMF policy coordination, the management of America’s $20 billion foreign currency reserve position, policy coordination with Federal Reserve, etc.

Bob holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago (where he serves as member of the Global Advisory Board) and a BA in Economics and Computer Science from Rutgers University.

A family man, Bill and Nina (his wife of 21 years) have 4 great children (Heather, Adam, Dylan and Colin) and live in Rye. He is an avid outdoorsman who hunts, hikes and races cars.  In fact, Bill is a champion driver having won his class at the 24 Hours of LeMans twice.

After high school, Bill attended Harvard University on a scholarship, but paid his room and board by working on cars as a mechanic. Bill also managed to serve as a research fellow for the Accounting Review, a well known technical journal about finance and accounting.   Upon graduation from Harvard College, Bill continued at Harvard Business School.  He became the president of one of the largest student organizations on campus, the Management Consulting Club, and spent his summer working at the prestigious McKinsey & Co.

Bill Binnie, 51, has built a number of successful companies and has created thousands of jobs throughout his career. Establishing himself as a real problem-solver in the business community, Bill’s group of companies is one of the larger employers on the Seacoast of New Hampshire. He understands economic challenges and knows common sense conservative solutions to fix them.

Carlisle Plastics was voted one of Wal-Mart’s “Vendor’s of the Year” and Bill was one of the youngest CEO’s on the New York Stock Exchange at the age of 32.  By 1992, Forbes Magazine called him “energetic and bright” and a “whirlwind of a manager”.  He built Carlisle Plastics into an industry-leading company employing thousands of workers around the globe.  Today, Bill is the President of Carlisle Capital Corporation in Portsmouth, NH.  Bill has been involved in a wide range of businesses from high tech to manufacturing, small companies as well as large global enterprises. Bill has the background and experience New Hampshire and our nation needs in these difficult times.

Karen was raised in a modest home in a small California farming community where she developed her core beliefs as a social and fiscal conservative. Her grandparents immigrated from Japan and Poland. Although her grandparents were prevented from becoming naturalized citizens until their sunset years, they raised their children to be proud Americans. Her father was a member of the 442nd Battalion, the most highly decorated battalion, during World War II. She met her husband David Testerman at college. While David served in the U.S. Air Force Karen devoted herself to providing a nurturing home for their four children. Their sons are active duty members of the Air Force and Navy. Their eldest daughter is a Coast Guard veteran.  The Testerman’s moved to New Hampshire in 1993 and currently live in Franklin.

Karen is a long time advocate of family values and rights. She joined with a group of grassroots activists who fought the introduction of Goals 2000 in New Hampshire to a standstill. As Executive Director of Cornerstone Policy Research (a New Hampshire family policy organization she founded in 2000), she became the leading voice for the traditional family. She led the fight on numerous family rights issues. Karen is also the “go-to” person for national pro-family groups' activities in the State. She is a recipient of the Family Research Council Family Faith and Freedom Award and the Cornerstone Policy Research William Wilberforce Award. NH Magazine selected her as one of their Remarkable Women. Karen was host of a weekly radio show called “New Hampshire Policy and People” that covered a variety of topics that affect the family. She is also a columnist and author.

She established the Steward of the Family Award to recognize individuals in NH who made a difference for strengthening and/or defending family values. Later she established the coveted William Wilberforce Award given to person in public policy who exemplifies the statesmanship and diligence of abolitionist, William Wilberforce. These awards are presented at the annual fundraising dinners with prominent national figures like Ken Starr, Star Parker, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, and Oklahoma State Senator Steve Russell, retired US Army.   Karen has the ability to build broad coalitions of diverse groups to accomplish common goals. These have included pro family, pro gun, taxpayer groups, political leaders, military groups and religious leaders.

Karen has been active with several organizations such as Coalition of NH Taxpayers, Faith Based Action Network, the New Hampshire Alliance, NH Firearms Coalition, Church, NH Right to Life, and the Abstinence Advisory Committee of Health and Human Services. She served as the co-chair to develop the Faith Based Community Initiative in NH and is a member of the NH Firearms Coalition and a life member of Gun Owners of NH. She was also the only NH representative to First Lady Laura Bush’s Conference on Helping America’s Youth.

Karen holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology and has been certified to teach (and has taught) science courses through the college level. 

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