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Environmental Activist Erin Brockovich to Speak at Daemen College
Environmental Activist Erin Brockovich to Speak
at Daemen College April 22, 2010
March 16, 2010
Media
Contact: Mike Andrei
Director-College Relations
(716) 839-8472
mandrei@daemen.edu
Event
Information: Daemen Conferences &
Events Office
(716) 839-8253
www.daemen.edu
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, who, as an unknown legal researcher, became a 20th century icon by winning the largest medical settlement lawsuit in US history, will speak at Daemen College, 7:30 p.m., Thursday, April 22, 2010. Brockovich’s talk, “Moral Choices and Environmental Justice,” will serve as the keynote address to the 2010 Daemen College Academic Festival, and will be held in Wick Center on the Daemen campus, 4380 Main Street in Amherst. It will be free and open to the public. Daemen College acknowledges the generosity of KeyBank Foundation, and Robert Warren and the Estate of Rupert Warren in helping to make this event possible.
The Daemen College Academic Festival centers on student presentations to the community and campus guests, providing a showcase for academic achievement and excellence through student and faculty presentations, exhibitions, and performances. These presentations may reflect work done in a single discipline or be interdisciplinary in nature, and range in form from posters, papers, panel discussions, exhibits, or videos, to artistic, musical, or theatrical performances.
Erin Brockovich is a modern-day David who loves a good brawl with today’s Goliaths. A rebel, a fighter, a mother, and a woman, she thrives on being the voice for those who don’t know how to yell.
In the years since Julia Roberts starred in the Oscar-winning, tour de force Erin Brockovich, turning an unknown legal researcher into a 20th century icon, winning the largest medical settlement lawsuit in US history, Brockovich hasn’t been resting on her laurels she continues to fight hard and win big. Never apologizing for who she is, she has always loved going head to head with the big boys and was never intimated by their bravado.
Brockovich learned how to come out on top from her tight-knit mid-western family in Lawrence, Kansas, the youngest child of an industrial engineer father and journalist mother. Her parents always believed that she could do anything she set her mind to if she learned to focus her amazing energy. After a few years at various colleges, Erin decided that she wanted to be a California girl, first landing a job as a management trainee for K-Mart. She took a shot at studying electrical engineering, when, on a fluke, she entered the Miss Pacific Coast beauty pageant and won the title.
When she realized that beauty pageants weren’t her thing, Erin, her husband and two children settled in Reno, Nevada. After divorcing, the single mother became a secretary at a brokerage firm where she met and married her second husband. The marriage was short lived, and the now mother of three was solo again.
Up until this point, Erin was the average divorced single mother trying to make a living until she crossed paths with lawyer, Ed Masry, and changed the course of both their lives. After being seriously injured in a traffic accident in Reno, Brockovich moved back to California’s San Fernando Valley, and hired Masry & Vititoe to represent her. They won a small settlement but she still needed work, so she got a job at their law firm as a file clerk; it was while organizing records on a pro bono real estate case that Erin first found medical records that would explode into the largest direct action lawsuit in US history.
Brockovich’s exhaustive investigation uncovered that Pacific Gas & Electric had been poisoning the small town of Hinkley’s water for over 30 years. Erin’s unwavering tenacity exposed PG & E’s actions leaking toxic Chromium 6 into the ground water. This poison drastically, and negatively, affected the health of the population of Hinkley. In 1996, as a result of the largest direct action lawsuit of its kind, spear-headed by Erin and Ed Masry, the utility giant was forced to pay out the largest toxic tort injury settlement in US history: $333 million in damages to more than 600 Hinkley residents.
The story, and the eventual film that followed, helped make the Erin Brockovich a household name. Over time, Erin realized that she could use her notoriety to spread positive messages of personal empowerment and to encourage others to stand up and make a difference.
Since that time, Brockovich has conquered all forms of media: Her first TV project was ABC’s 2001 special “Challenge America With Erin Brockovich,” where she helped motivate and organize the rebuilding of a dilapidated park in downtown Manhattan. This show is best described as Extreme Make-Over Home Edition on steroids.
Following that, for three seasons, Erin hosted the Lifetime series, “Final Justice With Erin Brockovich,” a show that celebrated everyday women who triumphed when faced with overwhelming adversity. Erin then triumphed in the world of publishing with her New York Times Business best-seller, Take It From Me. Life’s A Struggle, But You Can Win.
Erin has become the champion of countless women and men. She is this generation’s “Dear Abby” and in fact receives thousands of Dear Erin letters and emails each year from people who are searching, often desperately, for help and support in their own personal struggles. Erin proudly answers every one of them.
As President of Brockovich Research & Consulting, she is currently involved in numerous environmental projects worldwide. A heavily requested speaker on the international lecture circuit, she travels the world for personal appearances.
Erin Brockovich is a true American hero whose icon status and, in her words, “stick-to-it-iveness” only fuels her determination to expose injustice and lend her voice to those who do not have one. She has requests for her help in ground water contamination complaints in every state of the US, Australia and other international hot spots. She is currently working on cases in California, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri.
Erin lives in Southern California with her husband, three children and 5 Pomeranians and admits to one guilty pleasure: shopping!
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