Former Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Ken Feinberg will be The Westport Library’s guest for its latest Common Ground Initiative conversation, sharing his experience and expertise in bringing people together to analyze, understand, and resolve complex disputes.
Feinberg will be in discussion with moderator Steve Parrish.
The event will be held Tuesday, October 15, at 7 pm in the Library’s Trefz Forum. Registration is free and strongly encouraged.
The Common Ground Initiative is The Westport Library’s forum for public discourse on topical issues of importance to the community. The aim of the initiative is to host a positive, productive conversation on how we work together to move forward as a civil society; encourage respectful, constructive dialogue; and build capacity to tackle challenging and/or controversial issues. The program planning for the initiative is led by The Westport Library in conjunction with community leaders representing a wide array of constituents and ideological standpoints.
Previous Common Ground guests include former Missouri Senator Roy Blount and Pfizer Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Sally Susman.
Tuesday night’s event is designed to provide insight into conflict resolution that attendees can apply to their professional or personal lives and to serve as an opportunity to learn from an expert in the field who has successfully mediated some of the most challenging disputes in modern American history. It will focus on techniques for fostering civil discourse and conflict resolution.
During more than 40 years of public service, Feinberg has established himself as the nation’s leading expert in bringing conflicting parties together to reach acceptable resolution of their complex disagreements. That work includes his appointment with the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, where he served for 33 months. Feinberg wrote about the experience in his best-selling book What is Life Worth?, which was the basis for the 2005 movie Worth, starring Michael Keaton.
Feinberg currently serves as the court-appointed mediator in the Imerys/Cyprus talc bankruptcy in Delaware and was formerly the court-appointed mediator in the Hess-Honx asbestos bankruptcy in Texas. In addition to his work with the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, Feinberg has served in a variety of public compensation and related funding programs over the past 25 years, was appointed by the Obama Administration to oversee compensation of victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and was the mediator in the successful effort to return an original Chagall painting from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to its original family owners in Europe.
Parrish is the founder of Steve Parrish Consulting Group, LLC, which specializes in crisis management, corporate social responsibility, public affairs, and communications for senior executives of corporations, law firms, and nonprofit organizations. Previously, Parrish was senior vice president, corporate affairs, of Altria Group, Inc., and served as secretary of the Public Affairs and Social Responsibility Committee of the board of directors of Altria Group, Inc.
Parrish is a member of the board of directors of Orchestra Lumos. He also is a board member emeritus and past board chair of Safe Horizon, an internationally recognized leader in the field of victim assistance, as well as a board member emeritus of Carleton College.
