BORN AND RAISED

Michael Durand was born in 1955 in Merrick on Long Island in New York, USA.

Lucky to have grow up in a loving household with a wonderful brother and sister and two terrific parents,

Michael's love for family ranks at the top of the list of personal priorities.

Life-long learning ranks a close second. Education started with kindergarten through eighth grade at

Cure' of Ars Roman Catholic school. Every day was an adventure, riding his bike,

exploring his suburban town. Michael attended the ninth grade at

Merrick Avenue Junior High School and was involved in

little league baseball throughout his youth.

HIGH SCHOOL

Michael graduated in 1973 from Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick where he took on many leadership roles:

Student Government Treasurer

Junior Class Representative to the Student Government Excecutive Board

Student Representative to the Board of Education Philosophy of Education Committee

Founder and Chairman of the Ecology Club

Writer for "Hoofbeats," the school newspaper

Varsity Gymnastics

Public address and football announcer

"School Scope" on-air radio reporter for WGBB, 1240AM

JUNIOR COLLEGE

Michael spent one year (1973-74) at Nassau County Community college where he earned honors

on the Dean's List and was the leading contributing photographer for the school's yearbook, "Illusions",

Michael was also a writer and photographer for the student newspaper "Vignette"

and was the Publications Representative to the student council.

Michael worked part-time in a biomedical laboratory producing

petri dishes (agar plates) for medical diagnostics.

UNIVERSITY

The State University of New York at Stony Brook was Michael's home for three years.

As an English major and Journalism minor, Michael was the Feature Editor, then the Feature/Arts Director,

of "Statesman", the university's student newspaper.

He was an elected Student Government (Polity) senator and was the

communications representative to the Student Government.

CALIFORNIA

Michael moved to San Diego, California in 1977. In 1978

Michael moved to San Francisco where he lived for 20 years

working as a meeting planner and event producer.

(Michael moved to Pasadena in 1998 and lived there for nine years to be near his family.

Michael moved back to northern California in 2007 to take a job with Kaiser Permanente.

Michael's studio/apartment is located in San Francisco's Sunset district.)

THE EIGHTIES - SHAKLEE CORPORATION

Most of the 1980's Michael spent working for the Shaklee Corporation

in the Travel Planning department, part of a team that planned and

implemented dozens of  large conventions each year

including the 3000-person "Silver Jubilee" celebrating Shaklee's 25th Anniversary.

Over 1,000 attendees each were housed in San Francisco's Mark Hopkins,

Hyatt Regency and St. Francis hotels.

Davies Symphony Hall, in the pre-Moscone Convention Center days, held the group's general session.

Shaklee and the St. Francis hotel turned an empty pier at Fort Mason

into an elegant dining room for 3,000 people.

At that time, it was the largest sit-down dinner in San Francisco's history.

THE NINETIES

After 10 years of service to the Shaklee Corporation and several years of

planning conventions and incentive travel programs for

The Concept Group (a small independent event management company in San Francisco)

Michael Durand joined Rosenbluth International

 - the nation's third largest travel company after American Express and Thomas Cook -

as a Meeting Planner in the early 1990's.

Michael was instrumental in growing the Meeting and Incentive division

at Rosenbluth from six to 22 full-time employees in four years.

Within two years, Michael was promoted to Senior Meeting Planner, then

Supervisor of the Meeting Planning Department with nine full-time planners.

Michael is proud of his many career highlights at Rosebluth, including:

- Four years of success as Program Director for

Financial Network Investment Corporation's annual convention.

In those four years FNIC's meeting attendance grew from

850 to 1,100 to 1,300 to 1700 people

- Program Manager of a 750-person group for Hitachi

with participants from 21 countries from around the world.

(Two days before the event October 17, 1989,

the office was shut down after the Loma Prieta earthquake. Stories to tell...)

- Project Manager for a 2,700-person dealer convention for Chevron.

After Rosenbluth, Michael started durand productions in 1995 with the goal to provide

high quality creative services in three areas:

PHOTO & VIDEO

MUSIC INSTRUCTION & PERFORMANCE

EVENT PLANNING AND PRODUCTION

Most of Michael's work done in the second half of the 1990's was

very creative: helping with the planning and production

of meeting and special events for Catholic Healthcare West and

supporting Peter Miller of Creative Planning in Los Altos with

incentive programs halfway around the world.

CHW (now called Dignity Health) hired

durand productions for 12 consecutive years (1995 - 2007)

to handle their most important event. The Sponsors Meeting and Board Seminar

gathered 750 of the highest level VIPs and leaders from

every level throughout the organization.

In 1997 Michael found a new creative outlet when he joined the Marin county public access television studio. This began

a television production track that continues to this day.

In 1998 Michael moved to Pasadena, California to be with his mother and to spend the

last two years of her life with her. He stayed nine years to be close his sister and her family.

In 1999 Michael was involved in 59 television productions at the Pasadena community station.

He started "All the World's a Stage" (AWS) and went on to play every role there is in television

(except animal wrangler). In his nine years in Pasadena,

Michael produced 64 half-hour episodes of AWS.

2000's

For the first seven years of the new millennium Michael was focused on continuing his long-standing partnership

with CHW and Creative Planning as well as getting involved with the city of Pasadena.

Michael worked on hundreds of locally-produced television shows and created a variety of videos including:

- Producing videos and PSAs (in English and Spanish) for the L.A. County Dept. of Health Services

teaching parents of small children how to keep them safe in traffic situations.

- Graduation videos, school plays, slide shows, highlight reels for colleges, etc., for local schools and families.

- Twentieth anniversary video for Joan Payden of Payden & Rygel. Media training for J.P.Morgan Chase.

- DVD documentary called "His Life in His Words" of famed local artist, Jirayr H. Zorthian. 

DVD was requested by the Smithsonian to be included in their collection

of California Art.

  In 2006 Michael started sharing his music secrets and shortcuts to individuals

and small groups and is still actively marketing his teaching business.

Please send Michael an email to see if he is currently accepting for new students.

durandpro@aol.com

2007 - 2011

Michael is very proud of his accomplishments during his four years as a

Senior Meeting Planner with Kaiser Permanente.

He was instrumental in the design, planning and production of

dozens of ceremonies marking key construction events at

brand-new medical centers and medical office buildings:

ground breaking ceremonies, topping off (the final I beam),

ribbon cuttings, grand openings, health fairs,

VIP receptions and banquets, community open houses (up to 7,000 people),

and employee recognition events, and more...

Michael was very involved with the production end of many meetings and events

playing the role of producer, director, audio, mic runner, stage manager, DJ, lighting, M.C., and

frequently acting as the "voice of god" announcer introducing VIPs to the stage.

Michael planned and produced KP's "Body in Balance" event promoting women's health for 2,000

people in Roseville, California, with Sarah Ferguson as the keynote speaker. Michael was on site for

many of KP's events surrounding the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena and helped plan the sponsorship tent for

Now and Zen concert in Golden Gate Park for 14,000 people.

Michael started Event Marketing's internship program and was a leader in the

promotion of using WebEx for meetings. Michael received very positive feedback for his

webinar moderator performances.

After working for four-years (2007 - 2011) as a Senior Meeting Planner for Kaiser Permanente

Michael is returning to his love of providing creative services to individuals and businesses.

2012

Revising Website

New Desk

New 27" imac

New macbookpro 17"

New ipad

New iphone (4Gs)

High-speed Internet Access

Learned Final Cut Pro

Learned Garage Band

Created Vimeo Account

Trained and Certified at Bay Area Video Coalition flash studio

Taped first episode of "All the World's a Stage" San Francsico (AWS SF)

"Re-connectworking" with old friends and former colleagues

Caley Graduation Video

Online video ad for The Cramer Collection

Video Site Inspection at the Fairmont Hotel

durandpro website passes 100,000 hits

"A Tree Falls in Bora Bora" YouTube video passes 45,000 views

15 years in television production

Visited family and friends in Pasadena

Visited family and friends in the homeland: New York!

Visited my brother and sister-in-law in Florida

bought VideoMeSF.com - will begin building website in the fall

as of July 3, 2012.

August 2, 2012: Recorded AWS SF show number six today

If you've read this far, THANKS!

THEN AND NOW