About the Author

The inside of the back cover of “Half a Dialogue” simply has the following “About the Author” text:

“Four times in the Gospel of John (19:26; 20:2;  21:7; 21:20) the author identifies himself as the disciple (μαθητὴν) whom Jesus loved.  In three of those instances the word ‘loved’ is ἠγάπα , derived from agapao, a totally giving and self-sacrificing love.

“From time to time, usually in a bible study course, I hear John the Evangelist criticized for identifying himself in that way.  The tone is a bit of “Who does he think he is to assign such a lofty title to himself?”  But it really makes sense, as I contemplate how to identify myself as author.

“John knows that Jesus loves him, and he can speak for himself because of his sureness in that love. What could I possibly say about myself which would ever be more important than acknowledging that Jesus loves me? No title, educational degree, award or other recognition means anything, compared to saying that Jesus loves me!  And, in saying those words, nothing else is really necessary.

“So, who is the author of “Half a Dialogue…”?

“Just  someone whom Jesus loves, first and foremost.  Nothing else is needed.  But for those who still want to know more, my abbreviated biography is posted on www.HypotPublishing.com  

“Peace to all,

Diane C. Harris”

 

And so, with this brief summary, the most important point really has been made.  However, in the interest of transparency and full disclosure, and the wording of Canon 212, the following detailed curriculum vitae is also offered, in case anybody should want it.

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The author of “Half a Dialogue,“ Diane C. Harris, began her response to Pope Francis’ request for dialogue, discussion and debate with particular concern about the assumptions of global warming and climate change upon which that Encyclical depends.  In addition to those initial concerns, and on studying Laudato Si’ further, Harris also recognized areas of concern regarding Pantheism, Syncretism and the risk of abetting a scenario of ‘One World Religion.’  As a result, “Half a Dialogue’ was expanded to include those matters, and also extended to the importance of Truth in Science and Technology, the fallacy of consensus, the risk of aligning with the U.N.’s concepts of sustainability, and the implications of collectivism as a threat to the subsidiarity principles of the Catholic Church.

“Half a Dialogue” is essentially a monograph response to many of the matters in Laudato Si’ which have prompted such concerns.  Not only has the invitation to dialogue been issued by Pope Francis (25x in the Encyclical), but a careful view has been taken to the apparent lack of argument for infallibility claims of the Encyclical, the examples of St. Paul and St. Catherine of Sienna in expressing lack of agreement to their Holy Fathers, and most especially provisions of Canon Law.  Canon 212 Part 3 specifically provides for response by the Christian faithful to their ‘sacred pastors’ regarding the opinions of the faithful on matters which pertain to the good of the Church, and to make their opinions known to the rest of the faithful.  It is pointed out in that same Canon that the faithful “have the right and even at times the duty” to manifest their opinions.  It is believed that “Half a Dialogue” meets all those requirements.  Moreover, the Canon specifies that this right, and duty, is “according to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess.”

Accordingly, the rest of these pages “About the Author” will supply, for the sake of transparency, information regarding the background of “knowledge, competence, and prestige” of the author which underlies “Half a Dialogue.”

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Education

Harris is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate in Chemistry from The Catholic University of America, and a Life member of Sigma Xi Scientific Honor Society. She was a Grantee of the National Science Foundation as an undergraduate, for study in multiphasic phenomena in the Electrical Engineering Department of Catholic University. She participated in corticosteroid research while employed at the National Heart Institute of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Harris was awarded teaching and research assistantships at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she received a Master’s Degree in Chemistry, cum laude, with a thesis entitled: “Fused Ring Heterocycles from 1,3-Cycloaddition Reactions.”

Other Education: Colgate Rochester Divinity School -4 semesters New Testament Greek; St. Bernard’s: 1 semester each: Greek, Safe Environment, Major Prophets, Canon Law. Various Sacred Scripture Studies.

Corporate Employment

After graduate school, Harris was employed in Research in the Analytical Systems Division of Bausch and Lomb, where she researched and published in areas related to clinical chemistry, water technology, and analytical methodologies. She rose through the ranks, becoming manager of market research with focus on faultless patient identification systems. Then as Director of the Customer Applications Laboratory, she restructured the division’s customer service orientation. Harris also presented numerous technical seminars and training programs in the U.S., Canada and Europe.  She was promoted to Director of all Technical Marketing and then named General Manager of the Analytical Products Business (a $12 million P&L responsibility).

Harris became the first woman to be named a divisional Vice President, and led Strategic Planning for the Soflens Product Division, to effect its entry into the market for contact lens solutions, and to develop its market growth strategies. She launched innovative Competitive Analysis and New Ventures functions for the Soflens Product Group, and led the Corporate Project to restructure administrative aspects of customer relationships across multi-divisional organizations. She also developed ‘fast-track’ strategies to market, and co-led the Soflens Products Division during the 17-month illness and incapacity of the Division President. At the CEO’s request, Harris became a major contributor to a task force to develop recommendations for Entrepreneurial and Emerging Business facilitation, and to the task force on Corporate Innovation and Recognition.

Harris was named to responsibility for Planning and Business Development for the entire company, launching a new corporate-wide 5-year planning system. Within two years, she was elected a corporate officer by the Bausch and Lomb Board of Directors (the first woman to be so named in the company’s then 130 year history.) As Vice President of Corporate Development, Harris was in charge of the company’s mergers and acquisitions, licensing and divestitures program for the next 14 years, completing over a billion dollars worth of transactions in a major corporate growth initiative.  During that time frame, 230 transactions were accomplished, which resulted in nearly 18% compounded annual growth in shareholder value each year over a ten-year period: 45 acquisitions, 25 divestitures and the remainder as licensing, technology and venture agreements, including personally negotiating two quadriennials of worldwide Olympic Sponsorship.

Harris created and implemented Bausch & Lomb’s new ventures and corporate development program, in both centralized and decentralized modes (using a flexible concept of naming ‘qualified negotiators’) to transition the company to a successfully diversified health care entity.  This initiative was widely recognized as a model program by corporate America and by premier investment banking firms in the U.S. and overseas.  A 1991 independent quality survey showed investment banking intermediaries rated Bausch & Lomb’s program in the 98th percentile of all corporate development performance, and 26% above a group of peer companies. Because of emphasis on global strategies, and cross-cultural capabilities, 27% of the company’s transactions were cross-border, at a time when comparable companies were reporting 8% of deals as cross-border.

As a result of the success of Bausch and Lomb’s growth program,  Harris was a widely sought speaker, presenting to organizations as varied as Corning Inc., Equal Employment Advisory Council, The National Association of Accountants, Financial Executives Institute, Association for Corporate Growth, Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals.  

Acquisitions included a number of healthcare companies, encompassing pharmaceuticals, dermatology, hearing aids, dental implants and care products, biotechnology and animal breeding for scientific research, and contact lens products and technology, and entering five new markets.  Divestitures included ophthalmic products, digital readouts for machine tools, analytical instrumentation such as spectrophotometers, microscopes, binoculars, laboratory recorders and image analysis equipment.  During that same time, Harris also served a stint as President of the Houston Instruments Interactive Graphics Division, a CAD-CAM business in Austin, Texas, managing its down-sizing on behalf of corporate management, and restructuring to prepare that operation for divestiture.

She also co-led, at the CEO’s request, implementation of Bausch and Lomb’s diversity imperative with respect to executive women.

In 1996, Harris retired from Bausch and Lomb after 28 years, to launch her own consulting company.

Entrepreneurial Employment

In 1996, Harris opened her own company, Hypotenuse Enterprises, Inc., a Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) advisory and consulting company. She provides  services on deal-making through the entire transaction process – – from developing criteria and making initial contact, to creating alternative deal structuring scenarios, and post-deal integration strategies.  Services include assisting in due diligence, managing the transaction, contract review, deal structuring and negotiation support. As an advisor to CEO’s, CFO’s and CDO’s on creating corporate growth programs, Harris also coaches, evaluates and qualifies deal-making expertise of business development staff.

Hypotenuse has had clients in 30 states and 7 countries, and has conducted major surveys and customized policies related to Corporate Development Best Practices, M&A Policy and Intermediary Fees, and benchmarks corporate development policy and process. She successfully benchmarked corporate development practices among the Fortune 300, extracting best practices to control and streamline the corporate process.

Harris created “The smART of the Deal” seminar and workshop training program, and presents that program as both an open, public seminar and as a private, confidential, in-house workshop, in the U.S. and Canada.  The program is a two-day immersion course in dealmaking, including ethical discussion, and has qualified for Continuing Education Credits. Hypotenuse provides preparation and wide dissemination of intermediary criteria for client deal sourcing and outsourced services in corporate development practice, develops customized policies for companies desiring to better control their deal making processes, markets standardized M&A policy based on best practices, and performs M&A policy audits.

Harris has also served as an expert witness in M&A disputes, and has provided consultation or expert witness reports and testimony on lawsuits involving issues related to mergers, acquisitions, licensing, divestitures, strategic alliances. Experience includes both plaintiff and defendant intermediary fee matters, due diligence issues, and contract negotiation / interpretation.

She has presented to various organizations on best practices in the M&A field, and shared her  deal-making expertise as a guest speaker to various professional organizations, delivering internal seminars to companies ranging from Fortune 100 companies to entreprenurial organizations. Hypotenuse Enterprises, Inc. is also home to its Hypot Publishing Division.

Hypotenuse is a woman-owned business, and has been registered with New York State. The company is also a Registered Business Broker in Illinois.

Boards of Directors

Soflens Insurance Company: While employed at Bausch and Lomb, Harris was also a Director of the Soflens Insurance Company.

Duriron Company and Flowserve Corporation: Harris served as a Board Member of the Duriron Company in Dayton, OH and, after its corporate merger of equals with Borg Warner, was named by her peers to continue onto the new Board of Directors of the combined entity, Flowserve Corporation,  in Dallas, TX, and was re-elected, in all, to six 3-year terms, 1993-2009, serving also terms on the Finance and Audit Committee, as Chair of the Audit Committee, Chair of the CEO Search Committee, and as a member of the Board’s Executive Committee, before retiring from that board in 2009.

Monroe Fund: As an investor in the Rochester N.Y. venture capital fund, Harris also served on its Advisory Board (2002-10.)

Association for Corporate Growth (ACG): Harris was elected a Director of ACG, a 38 Chapter international association of deal-makers, including intermediaries, banks, brokers, attorneys, accountants and corporate officers. She provided a major impetus for growth, improving membership value, recruiting / retaining corporate members, adding effective Internet presence, catalyzing international presence. In charge of Corporate Member Affairs, 1993-98, Harris was the first woman elected President of that 5000-member international association (1997-98). For almost a decade of her involvement, Harris was designated a “Marquee Speaker” for ACG.

Awards and Honors

Business: First Corporate Staff Achievement Award, 1988, Bausch & Lomb. Listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, Who’s Who of American Women, World Who’s Who of Women. Identified twice in Business Week as one of Fifty Women to Watch in Corporate America (1987, 1992).  Identified in Business Month in 1989 as one of 100 Women to Watch in Corporate America.  Finalist — National Association of Women Business Owners, Rochester Chapter.  Association for Corporate Growth — Meritorious Service Award (1995).

Academic: Phi Beta Kappa, Life Member of Sigma Xi Scientific Honor Society, Delta Epsilon Sigma Women’s Honor Society, two scholarships (undergraduate), National Science Foundation Grant Awardee, teaching and research assistantships RPI.

Community: Monroe County Distinguished Citizens Award 1979; First Rochester YWCA TWINS Award (Tribute to Women in Industry and Service), precursor to Athena Award, 1983; Listed in Community Leaders of America; National Council on Alcoholism-Rochester Area Service Award 1983; President’s 21st Century Leadership Award from Women’s Hall of Fame, 1995.

Publications

Technical:  Published in Bausch & Lomb’s Applications Manuals, and/or presented at Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Spectroscopy (**) or in other journals:

  •   New methodology using Atomic Absorption to measure serum iron. **
  •   Comparison Specifications for Water Analysis field test kits
  •   Use of Thermochromes to calibrate cuvette temperatures**
  •    Kinetics of Amylase catalysis of various starch substrates
  •    Rapid Screening Method for Sickle Cell Anemia
  •    Calibration and Quality Control of Spectrophotometers

Mergers and Acquisition Field:

  •  “Phantom Due Diligence: for M&A Today,
  •  Chapter 8, “A Game Plan for Development”, The Mergers & Acquisitions Handbook, Second  Edition, 1994, p. 95-106.
  • “Effective Communications Before and After the Merger: How to Do it Right,”  Transcript from  Insight Conference on Post-Merger Management, The Key to Creating Value in M&A, Toronto,  Canada, October 7, 1996, p. 1-19.
  • “Outsourcing and Consulting in Corporate Development Practice,” M&A Today, Vol. 6, No. 1,  January 1997.
  • “V-I-S-I-O-N from the Incoming President,” ACG Network, Vol. 8, No. 10, May-June, 1997.“M&A   Policy: A Board Responsibility,” M&A Today, Vol. 6, No. 10, October 1997.
  • “M&A Policy: A Board Responsibility,” Directors’ Monthly, Official Newsletter of the National Association of Corporate Directors, Vol. 22, No. 7, July 1998,  p 4-6.
  • “A Corporate Growth Program: Balancing Internal and External Growth Strategies,” Transcript No. 7, Proceedings of Insight Conference on Executing Mergers & Acquisitions: Structuring, Financing and Value-Creation Strategies, Toronto, Canada, Feb. 28th, 1996, pages 59-75.“Benchmarking the Corporate Development Function, Part I,” ACG Network, Volume 10, No. 4, November 1998.
  • “Benchmarking the Corporate Development Function, Part II,” ACG Network, Volume 10, No. 5, December 1998.
  • “Can Women be Angels too?” Thoughts on women investing in early stage companies. Newsletter, High Tech Rochester.
  • “Pre-Deal Communications for Post-Deal Success: The Role of CEO to CEO Communications,” M&A Insider, Vol. 5, No. 4, Winter 1999-2000.
  • “The Intermediaries’ Fee: Structuring and Collecting,” ACG Network, Volume 12, No. 1, July/August 2000.
  • “Behind Boardroom Doors with Acquisition Decisions,” Director’s Monthly,” Official Newsletter of the National Association of Corporate Directors, Vol. 26, No. 5, May 2002.
  • “Claiming More Clout, A statistical portrait of the corporate development officer, circa 2003”, Corporate Dealmaker, Winter 2003.

Other:

  • “Grease the Gears of Equality” published in Personnel Journal,Vol. 74, No. 9, September 1995.(Harris has widely spoken on glass-ceiling related issues, donating honoraria from lectures on this subject to Alternatives for Battered Women.)
  • Survey Profile of a Crumbling Parish: Privately Published.
  • “Satanic images have no place in sports, schools,” Guest Essay, Democrat and Chronicle.
  • “Reflections on the LCWR”, published in May 2013 by the Christifidelis Newsletter of the St. Joseph Foundation.  Defense of the Male Priesthood.
  • Book Review published in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, December 2010, of the book Forward in Hope by Bishop Matthew Clark, Problems pointed out regarding ”Lay Ecclesial Ministries and the Future of the Church.”
  • “Zeal for Thy House” – a series of 21 blog posts on www.CleansingFire.org  regarding the perception of damage inflicted on the Sanctuary of St. Januarius Church in Naples, N.Y., and people’s efforts to prevent it. 2011-2013.
  • “One Scientist’s Take on Global Warming”: Canandaigua Daily Messenger, May 8, 2014.
  • Half a Dialogue: One Catholic’s Reply to Pope Francis’ Invitation to Discuss the Encyclical Laudato Si’. First Printing: December 2015; Second Printing: February 2016.

Professional Activities

Current: Financial Executives Institute, 1991- present; Association for Corporate Growth, 1991-present;

Prior: Board of Directors, Soflens Insurance Company, 1978 – 1981; Women for Corporate Boards, 1995 – 1999; Catalyst Steering Committee, 1995; Advisory Board, Merger Management Report, 1986 – 1990; Advisory Board, High Technology of Rochester, 1998 – 2000; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Key Executives, 1993 – 1996;  Member, Committee of 200, 1993 – 2001; Rochester Chamber of Commerce 1996 – 2002; CEO Roundtable; National Association of Women Business Owners: 1997-2003; The International Alliance: 1995-2003.

Community Activities

Current: Acting Chairman, NYS Conservative Party, Yates County. 2013-present; SOS Community Action, Middlesex, NY

Prior: Founder and Past President, Rochester Against Intoxicated Driving, Inc., 1979 – 1983; Board of Directors, Delta Laboratories, Inc. (Adopt-A-Stream),1984 – 1998; R.A.I.D. Political Action Chairman, 1979, 1983 – 1986; Founder and President, R.A.I.D. Foundation, Inc., 1982 – 1983. Past Vice President, RID-NYS (Remove Intoxicated Drivers), 1980 – 1982. Member, STOP-DWI Advisory Committee to the Monroe County Legislature (appointee of County Manager, 1982 – 1986). Member, Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce, Public Safety Committee, Task Force on Highway Safety and Legislation, 1981 – 1986. A Founder and Member of Board of Directors, Friends of Bristol Valley Playhouse Foundation, Inc. 1983 – 1987; Board of Directors, National Council on Alcoholism – Rochester Area, 1981 – 1984; Chairman, NCA-RA Long Range Planning Committee, 1982 – 83; Board of Directors, Rochester Rehabilitation Center, 1982 – 1984; Member of Long Range Planning Committee; Member, New York State Coalition for Safety Belt Use, 1984 – 1985.

 

Studies Published and Sold by Hypotenuse Enterprises, Inc.

1992 Corporate Development Practices Survey

1998 and 2003 Corporate Development Best Practices Survey

1998 and 2003 Corporate Development Compensation Survey

2000 Intermediaries’ Fee Survey (in conjunction with the Association for Corporate Growth)

Current: Mergers and Acquisition Policy

 

Articles and Book content published regarding Diane C. Harris:

CareerPreneurs’ Lessons from Leading Women Entrepreneurs on Building a Career without Boundaries” by Dorothy Perrin Moore: “Corporate Graduate” – Communication and Focus on Outcomes — Diane C. Harris.” Pages 31-32, 46-47, 50, 67, 124-126, 129, 171, 199-200. Published by Davis-Black Publishing, 2000.

WomenPreneurs: 21st Century Success Strategies by Dorothy Perrin Moore: “Diane C. Harris – Founder and CEO,” Pages 201, 202-5, 230, 231, 238. Published by Routledge, 2012.

Going to the Top by Carol Gallagher: Diane Harris on Trust: p 220. Viking Press, 2000.

TRUST: The History of the Association for Corporate Growth by Carl Wangman and Judith Iacuzzi: pages 35,37,38, 40, 46, 162, 183.