Cate Paris of Accelerent joins Nestor to discuss her role in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Visionary of The Year fundraiser this weekend in downtown Baltimore.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

year, people, accelerant, lls, waltz, event, visionary, karaoke, friends, wife, kate, sing, campaign, donate, wings, win, great, week, promote, give

SPEAKERS

Cate Paris, Nestor J. Aparicio

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home we are W n s t test Baltimore, Baltimore positive or positive we take in the Maryland crabcake tour on the road. I am put together an oyster tour for September. Don’t tell anyone. My friends at the Maryland lottery know all about that. We’ll be giving away the Pac Man scratch offs this week. I got such a long list of I was starting to fade Lee’s this Friday but then we’re doing like Coco’s we’re doing Costas. We’re doing new things at Coopers and slotsup for Fleet Week. So check it all out out of Baltimore positive I’ll get it out on my social media as well. Also brought to you by our friends at Liberty pure solutions where they keep my water clean, and Jiffy Lube, multi care a lot of sports this week, I took a little downtime. I was out in Las Vegas, hobnobbing with all the bill colts friends around the pool. And then I took my Pearl Jam time in LA I took my Rolling Stones time with my wife in New York. And we’re back just in time. This week two on Saturday, I participate. In a pretty special event. My wife and I had participate in this event 10 years ago this month. When Lee Tessier was named man of the year for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. LLS and they’ve, they’ve wanted me to I’ve assured them I am not Man of the Year material. But they said now we’ve changed this now to visionary of the year. So I had a lot of folks on during a couple of Super Bowl back in February talking about that. I was the emcee. I don’t know if they’ll have me back or not because they saw my work at the junior visionaries. A few months ago, we had a great night I even shaved up i i didn’t wear a tuxedo that said black tie optional. I took that as optional. And I didn’t go black guy, but it looked pretty good. My wife’s gonna look great on Saturday night downtown at the Renaissance, and Cape Paris is gonna look great. And she looked great. A month ago, when I saw an accelerant. I’m a part of a big networking thing. She’s a part of it. And we like sort of talk for a minute. And then I’m like the events this week, I need to promote the event. And then I realized who better to promote the event and somebody that’s actually doing some karaoke thing here this week probably wants me to come and donate and make it rain up in there for my karaoke skills, but I can’t but this is a very serious thing. And my wife’s a two time leukemia survivor. So Kate, I am, I am pleasure to have you aboard here to inform me as to why you would kick my butt had I got into this thing because they tried to get me into this. But congratulations on your participation. You showed up on my LinkedIn line trying to get me out doing things this week. So this is an important week. Did you get to spike the ball this week and win this thing? Saturday, right? Oh, heck, yeah.

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Cate Paris  02:39

Well, and thanks so much for having me on your show.

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:42

How did you get involved in this? I mean, this LOL, because they tried to wrestle me in and I’m like, I’m not. I’m not the visionary material. But you network with a lot of folks, I see you from month to month with some awesome people. Congratulations on getting involved in this because I know it’s important if you’ve you’ve driven it this far the last few months.

Cate Paris  03:01

Yeah, no. And again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share about this campaign. The the visionaries of the year campaign is a philanthropic competition, so to speak, where any number of candidates they call us, who are movers and shakers out and about have a vast network of people do what they can to spread awareness to raise awareness and funds. And I’ve never, you know, beyond running the odd 5k and contributing and donating to friends causes I’ve never really just dove in completely to accomplish such an amazing thing. So it was one of those when I was approached by my friend Karen cherry who would who had done it last year, saying that she thought I would be great for this. And I think everybody’s first instinct when someone asks them to do something out of their comfort zone or that that isn’t easy or convenient. The first instinct is to say no, and and then come up with some reason to justify that. So

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:03

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if I don’t have the time, I don’t have the it’s very

Cate Paris  04:06

easy. Like I don’t like asking people for things. What if people don’t like me anymore? Like there are lots of reasons to say no. And that is initially why I said yes, it was because how can you say no to something so noble, and that will help so many people? And I said no.

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:23

I said no, because I knew what was going to entail. And I said, Look, I’ll help Kate, I’ll help other folks running. I help some of the junior folks. I’ve actually saw some of the junior folks recently over an NDP in a in a show. So I get to meet people in the community and being a part of this and even Lee Tess here when he won 10 years ago, and my wife was literally bald in the battle very sick, about to undergo transplant 10 years ago. It’s very emotional for my wife and I know we’re gonna come down this week and it’s it’s party, you know, and there’s a purpose and there’s a great cause and they all So bring people like you together to do things like my radio show to promote the how and the why do you have a leukemia lymphoma story in your family? I think we all do with whether we realize it or not. Well,

Cate Paris  05:11

and it’s not in my family. And I should mention, as I say, you know, it’s very easy to say no to things. And I said yes, that, that sometimes, you know, the world just needs somebody to drive that focus and allow people the opportunity to help in their own way and how they are capable of helping and that’s how I tried to make my campaign be. So my entire campaign is dedicated to inspired by a friend of mine, Jim Buckley, and he back in 78, when he was 16 years old, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And back then, before treatments had advanced to where they are today and still advancing, his only treatment option was for his entire torso area to be blasted with radiation, which for 16 year old is terrifying. And also, they’re just so many implications and things. His health was impacted severely. He’s been diagnosed with cancer five other times since then. And doctors believe that that initial radiation and chemo treatment really contributed to that. So my focus for the last 10 weeks has been educating people about LLS is mission pillar of research. They also advocate for patients, they also support patients and their families. But the research that they drive and support is what really is advancing all of those treatments, making them more precise, more effective, less, less devastating to the people that they’re helping and hope hopefully someday finding a cure people come

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Nestor J. Aparicio  06:43

every day especially I was in Vegas last week for the big Maryland event that our Perla and my wife wasn’t with me for a couple days. And when she’s not with me, the first thing they’ll say is, How’s your wife? How’s your wife? How’s your wife? And what I will tell you, it’s great to know the room. She’s engineering and doing what she’s been doing for 32 years for Verizon all these years. But the devastating part of the chemo in the aftermath, and it has been 10 years into transplants from my wife. Is that like, all parts of your body sort of dry out and your eyes? Her eyes don’t make tears, right. So she has special glass prosthetics that I mean, these are the after effects of Is she alive? Yeah, she happy we’re getting there. You were also you know, but being here, but all of these treatments come at a cost in a lot of ways and financial, spiritual, all of that. Yeah. And you know, I’m embarrassed Kate, because when I brought you on, I said, I know Kate a little bit through accelerant. I know, we talked a little bit ever. I wonder if she can talk about these LLS issues? You’re talking about it better than I am. I mean, you have. You’ve done a lot of research on this. And how many events have you done and when you decided to dive in? Because they had my arm behind my back at cost this I swear it was the holidays I almost gave in? And I said no. I’m begging someone way more visionary like Kate Paris, is probably going to be the person to do this. When did you decide to get in and give me the pathway because you are doing an event this week that as long as I run this before Thursday nights and folks can come out and participate? Right?

Cate Paris  08:12

Yeah, absolutely. I am. So I’ve had some fun with it. But it’s it’s a fast paced, very quick campaign where the four of us competing competing this year, we all really knew that we were doing this at the very, very end of February, beginning of March and the campaign started on March 21. So going into this campaign, is that a 10 week campaign, very fast paced, and moving into it. I mean, I didn’t I didn’t know I was going to be doing this. I hadn’t prepared for a year in line lining things up. So I ran mine in such a way as How can I make it so easy for people to donate and I got creative while also educating them. So I did a partnership with Krispy Kreme where now through June 1, which is the end of the campaign, people can use a link through my website to order virtually a dozen donuts and half of all of those dozens will be donated back to LLS and I also paired up with Jimmy John’s for a couple of weeks doing things and I had this huge fire wings and icebreaker event at Guilford Hall brewery where I brought in five executives and kind of like the the show hotlines. I asked them stupid icebreaker questions as they ate consecutively hotter and hotter wings and all of them out

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:30

on that by the way I saw that thing and I’m like, Look, I like to kill for people. I like beer like being in a city. I don’t. I went through spicy Buffalo Wild Wings every Monday night i for years. I emceed this thing at halftime where we would do you know get $50 of free wins or something. And I’d see dudes crying and like the milk app No, no, no, no, no.

Cate Paris  09:54

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Yeah, people were describing getting like the sweats like right here on their face. Feel free, you

Nestor J. Aparicio  10:01

know, I’ll donate I donate time. You know, I do all sorts of things but like, I don’t do indigestion No, I don’t do hangovers. I don’t do indigestion, nothing like that. But you’re doing a thing this week though, correct?

Cate Paris  10:14

Yes. On Thursday, waltz in in Baltimore, the historic iconic karaoke bar, which is under new leadership, the owners of the Hippodrome purchased it. They are allowing me to bring in my rowdy friends and have a karaoke night. And we’re doing fun things like for $20 you can spin the karaoke wheel and we’ll have pre selected fun fan favorite songs that you can then sing. Or if you’ve got places to be or you just really, really really want to get on that stage. You can donate to LLS to get bumped up in the list or to sing next. We’re gonna have a lot of fun and I mean, I met you mentioned Pearl Jam earlier on Black is a great karaoke song I’m just saying okay,

Nestor J. Aparicio  10:57

so there’s there’s a couple of things here at work first off the show I saw that in play black was a great night was good no corduroy no black though. It’s fine when you see Pearl Jam I saw night one that night too. We’re only gonna get one night here in Baltimore tfg Bank Arena. So a couple things waltz in so let me say this atlas my stepfather’s name was Walter like walk cars aquas his name walk so down in Canton when you’re you’re you’re rolling in the backside of Canton it’s on the corner and it’s a it’s a little Canton corner bar right. Yeah. So I don’t know Donald and but it’s funny because it wa l T apostrophe S waltz Walters in. And then there’s waltz in like do you want to waltz like like a European waltz like

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Cate Paris  11:47

to dance? Whenever I go out dancing correctly,

Nestor J. Aparicio  11:49

we can waltz into the bar. Now, here’s the crazy thing in the last 72 hours. I booked you onto the show. Without realizing your karaoke thing was at waltz in I saw it. And I’m like, I’m familiar with that. Yeah, my best friend is one of my best friends in the whole world. But he lives in Arkansas now. He’s lived there for 25 years and had to deal with Bill Clinton in a library and stuff like that. He lived above waltz in during our drinking stage when when the square in Kansas about 30 years ago in a square and Canton came on late 90s. Yeah, live the boat show. Then, on like Friday, I saw that Ron and his partner had bought waltz in. I saw Ron a week and a half ago and faith Lee’s because rabid clue was playing at the Hippodrome and we were at the fade lease of where I’m going to be on Friday giving away PAC man’s Greg, this is the small to more thing. So I see Ron he didn’t say anything to me about Walton. He didn’t say anything about karaoke. He didn’t say anything about you. He said hey, like get to cheap tickets for clues. You know it’s good show. So he gave me that and so nobody tells me anything. So I gotta get Ron on now to talk about Walton. I’ve had you on talking about LLS we haven’t gotten to accelerate yet. And it’s black, you’re good or you look more like you would do some Beyonce to me or should we? Or something black is my

Cate Paris  13:21

husband’s go to song is the song that I love. Don’t get me wrong, but But I brought some Iraq some Alanis Morissette uninvited that’s my go to karaoke song.

Nestor J. Aparicio  13:35

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You are trying to entice me out to give the Saudis this work if I come sing for karaoke $20 wheels and stuff how am I going to make a fool of myself on Thursday night and contribute to Jessica versus LLS visionary Woman of the Year thing? If

Cate Paris  13:51

you come out you specifically I will give people the opportunity to donate a certain amount of money and choose the song that you sing

Nestor J. Aparicio  14:01

just like put me in the dunking wheel. They tried that before. Yes, the Ravens convention to see what little little do you notice I really can’t sing so like I sang in a band I so I’m a karaoke. Like I would be good at karaoke. I’ve never really done it publicly.

Cate Paris  14:18

I guess. It is a karaoke. And this is again like one of my I didn’t realize that hosting a karaoke party was a bucket list item but apparently it was I’m so happy to to get to do this. I love karaoke and just the friendliness and supportive atmosphere and a karaoke bar. It’s unmatched. You can’t

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Nestor J. Aparicio  14:36

go do Don Rickles on me. What do you how do you feel? What was that? I couldn’t hear it will it be supportive? Or is it gonna go down?

Cate Paris  14:43

They’re gonna they’re gonna raise you up above their heads and chant your name that’s going to be the most important to

Nestor J. Aparicio  14:48

unencumbered Humperdinck song or something like that or no, I do please release me or something. salutely que para ser guest she is with accelerant which we will get to that in a minute. We meandered here the Leukemia limb FOMA society, they used to call this man and woman of the year and I did two full segments with them. One when they were really trying to twist my arm across this last fall about being they, they Johnny Bravo now I don’t know how they got you. But they they, they frame me up and they’re like you fit the suit your vision

Cate Paris  15:21

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behind bushes as you walked home and like jumping out and asking you to do it.

Nestor J. Aparicio  15:24

But this event is Saturday night. It’s at the Renaissance. It’s downtown. My girl altar is performing across the streets. I’m going to sneak in and sneak out over to the inner arbor. People say I don’t go back to the city. I’m going to city all the time. So Saturday night, we have a huge event. We have four contestants proponents. Designated Yeah, like people. Yeah, people like you, basically. Yeah, so

Cate Paris  15:50

we, this is the culmination of all of our campaigns. And each one of us ran a completely different campaign. And a lot of it is the behind the scenes stuff of calling upon our network asking for help letting people know the good that they’re accomplishing for seriously, any amount, it doesn’t have to be give all the money, like any amount is huge. So this is the culmination This is the celebration of everyone’s efforts of acknowledging what we’ve done and who we’ve been able to help. We have to honor heroes that are survivors and fighters. And they are going to be there as we honor them. The people who are important to us and have been a huge part of each of our campaigns will be there. And this is the final evening to just really to lean in and raise that final boost of money to help promote and further the mission.

Nestor J. Aparicio  16:42

I tell you what I can, I’m going to find the picture of my wife and I attending the event. 10 years ago, the event was down in near Rondell Mills on that particularly beautiful, beautiful event. I mean, like a lot of music, but it my wife, it was it was a really dark time in our life. She was she had just missed her transplant because she had gotten sick and went to this event the week before her transplant. And I have pictures and all that but it’s gonna be a celebration for us. Because we saw the stones the other night my wife was jamming with Mick so we’re not feeling like sad and down and down. We’re more like, look at how far we’ve come through all of this. So for my wife, this is going to be a special night on Saturday. It’s actually also the night after her birthday. Her birthday is Friday night. So I want everybody supporting our friends at Leukemia Lymphoma Society. If you want to support Kate, you can certainly do that on Thursday night you can come down to waltz in that’s waltz with an apostrophe s you can get you can sing some I don’t know that probably let you sing some Lady Gaga or something like that if you wish. Maybe Kate and I will do a Neil Diamond Barbra Streisand duet or something like that for 20 bucks a throw? Who knows? But so this is your final, the final count as your last event. How did the hot wings thing go with me? Did anybody burn their tummy who won that thing with the nose? No winners and that kind of contest? I assure you.

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Cate Paris  18:06

So we gave away two awards. They were all champions. They all made it through all 10 wings, which is amazing. And we had so each of them are competing against themselves. Attendees could donate to LLS in the name of whichever candidate contestant they they were rooting for. So Karen shell the president of dp solutions ended up being our fire wings and icebreakers champion she rose the most raised the most money in her name and rich craft actually was the fire wings winner when it comes to completely finishing polishing off each of the wings to the bone.

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:50

Yeah, I don’t do hot wings, man. There’s just some things I don’t do spicy Spicy. I just am I elicit and I’m Latin and like no, I don’t do that. I would be much more apt to sing some D Martin or to try to entertain in some way like Kate Paris is our guests. It’s Kate with a C A T and Paris Lake Powell ri ma my wife had some Parisien deserts in New York. Here’s my tip for the day for you. 37th Street and Sixth Avenue is a place called Les Marvel I’m pronouncing it wrong because I’m not French but it sounded marvelous is they’re called marvelous are these little marvelous clouds of deliciousness so there’s that’s only thing per easy and I have the event Saturday night, it’s down at the Renaissance we have not promoted accelerate. So let’s stop all of this. Let’s not be nice and Man of the Year and in and visionary and all that let’s talk business for a minute because I’ve been involved in accelerant. I mean, all my almost from the beginning, going back 15 years and with Michael Gordon a different friends and John John and I’ve had so many friends to this day. You’re not new to this, but a little bit new to me. And I don’t even know your whole background and how so many nice people get involved in this accelerant event. I know Bill Cole dragged me in years ago. And once you get dragged in, you can’t get dragged out, because it’s such a great group of people doing good work here in the community. Yeah.

Cate Paris  20:17

Now accelerant is, I joke that I drank the accelerant Kool Aid a long time ago, I just love it. And as the regional vice president, it affords me a job, my career is helping companies connect with each other helping decision makers grow and strengthen and build relationships with other decision makers, so that when they are out in the wild, as I like to call it, as they recognize somebody who has a need for the services of an accelerant partner, they can make that warm introduction and get them in the door warmer faster than they could on their own. There’s no more cold calling. It’s all who do you know, who can I help you with? I mean, accelerant partners, any anyone you meet, who’s an accelerant partner at any networking event anywhere, they’re one of the first questions I’ll ask you is, how can I help you? So accelerant is just a part

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:05

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of that is when I’ve been showing you get to meet other people. Yeah. And that’s really the kind of the beautiful part of it anytime I go to networking events anywhere in town, and you know, I’ve done many of them, I’ve hosted them before and spoken and bid on to this and that, and in the front room, like when my hair was short, whatever, there really is a point where especially in the community like Baltimore, because I was in New York the other day, I’m like, How does anybody meet anybody here? You know, we were out in Vegas last week or in LA, and I’m like, how do you meet anybody? When you’re in Los Angeles, you know, it’s like, everything’s a freeway here. I spoke of small to more, and just in the bigger I don’t know you all that? Well, I mean, we’ve seen each other by the by first time I’ve really had you on the show. You asked me a little bit about the people I connected with last month, but I don’t know that you knew that my wife was a two time survivor that we attended this event. 10 years ago. I know that Guilford people in the wing people and then you’re like waltzing on like well it’s in that’s Ron’s place my buddy lived upstairs there we’re gonna do karaoke there forever. Alas, oh Ma, and there really is a small to more connection amongst all of us and I think it makes things like accelerant even that much more effective in the old days, and I don’t want to be disrespectful because you’re a girl and I’m a goatee. I got a guy for that. You know a guy Yeah, I got a plumber. Yeah, I got a refrigerator. I got an HVAC I got a roofer I got so yeah, I got a guy for that. Now. It’s more like, we know people here in the community that are trusted resources that aren’t really a cab ride their relationship and it’s not about do I have a roofer that’s gonna put a roof on my house for a fee. It’s do I want that relationship? And I think when I when I speak about accelerant, I speak about people. And I’m embarrassed. I don’t have my coal roofing mug because I’m at a coffee. It’s where you and I did this segment two, we did a brunch segment. And we got a coffee segment, I’d have the cold roofing mug here with the oil force. But But coal roofing being one of those partners and many other people, it’s it’s just led to a richness of relationship as a business owner, which I’ve been for 32 years now here locally. There’s nothing like finding trusted people in the community that that you 1015 20 years later, you know them you know, their kids, your family. It makes a big city a small town.

Cate Paris  23:27

It absolutely does. You’re so right. You don’t have anything else to

Nestor J. Aparicio  23:31

say about accelerant. Can I just give the elevator speech?

Cate Paris  23:34

No, I I love hearing other people talk about accelerate, especially when they’ve lived at the rate that you you know, so many accelerant partners and how warm they are and how they will do anything to help others and also share that you know, that’s from the the decision maker the owners perspective for their teams. I mean, it’s it’s a great resource for professional development and growth and especially if they’re, if they’re in the process of building and expanding their network or just having access to to other phenomenal professionals. People

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Nestor J. Aparicio  24:07

who need people are the lucky use people and

Cate Paris  24:12

you need to be at this karaoke event.

Nestor J. Aparicio  24:15

I see that I knew that cape Paris is here. She’s from accelerant. She is running for and hopes to be the visionary of the year. Does that sound better? Does that sound more powerful than Woman of the Year?

Cate Paris  24:28

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Oh, I prefer it definitely.

Nestor J. Aparicio  24:31

Yeah. I don’t know man Man of the Year. Man of the Year sounds so Jimmy Stewart to me. It sounds so Father Knows Best. That visionary the year it almost sounds to Branson he for me. It almost sounds too hip for me. But we are doing visionary the year it is Saturday night it’s at the Renaissance. If you need tickets, you want to buy a table you want to donate you want to come sing. You want to support other contestants feel free to do so it’s all for the greatest cause and my wife’s in the other room and I Talk about the research in head. She contracted leukemia back in 78 as they would say, or a long time ago. How much different or pathway would have been and she’s alive and well and we’re gonna dance together and celebrate together yeah and so are you confident you’re gonna win or what do you

Cate Paris  25:18

think I will say at the end of the day and going into it everybody thinks like, oh, it’d be great to win. Honestly, the the more involved I got in this and the many stories that I heard and the people that I’ve met, like just being able to participate sounds so cliche but just being able to participate in this and make it a dynamic campaign and bring more people into this than I ever anticipated like I’ve already won so I just get to be in a fancy dress and and if I Nick a name that fantastic, but if not, you know I’m so excited for whoever is named. I am

Nestor J. Aparicio  25:50

afraid of sharing the page out on the screenshare because it says underneath Do you know the next visionary of the year nominate a candidate and not me not me. Don’t nominate me that’s what I told the folks at LLS but I’m happy to promote it. I’m happy to come and sing, dance, give eat drink promote yellow bad on the radio and everywhere that I do this socially. Big thanks to everyone at LLS for involving me and the junior visionaries and evolving Kate and the other contestants so Saturday Good luck to you good luck and Sing sing in tune in on key on Thursday. Waltz in and Ron, I’m looking for you’re buying bars in East Baltimore. You know, tell me about it with a karaoke machine. You better have some Engelbert Humperdinck on that. I am Nestor we have a wn st am 1570 Towson Baltimore is a beautiful spring post Memorial Day week. We got Oreos, we got ravens we got stuff. And we’ve got charities including the LLS event on Saturday nights they were this were Baltimore positive