Lawyer Still Game for Olympics

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When Santa Monica-born Maidie Oliveau was a student at Georgetown University, she and some other California girls wanted to play volleyball competitively. But the Washington, D.C., school didn’t have a team in 1970, so she had to help start one, getting school approval and even overcoming some sartorial complications.

“They handed us skirts to wear – that was all they had from the field hockey team,” she said. “I refused to wear them, so I got out my sewing machine and made us all little shorts.”

Oliveau’s sports background and international upbringing – in addition to California, she also lived in France for most of her childhood – have led to a long career as a sports attorney with an emphasis on international issues. The 58-year-old, based in Arent Fox LLP’s downtown L.A. office, has worked at five Olympic Games, arbitrating competitors’ legal disputes at four. In July, she’ll be going to the London Summer Olympics to serve in that role again.

“Even though I’m a cynical, experienced lawyer, I do have an idealistic view about the Olympic Games,” she said. “I do believe international interaction among the people who compete is healthy for our world. I see it in the opening ceremony, in competition, in the way they behave in the hearings and are respectful of each other.”

Coming Out of Their Shells

Slow and ancient, turtles have joined the fast-moving digital age thanks to a push from Susan Tellem.

The co-founder of Malibu public relations agency Tellem Grody PR also serves as executive director of American Tortoise Rescue, a Malibu non-profit she started 22 years ago. For the charity’s annual fundraising campaign, Tellem took advantage of daily discount site Groupon.

For a week leading up to World Turtle Day on May 23, Groupon users were asked to make a $10 donation to the group. The strategy netted $4,220, which will support about 100 turtles – ranging from small box turtles up to an 80-pound African tortoise named Tank – that live on the organization’s one-acre plot in Malibu.

Tellem’s PR skills helped hype the Groupon campaign.

“We pushed it on Facebook, Twitter, Constant Contact and in e-mails,” she said.

As a child, Tellem didn’t dream of becoming a turtle activist. She had a pet turtle but by adulthood she had moved on to work with cat rescue groups.

Then about 1990, her husband, Marshall Thompson, mentioned he liked turtles. She bought him two small Russian tortoises for his birthday.

“That was the beginning of a hobby gone bad,” she joked.

Since then, American Tortoise Rescue has provided temporary shelter for 3,000 turtles. To keep the hungry reptiles fed, Tellem hopes to repeat the Groupon experiment in two years.

“We can reach a whole new crowd of enthusiasts because there’s a young generation who are very conscious about animal welfare,” she said.

Staff reporters Alfred Lee and Joel Russell contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected]

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