NANCY CARRIUOLO

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

John Maeda

RISD president

Anyone with a computer can catch the latest musings of John Maeda, the designer-artist-author-computer-scientist-college president who periodically blogs his experiences and impressions on a Web site he created “to keep the conversation going.”

Last month, near the end of his first semester leading the Rhode Island School of Design, Maeda wrote about the importance of honoring the 131-year-old art school’s past.

Maeda also posted a podcast of an interview with an artist-entrepreneur about earning money as a creative person — a concept Maeda promotes — and ended his posts last month with reflections on his first six months at the helm of what he calls “one of the last bastions of the human creative spirit.”

“Creativity and clarity are a promise that I intend to deliver as we move into 2009 and beyond,” Maeda vowed on the blog.

“We have the opportunity to elevate the ideas of creativity here at RISD past Providence, past Rhode Island, into the world as a symbol of creativity,” Maeda says later in an interview.

When he became RISD’s 16th president last summer, fresh from MIT’s Media Lab, a research center focused on computers and the arts, Maeda vowed transparent leadership, a promise the 42-year-old has made good on. In addition to frequent blog posts, Maeda uses the social messaging site Twitter to share random thoughts. A recent sample: “A favorite inspirational phrase, ‘I’d rather be green and growing, instead of ripe and ready to rot.’ ”

“I’ve been pretty busy,” he says. “I think the world is giving me a lot to think about.”

Maeda says he is looking forward to the energy he expects President-elect Barack Obama to bring to office.

“The thing I keep telling everyone is the president will fail if we wait for him to. It’s we the people who must do something. Then the president will succeed on our behalf,” Maeda says.

“We’re in a situation where the world says we can’t, and now we have a president who says we can. And that means creativity and taking risks. Creativity is all about we can.”

Maeda’s Web site is http://our.risd.edu.

— Jennifer D. Jordan

Frank T. Caprio

General treasurer

It will be 22 months before the state elects its next governor.

But General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio may already have his sights set on Election Day 2010.

The first-term treasurer and former state representative employs a full-time fundraiser and has amassed an $866,000 war chest, significantly larger than that of any of his potential opponents.

Caprio himself remains circumspect about his intentions. In some interviews, he has expressed serious interest in the job. Other times, he’s coy, insisting he hasn’t committed to a run, but will do so by the end of this year.

In the meantime, he’s juggling his first term as a state treasurer in the midst of a massive state economic crisis. Rhode Island’s budget deficit is believed to be the largest shortfall in the nation as a percentage of state-only spending and the state’s pension fund — overseen by the treasurer’s office — is believed to be down at least 25 percent.

Not exactly a desirable spot for a future gubernatorial candidate.

But Caprio has avoided the scapegoating that could all too easily fall on his shoulders.

He’s done that, some say, by embracing his role as the state’s financier-in-chief. Since October, Caprio has spearheaded sales of the so-called “war bonds” to help the state pay its bills on time. He has also used more than $10,000 of his own campaign money to finance a billboard on Route 95 and an accompanying Web advertisement promoting Rhode Island’s zero-percent sales tax on clothing, as an incentive for drivers to stop and shop in the Ocean State.

While the state’s revenues spiraled into freefall by November, it was Caprio — not more senior state leaders — on television and in the pages of this newspaper promising Rhode Islanders we will get through.

“People look to government in trying times as a stable force and you need individuals in office that can communicate effectively during those times,” he said in an interview last week.

Is it all part of his preparation for the 2010 campaign?

“We need new ideas and people with energy in many parts of public life,” comes his answer. “I’ve tried to bring my ideas forth in the treasurer’s office and I’ll make a decision in 2009 as to what is in store for my future.”

Stay tuned.

— Cynthia Needham

Graehme Field

Fashion designer

In the rag trade, the forward-thinking turn toward Europe, the last bastion of haute couture.

And that’s where 20-year-old Graehme Field has set his sights for this year.

The fashion design student, a 2007 Tiverton High grad, says he hopes to get a foot in the door at a fashion house in Milan or Paris.

Field raised his professional profile several notches in New York last year with dramatic numbers that included a black and gold fringed party dress and a white-on-white wool coat layered with oversized flower cutouts and pearls.

In February, Field won a spot on an MTV show for a small clutch of up-and-coming fashion designers, as well as an internship at Sean Jean, the clothing line of entrepreneur and rapper Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.

Then in September, he and two other alumni from the MTV competition put on their own show during New York Fashion Week, attracting coverage from Revenge Fashion Magazine and FashionLedge.com that endures on the Internet.

Field has been designing women’s clothes since he was a sophomore in high school, and he says he’s always experimenting with fabric.

One of the designs he made as a high school student, a strapless dress with a layered tulle skirt, won him a full scholarship to the Art Institute of New York, where he is in his second and final year.

Field said the internship at Sean John taught him a lot about the process of creating a fashion collection for the mass market, but it also taught him that New York gets much of its inspiration from Europe. That’s where he hopes to continue his studies, in a couture house in Paris or Milan.

Field is a glutton for the punishment of handwork — the hallmark of couture — and the element that makes his designs stand out. His September show, in the HK Lounge on 39th Street in Manhattan, featured a jacket with a yoke embellished by hundreds of buttons.

Field sewed on every one of them. Ditto for the hundred white flowers and pearl centers he chose to top off the white coat in the finale of the show, titled Flora Fauna because it borrowed from nature.

Runway shows “are not necessarily about what people wear,” he said. “I think some if it is just showmanship. It’s like walking art.

“I love the drama.”

— Gina Macris

Tom Brady

School superintendent

Providence Schools Supt. Tom Brady will preside over the opening of a new middle school this fall that many hope will restore East Side parents’ faith in their public schools.

When Nathan Bishop Middle School re-opens after a $35-million renovation, it will have a well-respected new principal, Michael Lazzareschi, who currently runs Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, also on the East Side. Lazzareschi will be under a lot of pressure to prove that a middle school can be successful in Providence. Marked by chronically low student performance and discipline problems, middle schools have long been the Achilles’ heel of the city’s public schools. A small but growing number of East Side parents are betting that a new Bishop will offer them a viable alternative to the private and parochial schools their children currently attend.

Brady also hopes that a new $90-million career and technical academy will boost the school district’s academic profile and provide hundreds of students with the credentials they need to enter the skilled work force. The superintendent has spoken with state officials about opening the academy at night to bring young adults back into the educational fold.

In a recent interview, Brady outlined several priorities for the coming year, including dealing with potential midyear cuts to the school budget. Brady said he is tapping a $500,000 grant from the Broad Foundation to hire an efficiency expert to analyze how money is being spent in the district. The goal, in these tough financial times, is to free up more money for teaching and learning.

Brady will announce a plan early this year that will spell out how local industries and colleges can support the district, from financial contributions to loaning the district’s finance department business students to help out. Also, the district is committed to opening an outreach office that will coordinate fundraising efforts.

— Linda Borg

Jack Templin

Geek supreme

Jack Templin is a geek.

And for the past two years, he’s been trying to get other geeks to band together and form a more cohesive community.

Templin is the cofounder of the Providence Geeks, a group with a mission “to help Rhode Island’s digital innovators connect, collaborate, and ultimately make the city-state and its geeks info-technology leaders.”

That mission is carried out mainly by holding monthly dinners at AS220, a Providence art and music collective.

It’s not surprising that the topics of conversation include things like mash-ups, Web services, social computing and something called AJAX, which has nothing to do with cleaning toilets.

But what might be surprising is how many technology start-ups have taken root in Rhode Island. Founders of these companies are often featured speakers at these informal dinners.

Templin, 39, founded the Providence Geeks along with Brian Jepson, a local technologist and book author. They saw other cities holding “geek dinners” and Templin said he thought it would be cool to have a similar organization here.

Building a community and establishing collaborative relationships are critical in transforming Rhode Island’s economy, Templin said.

It fits with a new model of economic development that’s taking hold. “It’s like organic farming. You start with what you have, recognize what’s valuable, nurture it and it grows.”

“People start to see that, and that can then build on itself. They see you got a good thing going and want to be part of it.”

While it may take longer to create more jobs than say landing a big company that brings in 10,000 jobs, it makes for a more resilient economy because you’re not putting all your eggs in a single basket, he said.

This year, Templin said he sees the technology sector holding out better than other industries that have been hurt by the economic downturn. Part of the reason is that technology can often provide ways for companies to save money. And part of it is the ongoing shift to moving commerce and other interactions to the Internet.

He also wants to help bridge connections between companies and universities. To that end, he is partnering with some investors to create a “microseed” fund that would give young entrepreneurs a small amount of money and a lot of mentoring, to help encourage new start-ups. He said he thinks the model will be successful because of the large student population in Rhode Island.

Templin said he views the current economic downturn as an opportunity for innovation. “When there’s a crisis like this, people become more open to doing things a new way because the old ways are not working.”

— Timothy C. Barmann

Ellen Alemany

Bank executive

The last 12 months made one thing clear: Nothing about the banking industry is predictable.

Still, it’s a safe bet that, whatever happens in banking in the coming 12 months, Ellen Alemany will be in the thick of it.

Alemany took over in March as chief executive officer of Citizens Financial Group, the Providence company that runs Citizens Bank.

“Without question, the economic crisis we’re in is stunning,” Alemany said in a recent interview with The Journal. But, she said, that crisis is an opportunity to fix “fundamental flaws” in the banking system, such as a regulatory system in need of an overhaul.

She also sees Citizens playing a role in helping Rhode Island’s economy, one of the hardest hit nationally, rebound by providing businesses with the capital and credit they need to grow, create jobs and build a better future.

But Citizens Bank’s own future has been the subject of speculation in recent months.

The company’s parent, Royal Bank of Scotland, received government money last year in the United Kingdom’s bank bailout. And the comments by Royal Bank’s chief executive prompted analysts to predict the sale of Citizens Financial Group. CEO Stephen Hester said, “I tried to be as clear as I can be: Number one, there are no sacred cows; number two, whatever we do it will be based on customer businesses and shareholder value.”

Alemany, 53, who came to Citizens after heading Global Transaction Systems at Citigroup, has emphasized her bank’s ties to the community where it was founded. Talking to a business gathering in November, she pointed out her maiden name, Luciani. “I was born and raised in an Italian neighborhood like Federal Hill with a backbone of small businesses. My dad owned a small business in the Bronx. Most of the local businesses were named after their owners — Arturo’s Bakery, Dominick’s Restaurant, Madonia’s Bread Shop.”

She sees that same sense of community as key to surviving the economic crisis.

“Trust that we will get through this crisis, and trust each other,” she told the business gathering. “We are in this together. We are connected. We work in the same world, in the same community, and sometimes even on the same street.”

— Paul Edward Parker

Frank Sellke

Cardiac surgeon

His name is Frank Sellke. Not, perhaps, a household name. But among cardiac surgeons, he’s known around the country, perhaps the world.

And late last year, Sellke left Boston, the hub of medical progress, for Rhode Island, where he is leading the division of cardiothoracic surgery at the Lifespan hospital group and Brown University.

The folks at Lifespan exulted over this catch. “Star power attracts star power,” declared Dr. Arthur Klein, a senior vice president, predicting that Sellke’s presence would make it easier for Lifespan to attract other top talent this year.

Meanwhile, gradually over the next few months, Sellke will move his $2-million research enterprise from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital to Lifepan’s Coro Building. He expects that will mean new jobs for Rhode Islanders.

Additionally, Rhode Islanders can expect more sophisticated heart surgery at Miriam and Rhode Island hospitals. Sellke plans to introduce left-ventricular-assist devices, surgically implanted pumps that help the heart function in patients awaiting transplants. He’s also going to improve and expand existing programs in aortic surgery, correcting heart-rhythm abnormalities and treatments for heart failure.

Lifespan officials say that Sellke’s arrival vaults the hospitals closer to their goal of becoming a world-class medical center competing with Boston hospitals. They’ve been talking about that goal for a long time. Will Sellke’s star shine brightly enough to accomplish it?

— Felice J. Freyer

Raymond Watson

Young professional

Raymond Watson came home to make a difference.

After college in New York and a master’s degree in community planning from the University of Rhode Island, he could have gone elsewhere.

Watson, 29, grew up in Providence’s Mount Hope and Fox Point neighborhoods, though, and family and community matter most to him. So he returned to Mount Hope, where he has been executive director of the Mount Hope Neighborhood Association for two years.

Watson has concentrated on getting the 27-year-old association on “solid financial footing” and focusing on programs for 14- to 19-year-olds, an underserved group. The association is also poised to launch a youth council with a first meeting Jan. 15.

“I want them to value themselves,” Watson says of the youth he works with. “I think a lot of youth don’t do that.”

Watson says his ties to the neighborhood meant he didn’t need to earn the trust of those around him because he already had it. They knew his grandmother Alice Watson, who raised him, and his mother. His grandmother introduced him to an influential civil-rights activist who was her childhood friend. Michael Van Leesten is now chairman of the Black Repertory Company’s board and chairman of the Mount Hope Neighborhood Association.

“He inspires me,” Van Leesten says of Watson. “He gives me more than I give him. You don’t have to paint pictures for him. He’s always trying to find ways to create more opportunity and possibilities.”

About six years ago, Watson helped start the Rhode Island Young Professionals after hearing his peers say they felt on the outside because they didn’t know the right people. The group, an auxiliary of the Urban League of Rhode Island, has helped convince many that they can be successful in Rhode Island.

“We try to be that bridge where they can come in, interact with people and meet the right people in order to get themselves plugged in,” says Watson, who recently finished a two-year stint as president of the Young Professionals and will remain as adviser to help ease the transition for new president Den Soch.

While the Young Professionals were “very good on the social scene,” Watson says that wasn’t their main goal, and in this past year he really focused on more civic work for the group.

Erika Read, the group’s past vice president, is impressed Watson “stayed to invest” in his community.

“He always says, ‘I could have ended up like my friends, either dead or in jail,’ ” says Read, who is also an assistant coordinator with the state Department of Labor and Training. “And what’s great is that ... he still has ties to his friends. We seem to walk another walk after we get somewhere in life, but he’s always been humbled by who he is and where he’s come from, which I admire.”

— Kate Bramson

Nancy Carriuolo

College president

Nancy Carriuolo became the ninth president of Rhode Island College just as the state’s economic outlook was worsening, and she spent much of her first semester finding ways to generate more income while at the same time trimming an already reduced budget.

The public higher education system lost $30 million in state financing this year. Dozens of positions at RIC — one of the state’s three public colleges — remain vacant and tuition and fees could rise by 25 percent or more next year.

“We’ve been under financial strain, but we are working to ensure quality, affordable programs for our students,” says Carriuolo, 59. “We hope to become part of the solution to the state’s economic problems.”

RIC, the state’s oldest public college, trains hundreds of the state’s teachers, nurses and social workers each year. Carriuolo says she hopes the budget avoids further state cuts. “I hope that in the new year, people come to think of an investment in RIC as an investment in the Rhode Island economy,” Carriuolo says.

Carriuolo, the daughter of a machinist-farmer from upstate New York and the granddaughter of immigrants, was the first in her family to graduate from high school and college. She identifies with RIC’s mission to educate first-generation and low-income students. This year, in-state tuition and fees, room and board total about $15,000. Out-of-state costs are about $24,000.

Carriuolo says she plans to increase undergraduate enrollment by 140 students next fall. And to attract more out-of-state students, she’s already received approval to expand a program that allows residents in nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut towns to attend RIC at close to in-state rates.

Carriuolo says she also wants to expand RIC’s continuing education and job training programs as a way to make money for the college.

If state lawmakers approve a plan to release state funds reserved for capital projects, RIC could receive as much as $5.2 million for projects such as linking the East Campus to the main campus and improving water and power conservation — work that could create about 20 jobs, Carriuolo says.

— Jennifer D. Jordan