The human voice. It’s the instrument we all play. It’s the most powerful sound in the world.

Probably the only one that can start a war or softly say we care. And yet many people have the
experience that when they speak, people don’t understand the meaning of the words they are
trying to convey, even if they are using the exact same words another person has used to
successfully used to convey meaning it the past. That was my experience and the experience
that has led me to toastmasters.

In December of last year I was an Online instructor for Axeion, a company that taught auditors
to audit medical devices to the ISO (that International Standards Organization) 13485 standard.

This standard is used by the food and drug administration to certify everything medical,
Hospital Enterprise Resource Planning Systems like NextGen, EPIC, McKesson, Allscripts and
Care360 to Genomic editing technologies like CRISPr, TALEN and Zink Finger Nuclease against
FDA 21 CFR Part 820 the Quality System Regulation intended to ensure devices entering the
marketplace are safe and effective.

During my instruction I did my best to emulate the delivery of the course author however during
one of my courses one of my students became confused and reached out to the course author,
who happened to be monitoring my course delivery, for clarification. This participants confusion
over meaning cost me my role with the company and upon my termination my case worker at
Oregon Vocational rehabilitation strongly recommended Portland toastmasters as a solution for
my lack of clear delivery of my course material.

My name is Marlin Pohlman, I am 51 years young and a new member of Portland toastmasters.
In addition to being an ISO 27001, 13485 and 9001 Lead Auditor I am an avid Scuba diver
certified in Wreck diving Cave diving and Nitrox rebreather in excess of 40 ft. I certified off the
Great Barrier Reef in Australia and my Cave diving certification was off the coast n Mexico in the
cenotes created by the meteor that killed the dinosaurs

I am also an avid downhill skier or at least was prior to a spinal accident several years ago. I
prefer snowblades also sometimes called skiblades approx. 4 ft in length approx. 4in wide made
by company’s like Salomon HeadKore with characteristics much like ice skates on snow. You can
do 360’ Ski in reverse or Hop back from a fall on any tract of snow

My hobbies include the Magic card game and the Python programming language. I have
worked for Netscape, IBM, Oracle and EMC authored several technical books and patents over
my career. However, now I am looking for remote work in my field, all because I did not
understand some of the basics of conveying a clear and concise verbal message

My goal in toastmasters is to remediate my lack of clear and concise delivery of a subject matter
in which I am an expert and, in the process, hopefully have fun and make some new friends.
Thank you for listening to my icebreaker.