Hello,
My name is Lisa Fabiny and I'm happy to be introducing myself to the Shire community at large. 
I discovered the Shire Society forum through my good friend and roommate, Maximus Peto (his introduction is before mine on the forum and I highly recommend getting to know him). I primarily registered on this site because I will be often visiting Max when he moves to Keene, NH at the end of this week and I'd like to be considered a remote member of the community. This is of course with the intention of becoming a full-fledged member of the community down the road, but right now my situation doesn't allow me the flexibility to uproot. I've also been interested in the Free State Project for a while now and I think it's a wonderful idea.
Currently, I am a remote Executive Assistant for SENS Research Foundation (http://www.sens.org/) which is located in the Silicon Valley region of California and promotes the research of anti-aging technologies. I am also a co-founder of Ichor Therapeutics, Inc. (http://ichortherapeutics.com/), a for-profit company looking into therapeutics in the longevity space. We are primarily in the stem cell business at this time. I'm physically located in Syracuse, NY as this is where Ichor is located.
I fully realize that the previous paragraph gives you little insight as to who I am as a person, nor how I found my way into my current situation and this forum. That's a long story, and I'll try to summarize here but please feel free to message or email me if you'd like to know more.
I was born and raised in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio and I went to college in Columbus, Ohio at Otterbein College and earned a BSc in Life Sciences, concentration in Plant Biology. After college I promptly entered into an industry profession for about a year before meeting Max and heading off to California where I entered into the longevity community.Â
It was as a member of this group of amazing people that I found myself as Director of Analytics/Lab Manager of a stem cell startup, ImmunePath, Inc. After a year and a half, we ran out of funding and I found myself hired as an Executive Assistant at SENS Research Foundation surrounded by cryonicists and immortalists. I worked there for a year before heading back to the East coast to be near my family, miraculously keeping my job part-time. Once settled in southern Michigan, I received a call from a friend of mine from California who was in Syracuse for medical school and had just received funding for a new stem cell startup. I packed up and was in Syracuse in under a month to start the company with him. And that about brings you up to date.
Personally, I am an open minded libertarian with a teacup agnostic view of religion and a fairly "live and let live" mentality. I also consider myself to be an immortalist and cryonicist. I have been a fan of Ayn Rand's work since high school and that's really what led me to start analyzing our current government structure and having an opinion of my own on the subject. She's what led me to libertarianism. My stint in Silicon Valley also really helped to open my mind to what can be done by a small, dedicated group of people, and I miss them quite a lot. I'm hoping to find an equally motivated and interesting group of folks in the Shire to befriend and aid in changing our society for the better.
Random bit of information: Now that I know PorcFest exists, I'd really like to attend this year and am looking into ways to do so. Any advice on the subject would be greatly appreciated. Also, every year a floating island comprised of houseboats (entitled "Ephemerisle") is created on the Sacramento river delta in California and is chocked full of really interesting, open-minded, intelligent folks. I'll be attending this event as well (July 10th this year) and it will be my third time. I highly recommend it for a good time and meeting very cool people.
I guess that's it. Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions/comments. Here is my linkedin profile just in case you're curious: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lisa-fabiny/33/936/117
I have a facebook account too, so feel free to find me on there: https://www.facebook.com/lmcfabiny
Sincerely,
Lisa
Modification: I just looked at some of the other intros and I realize I've left out something important, my age (26 yrs.), and probably threw in way too much info. :-\ Sorry for the overload.
Hey Lisa,
Welcome to the Forum. I look forward to meeting you in person. I've never heard of Ephemerisle. There is also the annual Libertopia Festival http://www.libertopia.org/2013/ in San Diego, CA. I think it is named after a documentary called Libertopia about the Free State Project. The documentary is now free online. http://www.libertopiafilm.com/
Welcome - see you at Porcfest!