Launched in 1998, the "Leadership American Style" lectures at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, have drawn thousands of Vermonters to Alumni Auditorium--and even greater numbers to broadcasts over public access television throughout the state---to hear about the roles of important men and women who have helped to forge their state and their nation by making inventions, innovations and reforms.

Keyed especially to Vermonters who have made national and global contributions and visitors to the Green Mountain State who were shaped by their experiences and sojourns in Vermont, the series has included Harriet Beecher Stowe's seminal visit to one of the earliest American spas, where she communed with nature and other creative women such as Julia Ward Howe. Adopted Vermonter Oliver Otis Howard's years as Civil War general, founder of the Freedman's Bureau and nine universities for African Americans -- including one named after him--is portrayed through his numerous writings in retirement in Burlington, where his house still stands. John Dewey, a neighbor, attended Burlington public school and the University of Vermont before leaving to create the progressive movement in education, which spread worldwide and forever changed how children learned.

The leadership lectures have also traced the contributions of such visitors as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln and Benedict Arnold, who built the first American navy on Lake Champlain. Famous military campaigns are traced as they pass through the Champlain Valley in the French and Indian Wars, the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. They are told in oral biographies such as "Ethan Allen, Philosopher on Horseback".

Public Speaking: In addition to his "Leadership American Style" lectures at Champlain College, Professor Randall has spoken at Yale University, Princeton, the Stern School of International Business at New York University and the Homeland Foundation at New York Yacht Club, Middlebury College, Franklin Pierce College, Lynchburg College, Pennsylvania State University, University of New Brunswick, State University of New York-Plattsburgh, Colonial National Park, Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, Virginia, Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, New Jersey, Valley Forge National Park, the American Revolution Round Table in New York City, Sons of the Revolution of New York, Colonial Dames national convention, Sons of the Revolution annual meetings in New York City and Philadelphia, the Proprietary House at Perth Amboy, the White Plains, N.Y. historical society, at John Cabot University in Rome, at the University of Naples and at Association France-Grande Bretagne in Nice, France. He gave a series of 20 lectures on Thomas Jefferson in Vermont under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a member of the Speaker's Bureau of the Vermont Council on the Humanities from its founding in 1984 until 2001. He has also keynoted conventions, including the national AFL-CIO convention and Primary Caregivers of Vermont.

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