The Orcas Library will host “Europe in Crisis – the Future of the Euro” at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 25 at the Eastsound Fire Hall.

Financial experts Gerry Lawlor and Audra Query-Lawlor will share personal perspectives on global economies. They will range over a variety of inter-related topics, beginning with Europe’s huge challenges in facing the Euro currency crisis. They will discuss European real estate mortgage practices, which are different from the U.S.; also, how big bank and financial institutions are driving indexes higher with insufficient regard for risks. Audra and Gerry will bring their expertise to bear in exploring other world currencies, sovereign debt, globalization, and the effects of all of these issues on markets in the United States.

A lover of writing, growing things, and eating them, Audra once moonlighted as a currency and interest rate derivatives marketer on Wall Street. Author of the farm-to-fork blog “Girl Meets Dirt,” chronicling her city slickin’ transition to country life, she spent 10 years working at investment banks wishing she was doing something else. Starting out as an economic analyst at Credit Suisse focused on Latin American Sovereign Debt, she progressed to advising corporate clients on derivative solutions to manage their currency and interest rate risk, with stints at JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs. She has an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from Columbia and harbors a secret love for excel spreadsheets and anything laced with sugar.

Hailing from the ‘I’ in PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain), Gerry moved to the U.S. before the boom and bust, chasing a wee white golf ball over green pastures, and found his way into the very colorful side of Wall Street’s inter-dealing. After 14 years of fixed income and derivative sell-side and inter-dealer brokering, Gerry found himself at the heart of the transactions, trading or managing the development of large scale trading systems around the globe. Prior to moving west Gerry has worked for Bank of America, ICAP, Goldman Sachs, NASDAQ and TMX.

“Europe In Crisis – the Future of the Euro” is brought to you in partnership with Friends of the Orcas Library. This event is part of a series of lectures hosted by the Orcas Island Public Library in celebration of the current building’s 20th Anniversary.

For additional information on this and other events, visit the Orcas Library’s website at www.orcaslibrary.org.