Meghan Burton began the meeting at 12:30
Pledge: Mike Frangadakis
Inspiration: Suzanne Boxer-Gassman: She has been looking through pictures of our rotary year and was amazed and inspired by all of the good work our club has done through service, scholarships, grants and more. Congratulations to Meghan for a fabulous job!
Guests: Shawna Rogers, daughter of Teri Rodgers, Alex Parks, guest of Dick Konrad, Barbara Rogan, guest of Dan Snyder, Jenny Athena Wong, prospective member, Claire Lopp, daughter of Rachelle Lopp, Sangita Seshadri, from Saratoga Rotary and Cary Wilson, guest of Nicholas Welzenbach.
Rotarian in the Wild: Meghan Burton at Sequoia National Park.
First Tuesday: will be held on July 2 from 5:30-7:30pm at Lisa and Barry Cheskin’s home. 65 Ellenwood Ave, LG. This is in honor of our 2024-2025 President, Doug Brent. Since they keep kosher, NO FOOD AT ALL PLEASE-they will be providing the food. Please bring a bottle of wine or beverage of your choice. All are welcome!
Roast and Toast: Come and celebrate President Meghan Burton. Tuesday, June 25 from 5:30-8:30pm at Darling & Fischer. 231 Campbell Ave. The charge is $10 per person, which includes all food and drink. Casual attire and wear your best SF Giants gear! Let Mike Norcia know if you will be attending. They need 5 people for set up and 5 people for clean up afterwards.
Club Business: The Cat Tale Committee needs 2 more volunteers. The job is to take minutes at our weekly meetings. If you are interested, please contact Diane Eriksson.
Patti van der Burg is closing out the budget for this fiscal year, so please get her any invoices that are outstanding and give her any new budget numbers for next year.
Shawna Rodgers: from California Certified Organic farmers thanked us for the gift her organization received through Rotary. CCOF is a non-profit organization that advances organic agriculture through certification, education, advocacy, and promotion. Their mission is to advance organic agriculture for a healthy world.
Blue Badge Biographies:
Nicolette Rodman Kelly:
Her parents are Marlene and Bob. Marlene’s favorite saying is “The harder I work the luckier I get.” Bob’s favorite saying was “We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time.” Both her parents have been very influential in Nicolette’s life. Bob had a huge sense of adventure and a love for scuba diving, which he passed on to Nicolette. She and her sister are very close and they both live in Los Gatos and raised their children together, who are very close in ages. Nicolette was on the Los Gatos High School championship basketball team in 1982 and 1984.
Nicolette put herself through college and worked at many jobs, house cleaning, junk hauler, and political campaigner to name a few.
She went to San Jose State and did a semester abroad in London.
She met her husband at C. B. Hannegans and they were married in 1996 and have 2 children. Her son is in accounting and auditing and her daughter is traveling the world and in South Vietnam right now.
She has been a partner in Real Estate with her mother for 30 years. She loves her job, the surprises and meeting and working with new people.
She is thrilled to be a part of Rotary.
Patti van der Burg presented Nicolette with her Blue Badge.
Diane Eriksson:
Diane was born and raised in San Jose, and she has 4 older brothers. Her father was a doctor and her mother was a nurse. She did house calls with her dad when she was growing up. Diane studied kinesiology and physical education at Chico State University, and had planned to go into that field but the programs were being cut in the schools. She was one of 2 women on the all male diving team and was the # 1 player on the women’s tennis team.
She got her Masters in Adaptive Physical Education at San Jose State University and then went on to get a nursing degree. Her first job was at San Mateo County Hospital and her second job was at Valley Medical Center where she worked as a staff developer for Spinal Chord injuries, head trauma and strokes.
Diane went back to school to get her second Masters as a clinical nurse specializing in geriatrics. She became the nurse manager at the clinical research studies at the VA for 20 years. Then her last 8 years was as a liaison between acute care and extended care veterans at the VA. Diane is retired but does outpatient cardiac rehab part time.
She was married to her fabulous husband Kurt for 21 years; he was an aerospace engineer who passed 3 years ago. Diane loves to swim, play mahjong and pickle ball and is an avid traveler.
She is grateful to Gae LaTorre for bringing her into Rotary and she loves being a part of our club. Gae presented Diane with her blue badge.
Guest Speaker:
Dr. Tom Fingar, Stanford University, International Studies. Jean-Marc introduced Tom Fingar.
From 2005-2008, Tom served as Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and concurrently, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council for the US government.
His previous positions include Assistant Secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Analysis, Director for the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific, and Chief of the China Division. He earned his MA and PhD in Political Science at Stanford. He has written two books on China and the political arena and he has published numerous works on Intelligence.
Tom won a Presidential Rank award for Distinguished Senior professional in 2005 for his outstanding service and leadership in Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The late Colin Powell described him as a man with “moral courage and a sense of purpose.”
He spoke about US and China’s relationship on 3 levels:
USA and China’s relationship is fraught with difficulties but is not as bad as we are led to believe. We are not on the brink of conflict.
China is not an unstoppable juggernaut in the global political arena. They are not replacing the USA in the International System.
USA cannot by itself make the relationship with China better, but we can take steps to improve it and be smart on how we deal with China so as not to make the relationship worse.
Fears about China are the USA’s own lack of confidence in ourselves. Chinese officials face huge challenges internally. The USA looms large with the leaders in China but China does not figure high on the USA’s foreign policy agendas. China has the fastest aging population in the world and they are not equipped to deal with this population as far as health care and social services.
He talked about China’s position globally (they have low favorable ratings through out the world) and how many of their problems are internal. The USA needs to learn how to deal with the Chinese government and not push their buttons and hype them as the problem.
His recent books include “Uneasy Partnerships: China engaging Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform,” and “Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future.”