President's message - Bruce Hottman

 

Cookstoves in Guatemala - Kathe Haake

 

Portland to Portland for Polio - Chris Richmond's ride

 

Get involved in community service - Teri Evans

 

Membership update

 

New Member Profile - Dave van Metre

 

New Member Profile - Ruth Lutes

 

New Member Profile - Charles Kaine

 

Share to grow our club! - Carl Dierschow

 

I can't believe the year if almost half over.  Time really does fly when you're having fun!!

 

This club is amazing...  I'm having a blast being your President, and I continue to be amazed at what this club accomplishes and the commitment from club members to continue to give and be the best.   Thank you to the club Officers & Directors! Thanks to all the Committee Chairs & Committee Members and Thanks to all Foothills Members.  You make this job very easy and I'm honored to fill this role.

 

We have some outstanding accomplishments this year and we’re only ½ way done!!… below is a summary we can check off:

 

While we should be all very proud of what we’ve accomplished… We’re not done! 

 

There is still a lot of suffering both locally and globally where we as Rotarians can help change lives.  We’re at the time of year where many are assessing their end of year gifts to a charitable cause.  Please consider donating to our Foothills Rotary Foundation, and/or The RI Rotary Foundation and PolioPlus because of the 3:1 match.  We know our local foundation changes lives in our community… let’s change more lives.  We also know we’re so close to eradicating Polio, we can’t stop now let’s rid this terrible virus from the world!

 

Here is a snapshot of our focus during the next quarter!

I’m really looking forward to the second half of our Rotary Year.  If you’re not on a committee or you are interested in more engagement, please talk to me or one of the board members!!

Enjoy the Holiday Season and Thanks Foothills Rotarians for being a gift to the world!!

 

Bruce.

 

The combined clubs of Rotarios Chiquimula de La Sierra – District 4250 and Rotary Club of Fort Collins Foothills – District 5440 are in the process of completing Guatemala Global Grant G-998.  The project will continue Rotary work in the Taco River Watershed and the small communities of La Catocha and El Poshte. 

 

It is common practice there to cook over open fires or with an improperly vented stove.  This causes a variety of health issues and uses twice the amount of firewood.  To resolve this, we are constructing 60 clean cook stoves for the community  and schools of La Catocha and El Poshte.

 

The schools also have sanitation and hygiene issues which require repair/construction of bathrooms and sinks.  We plan to repair and rebuild these facilities.

 

Additionally, we will provide 10 computers to El Centro Universitiario de Oriente.  They are an environmental engineering department that has provided the city of Chiquimula and Rotary with water  and land use analyses.

 

La Catocha and El Poshte have participated in water projects with Rotary previously.  Both have existing Community Development councils which will assist on projects.  Rotarios Chiquimula de La Sierra is an outstanding host club, helping complete numerous projects in the past years.

 

We have some avid cyclists in our club.  This year, Chris Richmond decided to join a 3700 mile trek across the USA. It was a brutal ride from Portland Oregon to Portland Maine, through 16 states over the span of 45 days in August and September.  The average daily ascent was 3400 feet, and as much as 8000 feet.

 

It was intense, the chance of a lifetime.

 

The Fort Collins Foothills Rotary Club president, Bruce Hottman, proposed an idea in the weeks prior to this event:  Why not ride to benefit Polio Plus, and turn this into a fund raiser?  The club members joined in enthusiastically.  Lyn Pring and Monty Weymouth immediately jumped on the chance to organize the effort back home, while Chris headed off for his ride.

We have numerous opportunities for hands-on service in Fort Collins on behalf of our Rotary club!

 

Our own Heather Bouniconti is with the Food Bank.  Heather has many opportunities for us to be of service in this wonderful non-profit that helps so many in our community.

 

The current service opportunities include:

There is a great young man in Windsor who is working on a project for his Eagle Scout badge.  He has selected a program with Project C.U.R.E. which provides backpacks to underdeveloped countries filed with basic medical and sanitary supplies.  Did you know 58% of deaths in children under the age of five care caused by infectious diseases?  He needs the following help:

Are you interested in being a part of this project?  To help, contact Teri Evans.

 

Our own Kelly Moll is with the Boys Scouts.  They will have some projects this spring we can help with.  They need volunteers to get the camp ready for the summer season.  More about that in the spring.

 

We had a program earlier this summer on Three Hopeful Hearts.  It is our own local agency that helps parents who are dealing with the loss of a child.  Kelly Moll helps with sewing heart pillows that this wonderful agency provides to the families.  Are you--or a family member--interested in learning more about this?

 

JA is a great national organization whose mission it is to provide financial literacy education with the schools.  They have programs from grades K-12.  We can do this individually or as a group.  The typical commitment can be 1 one-day "JA in a day" situation or 30-45 minutes once per week for 5 weeks--whichever works best for your schedule.  To help, contact Teri Evans.

 

Remember, we welcome your family's help, your company's help, prospective Rotary's help with these opportunities.

 

We are so blessed here in Fort Collins!  Like all communities, there are needs that we can all help serve right here in our own community.  And as Rotarians we have a heart for helping!

 

Please let me know where you would like to plug in.

 

Also please let me know if you would like to help with the coordinating of these hands-on community projects.  The more hands we have the more people we can serve.

 

Thank you,

YOUR Community Service Committee

I guess the best way to tell what we have done in Omaha is to google me in Omaha.

 

I was raised in Mount Vernon, Iowa [between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids ,home of Cornell College]. I attended Colorado College on a football scholarship, met and after graduation, married my wif, Carol, was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams [got banged around a bit and did not last long], served as an officer in the US Army, and became manager of the municipal bond department of a local investment company which was acquired by Shearson American Express [now Morgan Stanley]. I was also a co-owner of a travel agency-Travel and Transport, now the fifth largest travel agency in the US.

 

We have two sons with two grandchildren each-one son in the investment business living in suburban Chicago and the other son a professor of veterinary medicine at CSU.

 

We woke up one morning and decided to be with family-Fort Collins is a better choice than Chicago.

I am so happy to be accepted into the Foothills Rotary club.   Rotary has been a big part of my life since my husband joined the Rotary Club of Fort Collins when we first came to Fort Collins over 30 years ago.   I have long admired the “awesome power of Rotary” and the good that Rotary International does in the world.

 

After many years of vacationing in Colorado, my family moved to Boulder when I was 12.   Although my parents move on, I stayed in Boulder to complete an undergraduate degree in Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics at the University of Colorado.  That’s where I met my husband, Frank Lutes, who was majoring in Business and preparing to become a Navy pilot.   Over the 6 years Frank served as a Navy pilot, we lived in south Texas and the Washington, D.C. area and had great opportunities for foreign travel.   During this time, I worked in research at the University of Texas and started my software engineering career at Unisys which led me to Hewlett Packard on returning to Colorado. 

 

I worked in the HP Technical Workstation and Storage businesses for 25 years and held positions as Director of Quality and Customer Care during my last 10 years.   I had the good fortune to work with many great leaders in HP at a time when “Bill and Dave’s” values of community service and corporate stewardship were strongly endorsed.    

 

In 2007, one of my former HP managers offered me a position as Senior Vice President of Quality and Customer Care at Synaptics, Inc. in the California Bay Area at the same time that HP announced a generous early retirement program.    The majority of Synaptics suppliers and customers’ manufacturing sites were located in Asia and I spent 50% of my 6 years at Synaptics in Asia managing employees, suppliers and customers across Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. 

 

In 2010, I was sponsored into the Silicon Valley chapter of the American Leadership Forum (ALF) an organization that brings together leaders from corporate and non-profit organizations to serve the common good in their communities.   Many of my ALF colleagues are also Rotarians and I had the opportunity to provide support for their programs including “Step Up Silicon Valley” a program sponsored by Catholic Charities and a major expansion of a public health facility in East Palo. 

 

For the past three years, I have been Vice President of Customer Success for Vendini, Inc. which is a San Francisco based software-as-a-service company that provides ticketing services for entertainment venues including performing arts, music festivals, museums and tours.   I have really enjoyed supporting the arts and administering the “Vendini Loves the Arts” program in support of non-profit arts organizations.