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MENTOR

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Join us on a Wednesday convenient to you and experience the fun and friendship of the Rotary Club of San Jose!

Contact our Executive Director, Leslee Hamilton for more details (408) 297-6101.

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“Service Above Self”

Rotary is a service organization of business and community leaders united worldwide. Rotarians are making a positive impact in our local and global communities.

The Rotary Club of San Jose

Benefiting the community and our world through action, integrity, service, and fellowship.

The Rotary Club of San Jose is the largest, most active and well-known service organization in the community. We are a leadership organization working together to make a difference. Our members include local business, nonprofit, professional and civic leaders. We form lasting friendships through our shared Rotary experiences including weekly meetings with interesting speakers, committee meetings and projects, social events and group service projects within our community and internationally.

Diversity & Inclusion

Having a diverse and inclusive Rotary Club means we value and welcome individuals of all ages, cultures, ethnicities, and races to our Club. We invite younger people, women, and minorities who support Rotary’s values, ideals, and mission to join our members in service to our community, and we strive to give all members equal opportunities to serve as leaders within our Club.

Service is the life blood of our Club, and it all happens through our Committees

The Speaker for August 10th: Mike Pereira

Mike Pereira Fox Sports
Finding a Purpose in Life

Mike Pereira has been involved in football since 1982 when he was an NCAA Division I official. He spent 14 years officiating college football, beginning with nine years in the Big West Conference (1982-91), followed by five years in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) (1992-96).
After two years patrolling the NFL sidelines and overseeing WAC officiating, Pereira was promoted to NFL Supervisor of Officiating in 1998. In 2001, he became Director of Officiating for the NFL and then was promoted to Vice President of NFL Officiating in 2004.
In 2010 FOX Sports created a unique position of a multi-platform NFL and college football rules analyst. Pereira contributes regularly to the FOX NFL SUNDAY pregame show. He also contributes to select FOX College Football game broadcasts. Pereira is available to interact with on-air studio personalities during pregame, halftime or postgame segments and communicate with game crews at stadiums across the country, either on- or off-camera.
In February of 2017, Pereira launched “BATTLEFIELDS TO BALLFIELDS,” his foundation that provides scholarships to veterans of the United States Armed Forces. The goal of the foundation is to provide veterans with an opportunity to get integrated back into their community through officiating.
Born and raised in Stockton, Calif., he graduated from Santa Clara University in 1972 with a B.A. in finance. Pereira currently lives in Sacramento with his wife Gail.

Link to map of public art places in San Jose

Rotarian Emily Roben created a map of all the public art in San Jose and a brief overview about each art
after speaker, Michael Ogilvie, spoke about public art in San Jose.

Link to the map is HERE

A couple of things to note about the map:
Blue = community center or library
Orange = fire stations
Red = all others
Clicking on each marker will show some detail including the name of the piece and the location. Some locations are approximate because many parks and public spaces do not have specific addresses (e.g. artwork installations at intersections, underpasses, etc)

Firesides

Fireside Hosts are needed for the Week of August 21.
What are firesides? A social gathering at your home or place of business. It can have a theme or just a get together to help drink the beer you took home from Dan Gordon. It can limited to as few or as many guests as you like. It can be hosted or a potluck.

Possible ideas: outdoor movie night, a game board night, snipe hunt night, a poker night, whisky and cigars.

The goal is to socialize with fellow Rotarians outside of meetings and committees.

We are targeting to have firesides each night during the week of August 21.

Send an email to doug@whiskyedu.org if you’d like to host, or we will have a signup table at the meeting

Volunteer Opportunities for Large Club Conference

The Meeting Summary for August 3, 2022

There was a wine reception hosted by Bert George in the lobby before the meeting.

President Sal called the #5354th meeting (his 4th) of the Rotary Club of San Jose to order. Sal thanked Bert for the pre-meeting wine and the Program Committee for greeting line.

We enjoyed an A+ performance by Ren Geisick a jazz singer, guitar player and song writer. She sang The Place I Plan to Go and Love Song #1.

Executive Director of San Jose Jazz, Brendan Rawson reminded us of San Jose Jazz Summer Fest is August 12 to 14. Go to Sanjosejazz.org if you want to order tickets.

The traveling microphone is back; Red-Badgers Tricia Creason-Valencia and Emily Roben carried the mics as Rotarians introduced their guests. President Sal welcomed all.

New member Abe Wolcott was introduced by his sponsor Rod Diridon. Abe is a chemist with a PhD and post-doctoral work. He is currently a professor at San Jose State University and a mentor to many. He has three children and serves on the School Board in Scotts Valley. Rod described him as a genius and a humanitarian. He will be a great Rotarian.

President Sal allowed Rotarians to “ring the bell” which meant that members had an opportunity to share good news and donate to our Foundation. Jason Stein’s daughter is engaged, and he is stepping down as Boy Scouts Director. Sean Cottle’s daughter was married. Rob Diridon celebrated recovering from Covid twice. Sarah Janigian celebrated her newly born first granddaughter and for five grandsons. Ray Castaneda celebrated his grandson. Jay Ross honored Rod Diridon for his amazing ability to introduce new members. Gay Crawford is celebrating 10 years at Cancer Care. Carl Salas rang the bell for our fabulous AV support – John Duhring and Mike Danberger. Bonnie Bamburg celebrated her daughter’s recent wedding. Steve Prouty honored Rod also. Fernando Zazueta celebrated his son’s new job and Rod. Kathleen Thomas thanked Matt Braker, Cindy Faulkner and the Culinary and Hospitality Committee for supporting her Red Badge event. Jeff Hare celebrated his son’s wedding.

President Sal auctioned two premium 49er football tickets donated by Roger Mialocq.

Larry Donatoni introduced our speaker Seoyoung Kim who gave us an overview of Crypto assets. She is the Finance Chair at Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. She has written books on the subject of crypto assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Crypto is a method of record keeping. There is very little understanding of Crypto assets. She showed a Bitcoin ATM which of course left most heads spinning. She reviewed the evolution of money. Then compared bitcoin and cash from a gangster’s point of view.

Bitcoin leaves a ledger trail, cash doesn’t. Cash and bitcoin do not allow one to spend millions in cash. Both take creativity for spending.
Cash is noted in private ledgers, which are the basis of modern finance. They run on centralized leadership principle.
Public ledgers allow anyone to see transactions for all time. Bitcoin Explorer allows everyone to view spending. Not so easy to do illegal activities with crypto. The public ledgers currently run without centralized leadership.

She concluded with explaining, that depending on the intent of the developer, cryptocurrency can function as:

a global medium of exchange (Bitcoin)
a contractual right to transact on a future or existing protocol (Ethereum)
a de facto financial security providing cash flow claims (Arcoin)
a symbolic gesture or statement with no explicit practical value attached (Dogecoin)

Heads may still be spinning.

Our club contributed to SJ Jazz Aid Fund to honor today’s speaker.

Next week our speaker will be Mike Pereia from the NFL speaking on finding a purpose in life.

The hybrid Zoom-Live meeting was adjourned at 1:15 p.m.
To view this week's broadcast, click here.

Respectfully submitted by Karyn Sinunu-Towery, Meeting Summaries Committee.
Photos taken by Kathleen Thomas, Photography Committee.

To view the full set, click here.

New Member Abe Wolcott

Abraham “Abe” Wolcott is a native Californian being born in Berkeley and raised in Irvine in the 1980’s when Orange County was full of orange groves (not so much anymore). Abe is passionate about education and research, and as a physical chemist has found great pleasure in exploring nanomaterials for sustainable energy production, biological labeling and quantum sensing. Now a Professor of Chemistry at San Jose State University, Abe was trained at UC Santa Cruz (Go Banana Slugs!) and received both his B.S. and PhD degrees at Santa Cruz. Newly minted Dr. Wolcott then left California and moved to Austin, TX where he had a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral fellowship studying nanomaterials for solar applications and educational broadening programs with UT Outreach. After leaving Austin, Abe moved to New York City and worked for 2 professors (Jon Owen and Dirk Englund) at Columbia University where he worked on a project developing new technology for mapping the human brain with diamond. Dirk then left to go to MIT and Abe was invited to Boston that year and was lucky enough to have to move Dirk’s lab! After his postdoctoral positions, Abe worked at a start-up in Boston using diamond for quantum technologies. In 2015, Abe accepted a position at SJSU and was recently granted tenure and promotion to Associate Professor. Abe has mentored 55 students, many from underrepresented backgrounds and actively recruits talent through the Black Leadership and Opportunity Center in collaboration with Director Emerald Green. 11 students have gone to PhD programs, received National awards and work in industry positions throughout the US and abroad. To date, Prof. Wolcott has received $1.5M in funding for his lab’s work from the DoD, NIH and NSF in diamond and virtual reality research and set a new record for funding in the Department of Chemistry.
Abe has committed himself to serving his community as an educator and wishes to advance the careers of his students to the best of his ability.
Abe has been a member of the Santa Cruz Education Foundation, ran for the School Board in Santa Cruz in 2018 (he lost) and is contemplating a 2^nd run for the school board in Scotts Valley, CA. He and his family have lived in the Santa Cruz area since 2015. Abe met his future wife at a Boston Celtics game at the Garden in 2015. Lucky Nyurineza Wolcott is originally from Uganda and is entering into the cyber security sector after serving for many years as a certified nursing assistant. Lucky and Abe have three beautiful children, Emily (12), Keza (5) and Ntare (2). Ntare, being the baby boy, now has the #1 spot for Lucky’s affection and Abe is trying very hard to get back to the #1 position! Abe and family enjoy traveling and they hope to return to Uganda in the Summer of 2023 and see some Lions in Murchison Falls National Park. When staying local they enjoy going to Cowell’s beach, taking in a surf or making sand castles. Abe had played over a dozen sports and has a lot of fun teaching his kids, how to surf, ride skateboards, play basketball and learn good sportsmanship. Lucky and Abe desperately need to go on a vacation without the kids and perhaps that will happen in a decade or two. As Rotary members Lucky and Abe are interested in many local causes and also serving the communities in Uganda and helping to provide resources for education and health.

Calendar

San Jose Weekly Club Meeting
Speaker: Mike Pereia
Topic: Finding a Purpose in Life
August 10th 2022 at 12:15 pm
More info

Unhoused Impact Committee
August 11th 2022 at 8:00 am
More info

Book Club Meeting
August 15th 2022 at 11:30 am
More info

Refugee Support Committee (RSC) Meeting
August 17th 2022 at 11:00 am
More info

Fun and Friendship Committee Meeting
August 17th 2022 at 11:15 am
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San Jose Weekly Club Meeting
Speaker: Rear Admiral Anne M. Swap
Topic: Maintaining America's Advantage at Sea
August 17th 2022 at 12:15 pm
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San Jose Paws Committee Meeting
Topic: Weekly meeting of the Paws Committee
August 18th 2022 at 11:00 am
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Rotary Climate Action Committee
August 22nd 2022 at 4:30 pm
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Red Badge Committee Meeting
August 23rd 2022 at 8:00 am
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San Jose Weekly Club Meeting
Speaker: Ken Yeager
Topic: Gay Pride
August 24th 2022 at 12:15 pm
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SJSU Committee Meeting
August 25th 2022 at 1:30 pm
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International House Committee Meeting
August 26th 2022 at 8:00 am
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Refugee Support Committee (RSC) Meeting
August 31st 2022 at 11:00 am
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San Jose Weekly Club Meeting
Speaker: Supervisor Susan Ellenberg
Topic: Mental Health
August 31st 2022 at 12:15 pm
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Club Board Meeting
September 3rd 2022 at 7:30 am
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San Jose Weekly Club Meeting
Speaker: Darlene Sanchez Tenes
Topic: Agricultural Industry in Calirfornia, Farmworkers, and Farmworkers Caravan
September 7th 2022 at 12:15 pm
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Unhoused Impact Committee
September 8th 2022 at 8:00 am
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Club Board Meeting
October 3rd 2022 at 7:30 am
More info