Events

Rotary clubs around the world emphasis the importance of Vocation Service and all professions.

Scott is a Professor Emeritus of Geology and Past-Chair of the Dept. of Geology at Portland State University where he just finished his 30th year of teaching.  He was also Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at P.S.U. from 1997-1999.  He has been teaching for 50 years, with past positions in Switzerland, New Zealand, Washington, Colorado and Louisiana.  He is a 6th generation Oregonian who grew up in Beaverton and is very happy to be "home" after a 25 year hiatus!  Scott specializes  in environmental and engineering geology, geomorphology, soils, and Quaternary geology. In Oregon, he has projects involving landslides and land use, environmental cleanup of service stations, slope stability, earthquake hazard mapping,  Missoula Floods, paleosols, loess soil stratigraphy, radon generation from soils,  the distribution of heavy metals and trace elements in Oregon soils,  alpine soil development, and the terroir of wine.  He has been active in mapping landslides in the Pacific Northwest since his return to Portland.  Scott has won many awards for outstanding teaching with the most significant being the Faculty Senate Chair Award at Louisiana Tech University in 1987, the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Portland State Alumni Association in 2001, and the George Hoffmann Award from PSU in 2007.  He has authored over 100 publications and has had over 25 research grants.  His first book, Environmental, Groundwater and Engineering Geology: Applications from Oregon, came out January of 1998. His second book, Cataclysms on the Columbia, the Great Missoula Floods came out in October of 2009 and is co-authored by Marjorie Burns, a friend and professor at PSU.  Scott has been the president of the Faculty Senate at three different universities: Louisiana Tech University and the American College of Switzerland and Portland State University.  He actively helps local TV and radio stations and newspapers bring important geological news to the public. For the past 49 years he has been studying wine and terroir – the relationship between wine, soils, geology and climate.

His BS and MS degrees are from Stanford University in California, plus a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Colorado, Boulder.  He has memberships in over 20 professional organizations and is most active in the Association of Engineering Geologists, Geological Society of America, National Association of Geology Teachers, and the Soil Science Society of America.  He is past president of the Oregon Society of Soil Scientists and the Oregon Section of the Association of Engineering Geologists.  He was national chair of the engineering geology division of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in 1999-2000. He was national president of the Association of Engineering Geologists from 2002-2003. He is today president of the International Association of Engineering Geologists.  He was chosen a fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2004.  Scott was chosen a fellow with the Kellogg National Fellowship Program from 1990 - 1993 based on his national leadership performance.  He was president of the Downtown Rotary Club of Portland, Oregon’s oldest and largest Rotary club in 2009.

He has won some national awards in geology: distinguished practice award from the engineering geology division of GSA in 2012, the Richard Jahns Award for engineering geology (top engineering geologist in the U.S.) from GSA and AEG in 2011, the Shoemaker Award for Public Service to the US (GSA) in 2011, the Karl Terzaghi Award from AEG in 2015, and on the state level, the “Outstanding Scientist for Oregon for 2014” from the 73 year old Oregon Academy of Sciences.

He has been active working with youth as a basketball coach. Scott enjoys all sports, especially basketball, running, skiing, hiking, swimming, tennis, and golf.  He has been married for 46 years to Glenda, and they have three children: Lisa (42), Doug (38) and Tracy (36) and two grandchildren, Desmond (4) and Gwendolyn (1).  The Burns family lives in Tualatin, Oregon.

In recognition and honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. as a USA National Holiday

A retired Business Executive George Macedon has been a FANS Across America Foundation Board Director since 2006 and currently serves as President /  Executive Director.  Macedon possesses extensive experience in virtually all aspects of executive-level management.  With over 25 years of executive management positions within the Consumer Electronics Industry Macedon served from 1997 - 2001 as CEO for CommTek Communications Corp, publisher of home satellite programming and entertainment publications. Upon brief retirement in 2001 Macedon spent eight additional  years within the Financial Services Sector in national sales management and national business development focusing on risk management, electronic transaction processing, outsourcing services and identity solutions; retiring in 2009.  Macedon attended Arizona State University, is a Chandler, Arizona resident.   

Put on your calendar.  More information yet to come.

Just a reminder to our members of this special day for you and family.

Let's remember all our USA Presidents and give your thanks for their leadership and service to our country.

Today’s presenter will be Chad Anderson, LPL Financial Planner with Western State Bank and Western Investments in Chandler ,AZ.  Chad has been a financial planner for over 20 years specializing in retirement income planning and legacy planning strategies.  Chad is originally from North Dakota and has lived in Arizona for over 15 years. He has been married to his wife Kelly for over 25 years and they have 3 sons.  Prior to joining Western State Bank Chad owned and operated Anderson Financial Group, LLC in Chandler, AZ.

Sun Lakes Rotary Club and the Rotary Foundation celebrate their success for the Navajo Water Project during Rotary years 2018-19 and continued support in 2019-20 and 2020-21

For information on Water and Sanitation Month: 

http://www.worldwaterday.org/

(From the Rotary club of Austin) Recently presenting to his Rotary Club, Howard Berg said, “It all started in Brooklyn.” He is from New York, and as a child he felt that the “one consistently safe place” was the library. He attended college at SUNY Binghamton, while also working several jobs. He sought out ways to increase his productivity, and this resulted in completing his course requirements rapidly; for example, reading 48 books in only 3 days toward his science degree. He was able to complete both his degree in Biology and a 4-year Psychology program in only 1 year.

He shared several case studies of young students who have participated in his program to read and study faster. Most of them were younger than 20 years old and graduated college, law school, or post-graduate school so quickly that by the time they were in their early 20’s they were already securing successful careers.

Howard shared 3 main points of his learning program: Information overload, “waking up” your emotional state, and memory.

Point 1: The problem of information overload. We are constantly bombarded with an excess of information, and our brains struggle to process it. As tips to start teaching yourself to read faster, he shared these steps:

First, read the page of a book at your normal pace. Then, re-read that page with your hand/finger moving along each row and focus on following your hand/finger to read. Over time you will find yourself reading about 20% faster, collecting the information you need instead of concentrating on every word.

Point 2: The most important skill of all may be to recognize your emotional state.

Howard invited the crowd to participate in an exercise. Everyone stood and touched each of their shoulders with the opposite hand, then each knee, and then put a hand in the air, made a fist and said “I feel great!”

Howard explained that people, organizations, and companies need to be aware of both how they are creating emotional states (such as “I feel great!”) and of how they are extinguishing emotional interference (such as “I can’t do that.”).

Point 3: Memory. Most of us use visual and aural queues to remember things more productively than just reading the information. This relates to how one can better study subjects like math. While some students may not understand math concepts immediately or think they are “not good at math” it’s possible to explain it to them in a different way to allow their brain to pair visual and aural queues.

In another audience exercise, Howard presented a series of numbers, 1 through 10, with a picture of an object and a phrase that related that object to the number (for example “1 for pole”, “2 for shoes”, and “3 for tricycle”). This learning method was to make it easier for people to memorize an association of numbers.

We heard another successful case study about a man named Brad V. who was able to complete his undergraduate degree in college in only 6 months, while also learning Chinese in 3 weeks, so he could achieve his goal to be a traveling missionary.

Mr. Berg finished his presentation by sharing his desire to help kids and schools with potentially free/no cost programs that teach his learning method.

The Date for our 6th annual ride coming up Saturday March 6, 2021 starting at Desert Wind Harley-Davidson.

Watch for further news and updates between now and then here and on Facebook.com/healingvets.

Our Sun Lakes Rotary Club is proud to provide their support to this Annual Ride Event.

Also, check on the website: www.healingvets.org 

Enjoy this special day with family and friends.

It is always outstanding to see the winter leave and our beautiful Arizona sping come with its beauty.

Rich Simmons is a retired professional from the electronics industry with more than 40 years’ experience as an engineer, manager and auditor specializing in the manufacture of high reliability, mission critical assemblies in the aerospace sector.  He has volunteering experience as a Scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts of America and as the current Program Lead of the Phoenix program of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, which provides physical and emotional support for disabled veterans.  He and his wife of 51 years were licensed Foster Parents in South Carolina and Arizona.  They have 2 children and 4 grandchildren.  He enjoys the hobbies of fly fishing, RVing and photography.

Visit website: 

http://www.worldwaterday.org/

The Sun Lakes Rotary Club wishes a Happy Easter to all our members, family and to all our Rotary friends in our communities.

Put on your calendar to attend.  More information will be coming 

This very popular speech contest will again be held for this club meeting.  Bill McCoach has chaired this annual event over the last few years and will do so again this year.

The Sun Lakes Rotary Club was chartered on this date in 1986, just 35 years ago.  It has been a most rewarding and exciting experience to be a part of this Rotary Club.

Over these years of service to the greater Sun Lakes/Chandler communities we have become known as the Education club because of all the programs and projects that involve our youth.

Happy Birthday!

May is the month that Rotarians around the world emphasis the importance of Youth Service in support of High School Interact Clubs supported by local Rotary Clubs and College and Community Based Rotaract Clubs supported by local Rotary Clubs.

Women became a part of the Rotary International organization on May 4, 1987 and over these past 34 years women account for about 27% of the membership or around 338,000 women members.  The Sun Lakes Rotary Club just celebrated its 33^rd year (Chartered April 22, 1986) and the first woman Club President was Gerri Beaudin in 1996.  Since then there have been four (4) more women as Club Presidents. We celebrate all women in Rotary, women members of the Sun Lakes Rotary Club and we encourage women to visit and consider joining our Sun Lakes Rotary Club.

Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration held on May 5. The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican Army's difficult victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza. In the United States, Cinco de Mayo has taken on a significance beyond that in Mexico.In the U.S. the date has become associated with the celebration of Mexican-American culture. In Mexico, the commemoration of the battle continues to be mostly ceremonial, such as through military parades.

If you are interested in international travel, it will be held in Taipei.

Check it out at: https://convention.rotary.org/en