Shelterbox

A PowerPoint slide show with audio was scheduled to be presented. Due to technical difficulties it was not presented but will be put on our club webpage at arcadiarotary.org. Mimi Hennessy gave a commercial that she saw the program at the Claremont club and that the Shelterbox program is an outstanding way to help the people of Haiti. Click here to see video

Craft Talks

Dr. Saul Larner

Dr. Saul Larner one of our newest red badgers and was our first speaker. He has a PhD in international economics and has a Master of Laws in international taxation. He gave us much detail from his life on his way to success. There is a very good write up on him in the January 22 High Gear, so instead of repeating that information in this column go to the information there. A few brief highlights follow.

Saul firmly believes that “A father is not to lean on, but to make leaning unnecessary”. His father was that way with him and that is how he treats his children. All of them are highly successful in their lives. He is an author of four books. You can go to Amazon.com or Google.com and enter his name and you can learn about them. He says he wrote the books to deal with problems that came to his attention during his life.

Saul has had a number of occupations starting at the age of 10 such things as newspaper boy, roulette wheel builder (and a odds teacher for roulette), magazine sales, publishing business, life insurance sales, and now he is heavily in the real estate field. Currently he markets properties using offshore planning and is an auctioneer of major real estate properties.

Dr Alireaz “Ali” Khosroabady

Ali also is one of our newest red badgers and was our second speaker. He has a D.P.M and is a fellowship trained foot and ankle specialist. He was born in Iran, but left when he was 12 by walking three days to Turkey to avoid service in the Iranian military during the Iran-Iraq War. From Turkey he went to Germany where he attended High School and then came to the USA. He graduated from Cal State University – San Bernardino and did his graduate studies at the New York College of Podiatric Medicine. He did his residency and practiced a few years in New York City area. Finally the cold got to him so he moved to Arcadia about 2 years ago and acquired a medical practice.

Ali is a computer fan and spends his free time online. He is a cyclist and has participated in 5 Century Rides. He wants to do a Triathlon one day.  He is planning to marry his fiancé of two years in June. He is a member of Make Men Better Organization and attends weekly meetings and annual retreats. Information about the organization can be found at www.bettermen.org. He has a website at fixmyfoot.com that has more detail information about Ali and his medical practice.

Ali joined Rotary because he is always looking for ways to better himself and he likes what he sees in the Arcadia Rotary Club.

Dennis Lee

Dennis presented a brief senior craft talk on what Arcadia Rotary means to him. Dennis is a 16 year member of the club and as most know is the Administrator of the Arcadia Methodist Hospital. Dennis said that what he values the most is the service to community activities of Rotary like RYLA, Amigos project, Camp Trask, the Arboretum and many others too numerous to name.

Two things standout to him in his time with the club. The first was when he was membership chair. During that year the club suffered its biggest lost in membership ever. He thinks that’s why the club never asked him to be on the Board of Directors. The other was working on Camp Trask. He did not consider himself handy with tools; mainly because his family was worried he would hurt himself or them if he got involved with tools. But it turns out Tom Crosby, our construction chief for Camp Trask, encouraged Dennis to volunteer to work on Trask, as Tom said he could find a job for everyone regardless of their skill level. Dennis thought that meant he would be handling getting materials to the builders. Well it turns out he did some “go-for” tasks, but one day Tom gave him a nail gun and actually trained Dennis so that he became quite good. Dennis was so proud he brought his son to Trask so the son could see him at work. He wanted his son to see him at work so his son could tell the family that Dennis was quite handy around tools, since Dennis knew they would never believe him. Mission accomplished – his family now embraces that he can be quite the handy guy.