International Fellowship of Flying Rotarians

ANNOUNCEMENTS
We were pleased to induct Susan Van Deren as our newest member. Susan is the daughter of a former Rotarian. She is a native Coloradan, but owned a business in Cheyenne for 20 years before selling out and moving to Windsor four years ago. She is a financial planner for Lincoln Financial Advisors.

President Ron Clark presented the sapphire pin to Karen Kunz for achieving her second Paul Harris Fellow. Congratulations Karen.

Scott Bailey announced that the Rotary Club had secured the concessions for the middle school and high school dances that will be held at the recreation center through the remainder of the school year. He will be seeking volunteers to sell pizzas and soft drinks at these events. Kristi Benningsdorf announced that the next senior cake day would be March 14, and she took volunteers to make specific pies and cakes for the event.

PROGRAM
Robert Rice, a member of the Ann Arbor Michigan Rotary Club and a member of the International Fellowship of Flying Rotarians presented a program on his Christian Humanitarian work in Guatemala. He and his wife live there for up to two years at a time and he flies injured and sick natives (mostly Mayan) to hospitals in Guatemala. He figures they average one flight per day. They used a Cessna 206 or the last two years and have just acquired a Cessna Skymaster 336 (push me-pull you) twin engine. He and his wife were in computers for years and flew for fun. They then decided that they needed to put their abilities to work for others. He passes out video CD's with much of the information about his organization on it. They provide the only public air ambulance service in Guatemala. His program and photographs were outstanding.

Robert told of the difficulties of communications in the remote areas of Guatemala where there are few roads. Most villages use old bag phones hooked up to car batteries that are charged by solar panels. He receives calls at his base, and sometimes has trouble understanding where the patient is because most villages go by at least two names and sometimes three. They can be in the native Mayan language, Spanish or a local Creole dialect. If you picked up on of the CD's please watch it with family and friends. You will learn what one dedicated Rotarian can do.

QUIZ ANSWER
All US government departments use the URL suffix .gov except for the Department of Defense which uses .mil. The malady originally called Caisson Disease has become known by this abbreviated term.

How the Brain Works (or Doesn't)

GUESTS
My apologies to Ray Kelsin for listing him as a guest. I should have welcomed him as a new member. Sherry Frank was a guest of the club and potential new member. Sallie Neville was a guest of Janet Stanley and Scott Rulon was a guest. He is currently a member of the Ft. Collins Foothills Club. Susan Van Deren was a guest and we hope to induct her as a member soon.

PROGRAM
Laura Richardson was our guest speaker who told had a fascinating and interesting presentation about how the brain works (or doesn't). She said that we have learned more about the brain in the last ten years than in the previous 100 and there is much research ongoing. She also said there are now 255 journals published that deal with the brain and its various functions.

The brain consists of 2% of the body's weight, but consumes 20-30% of the calories that we burn--hence the old adage "Think Yourself Thin?" Exercise doubles the production of new brain cells.

Laura told us that the frontal lobe, which is responsible for logic and planning doesn't fully develop until the person is 25 to 28 years old. That helps explain teenagers.

QUIZ ANSWER
Ulaanbaatar is the capitol city of Mongolia. Ralph Moore gets credit for the earliest correct answer.

NEXT QUESTION
All of the Federal Departments have web sites that end with the URL suffix .gov except one. Which one, and for extra credit, what is the suffix?

Rotarian: Eric Swanson

GUESTS
Ray Kelsin was a guest again. Bruce Florquist introduced his guest Kelly Arnold, Interim Town Manager. We were also pleased to have Susan Van Deren as a guest and potential new member. Sherry Frank of ReMax Realty was also a guest and potential new member.

PROGRAM
Eric Swanson took the opportunity to do his "classification talk" and tell us a little about himself, and then, he did a Power Point Presentation about the Great Western Industrial Park.

Eric had been a member of a Rotary Club in Miami Fla. some years ago. He said it was a small "Roll up your sleeves" club, and when he visited our club about a year ago, he felt we were the same type of club and wished to join here. Eric has a degree in business with emphasis on economics and finance from the University of Illinois-Urbana. After college, he worked for an elevator/escalator company in Florida and then moved to North Carolina.

Several years ago he moved to the Denver area (he actually lives near Evergreen). His emphasis here was to buy contaminated properties, clean them up and resell or redevelop them. He said his work for Broe has focused on real estate, transportation, and energy. He has been married to his wife Sheila for 28 years and has two teen-aged daughters.

Eric's work for Broe in this area has focused on the Great Western Industrial Park which is now going through annexation on the industrial side. In addition to the real estate, Broe owns 18 short-line railroads around the country as well as a large transportation hub in Churchill, Manitoba (think polar bears). They categorize themselves as an investment company.

QUIZ ANSWER
The second largest French speaking city in the world is Montreal.

NEXT QUESTION
What is Ulaanbaatar?

CLUB TRAVELLERS
Ron Clark visited Florida. Dorothy Simmons is in Mexico. Ardin Wright is either in or on his way to Antarctica. I made it as far south as Northglenn this week.

REMEMBER
Daylight Savings Time starts March 11. I think that is so you will have more time to shovel snow when you get home from work.

Upstate Colorado Economic Development

GUESTS
Ardin Wright brought his neighbor, Ray Kelsin, as a guest again. We were also pleased to have Susan Van Deren as a guest and potential new member. Incidentally, the front page story on the Rocky Mountain News last Saturday was a story about Susan’s sister who is an ultra-marathon runner currently training for running the Iditarod.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Jody Niswender gave us an update on the 9 Health Fair which will be held on April 7.

PROGRAM
Eric Swanson brought our guest speaker last week. Larry Burkhardt is the President and CEO of Upstate Colorado Economic Development (UCED). Some of you may recall that Larry spoke to us about a year ago. UCED is a public-private non-profit corporation. It focuses on economic development in several ways. Larry said that one focus is on "primary employers". "Without primary employers, you loose community". They of course also focus on attraction of new industry. They work on establishing partnerships, and align with the State Office of Economic Development and International Trade,

Last year, there were 20 projects that UCED worked on in Weld County. Fifteen of these were for expansion and five were for re-location. These projects represented a total of 503 new jobs with a total investment of $503 million. They processed 75 leads. 24% of these were from companies and 24% were from Denver consulting firms that specialize in site selection. 44% of these leads represented manufacturing and 24% were for services and back office.

One of the assessments that UCED does is a regional worker survey. They focus on a center point of I-25 and Highway 34 and then go out to a 30 mile radius as an example. Within this area they evaluate under employment which is a measure of how readily a new company can "steal" employees already living in the area.

Some factors feeding the growth of business and industry in the area include education. (CSU is now the leading research facility in Colorado). Weld County has a good work force and reasonable land prices.

UCED participates in the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance consisting of Chambers of Commerce and EDC groups who lobby for or against legislation that effects business. Larry told us that they will soon have a powerful, interactive web site with GIS components to allow prospects to look at a variety of parameters about the area. He noted that 80% of all expansion evaluations are now done on the web. For more information go to www.upstatecolorado.org.

QUIZ
As I have been out for a while, I will start a new Quiz today. What is the second largest French-speaking city in the World?