Westwood Village Rotary Club |
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Dr. Ron Busuttil
Dr. Ron Busuttil, a recently retired surgeon from UCLA Reagan Hospital, developed the highly regarded liver transplant program there.
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Westwood Virtual Rotary Club Meeting for July 14th, 2022 |
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Our weekly meeting started right on time by new Pres Chris Gaynor, welcoming everyone with a reading of the Four Way Test.
Jim crane led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Next Chris Bradford thought for the day - introduced by Pres. Chris Gaynor to PP chris Bradford.
Saint Theresa of Calcutta aka Mother Theresa was born in Albania and canonized in 2016 by the Pope.
The fruit of silence is prayer.
The fruit of prayer is faith.
The fruit of faith is love.
The fruit of love is service.
The fruit of service is peace. - Mother Theresa
Special guest Carmella Sears introduced by PP Nancy McCready.
There were no visiting Rotarians.
Announcements
1. Chris Bradford – our scholar candidate Stephanie Corrigan was selected by the District to receive the post graduate scholarship in Paris and “ecstatic” to be the recipient. Rotary scholarships for graduate work is one of the largest in the world, offering $30,000 to over 700 scholars around the world. PP Chris will try and attend one of our meetings before she leaves for France. The current scholar, Ms. Sharp, is studying at the London School of Economics, will try and visit us as well.
2. PP and PDG Bill Goodwyn, described as the “heart and soul of Rotary” will have a funeral September 15th, and Pres Chris and his wife Rose will be attending in San Antonio. Pres Chris is looking for someone to run this meeting.
Next, Pres Chris brought us Songs by the “Singing Sergeants”, singing patriotic melodies.
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Human Trafficking – Sex trafficking is a business that generates over $150B each year worldwide, 40M victims worldwide, over 100,000+ in US, and in Los Angeles 445 survivors have been served by 20,000 volunteers to fight this.
Three areas of prevention;
- Prevention - thru education
- “Employ and empower” teams to help prevent exploitation critical to employ survivor so they don’t slip back into sexual exploitation
- Community mobilization - crucial to success
Aly chimed in to suggest messaged deliverers would be better if it was delivered by a younger student, which is an observation from Sunda’s daughter.
Impact Club
New members (educators), Member spouses and Past members. The Goal is to have 12 founding members, four from each category.
We will be first Club in California and the west coast.
Steve Day and Mark Rogo added to the discussion. Mark mentioned that reaching to our children through the schools seems to be an ideal place to start, along with the five HOA organizations and the Westwood Neighborhood Council, should be sufficient to start disseminating the information. Steve Day and President Chris also added that participation without the required weekly attendance would be attracting to them, since at this stage in their lives it’s difficult to carve out a weekly commitment to attend a Rotary Club Meeting as a fully-fledged Rotary member. They were focusing on service and bypassing issues of weekly mtg attendance and cost of membership.
PP Tom Barron - suggested a description be written describing the purpose of the Impact Club.
DG Olivia Patterson is “extremely enthusiastic” about it.
Phil pointed out how many potential projects in the local area are available to a new Impact Club.
Jokes from Pres Chris
Our esteemed new President thought he’d try his hand in humor with three jokes about accountants. At the end, the Club unanimously elected to vote a grant from the Vocational Avenue of Service and send Pres Chris to Sunda’s Comedy School. (just kidding). But I will repeat the best of the three.
“If an accountant’s wife can’t sleep, all she has to say is, ‘Dear, tell me about your day at work.’”
Guest Speaker Sharod Hanson’s craft talk
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Sharod was born in Denver, Colorado. From Kindergarten through high school, he went to one school in Laramie, Wyoming, as part of the University of Wyoming, where his father was a professor. Following high school, he took his pickup truck and immediately went to California, 52 years ago. He didn’t have “much of a plan” but thought California was where his fortune would be made as a “very wealthy entrepreneur”. His first job was as a security guard. After two years working in a car wash and with no college education, he decided to come up with a backup plan, which included community college and to avoid being drafted in the Army for the Vietnam War. He went to West Los Angeles junior college, followed by UCLA.
Back in Cheyenne, he left two sisters and his parents.
He got a job in Century City very close to where he works today. So he decided to try law school, but after a very short time he ended up at the Graduate School of Management at UCLA. He met Benjamin Graham, a visiting professor, who is a well-known name in the investment community for teaching Warren Buffett. Sharod found himself motivated and felt a passion for investment. “If you find something you like doing, you never have to work a day in your life.” He now is in his 40th year as an investment manager, starting with Bear Sterns and Dean Witter, which merged into JP Morgan in 2008 during the Great Recession, forced by the government since it was on the brink of collapse. Since then, he has continued to work at JP Morgan on the 37th Floor of the North Tower in Century City.
He met his wife Judy a little over 35 years ago, and married on his 40th birthday in Steam Boat Springs, Colorado. He moved to be back in that part of the world to be near his family he had left in at age 18 years old.
As a “passion”, Sharod loves to Ski. Also they have a 25 year old daughter, “Elsa”, who went to a French-American private school in Los Angeles. Following that, she went on to attend college in St. Andrews in Scotland (operating since 1413), and has returned to Westwood to pursue a doctorate of pharmacology at UCLA. She has an internship at the Ronald Reagan Hospital to help bolster her resume, with experience working in the medical profession.
Just like Kate Middleton and Prince William, who met at the University of St. Andrews, Sharod’s daughter met her boyfriend at St. Andrew’s who is a cardio-thoracic surgeon in the UK. Separated by thousands of miles, they are making it work, even though they both have four more years of education to get past.
He wanted a backup plan since he knew success in the investment business had a high percentage of failure. So Sharod studied at night for his CPA exam, but never practiced as an accountant. He remains focused on the investment business, with offices in Century City. He expressed that he “found a place where I felt I belong.” He feels the same with UCLA and Westwood and loves the Village.
Rotary is Sharod’s first “adventure” working with an organization focused on community help.
Sharod then opened the floor for questions.
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Pres Chris asked about mince pie he had in Scotland, and when he asked the waitress what was in it, he could not understand their answer with their Scottish accent. Sharod confirmed that the Scots have their own way of speaking, and his daughter’s boyfriend has a “distinctive Scottish accent.” Sharod also mentioned the Scottish dish “haggis” which is illegal in the United States but he enjoys. (Don’t ever ask what’s in it).
He admires Andrew Carnegie, who came to this country and became enormously successful as a self-taught man. Carnegie once said, “He who dies rich, dies disgraced”, which resonated with Sharod and one of the reasons he admires Carnegie, with his endowment that has done so much in this country for education.
Sharod and Judy met through a mutual friend, and she was in the same business as he was, as competitors. She ran the Westwood office of Charles Schwab for a number of years, on the corner of Wilshire and Veteran. After that she moved into oversight and compliance, working from home.
Steve Day asked about Sharod Day Hanson’s middle name “Day”, which they share. Steve was asking if “they were kissing cousins.” He mentioned that a lot of people ask about his first name, Sharod. It’s a Scandinavian name and well recognized. His last name “Hanson” instead of “Hansen”, is a Danish or Swedish name. His father’s first paycheck came through as Hanson, so it stuck.
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His wife’s degree from UCLA was in psychology, but she never really used it as a psychologist. She remains active today in the Didi Hirsch Suicide Prevention Center in Century City, on the corner of Olympic Blvd and Century Park West, volunteering every Sunday.
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Sharod has served for a number of years in an organization focused on tenant health care. He has served for nine years on their investment board, raising money for the medical needs of the poor, in the vicinity of the old Queen of Angeles Hospital, which sold for $400M. The money was doled out as grants.
“There is enormous disparity” between the rich and poor right here in Los Angeles. He knows that Rotary addresses this issue and another reason why he was attracted to Rotary.
Pres. Chris mentioned he was born at the Queen of Angels Hospital, and a lot of us were surprised that it was built prior to the 1800s. (just kidding).
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Pres Chris announced that next week we will be meeting at Guido’s in an in-person meeting. There will be more accounting humor (is he trying to scare us off?) and our guest speaker will be Dr. Ron Busuttil, a recently retired surgeon from UCLA Ronald Reagan Hospital, who developed the highly regarded liver transplant program there.
Following his announcements, President Chris Gaynor adjourned our meeting and thanked Sharod for being the guest speaker. A donation will be made in his honor at the end of the Rotary year to a charity selected by the Club’s Board of Directors.
No Lions or Kiwanas were injured in the writing of this Windmill.
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Submitted with respect and written without any alcoholic content, or very little anyway.
PP Mark Rogo
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WVRC 2020/2021 Leadership Team
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President: Chris Gaynor
President Elect: PP Steve Day
Vice President: Benjamin Fisher
Treasurer: Terry M. White
Youth/Vocational Service: Diane Good
Director/Peace: PP Marsha Hunt
Foundation: PP Steve Day
Global Scholarships: PP Chris Bradford
Webmaster: PP Ron Lyster
District Governor: Olivia Patterson Ryans
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Immediate Past President: Nancy McCready
Secretary: PP Nancy McCready
Community Service: Aaron Donahue
International Service: Nevin Senkan
Director: PP Tom Barron
Membership: PP Mark Rogo
Director/Social Media: PP Aly Shoji
Windmill Editor: Teya McCockran
Assistant District Governor: Ron Miyata
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